“Archie, this is beyond tolerance. This is egregious.”
“I know it is, but I’m stuck. If I were you I’d fire me. It may take—”
The house phone buzzed. He didn’t move, so I went and got it. After listening to Fritz, I told him to hold on, and turned: “She’s at the door. If she comes in, it will disrupt your schedule, so I’d better go down and take her somewhere. I’ll—”
“Confound you,” he growled. “I’ll be down shortly.”
I told Fritz to put her in the office and I would be right down, hung up and went. On my way through the intermediate room I cut off a raceme of Miltonia and took it along. Orchids are good for girls, whether they have problems or not. At the bottom of the stairs, Fritz was posted on guard, awaiting me. He is by no means a woman hater, but he suspects every female who enters the house of having designs on his kitchen and therefore needing to be watched. I told him O.K., I’d see to her, and crossed to the office.
She was in the red leather chair facing the end of Wolfe’s desk. I told her good morning, went and got a pin from my desk tray and returned to her.
“Here,” I said, handing her the raceme and pin. “I see why you asked me what his favorite color is. He’ll like that dress if he’s not too grouchy to notice it.”
“Then he’ll see me?”
“Yeah, he’ll see you, any minute now. I had to back him into a corner and stick a spear in him. I doubt if I like you that much, but my honor was at stake, and I... well, if you insist—”
She was on her feet, putting her palms on my cheeks and giving me an emphatic kiss.
Since it was in the office and during hours, I merely accepted it.
“You should have another one,” she said, sitting again, “for the orchids. They’re lovely.”
I told her to save it for a better occasion. “And,” I added, “don’t try it on Mr. Wolfe. He might bite you.” The sound of the elevator, creaking under his seventh of a ton, came from the hall. “Here he comes. Don’t offer him a hand. He doesn’t like to shake hands even with men, let alone women.”
There was the sound of the elevator door opening, and footsteps, and he entered. He thinks he believes in civility, so he stopped in front of her, told her good morning, and then proceeded to the over-sized, custom-made chair behind his desk.
“Your name is Flora Gallant?” he growled. The growl implied that he strongly doubted it and wouldn’t be surprised if she had no name at all.
She smiled at him. I should have warned her to go slow on smiles. “Yes, Mr. Wolfe. I suppose Mr. Goodwin has told you who I am. I know I’m being nervy to expect you to take any time for my troubles — a man as busy and important as you are — but, you see, it’s not for myself. I’m not anybody, but you know who my brother is? My brother Alec?”
“Yes. Mr. Goodwin has informed me. An illustrious dressmaker.”
“He is not merely a dressmaker. He is an artist — a great artist.” She wasn’t arguing, just stating a fact. “The trouble is about him, and that’s why I must be careful with it. That’s why I came to you — not only that you are a great detective — the very greatest, of course; everybody knows that — but also that you are a gentleman. So I know you are worthy of confidence.”
She stopped, apparently for acknowledgment. Wolfe obliged her: “Umph.” I was thinking that I might also have warned her not to spread the butter too thick.
She resumed, “So it is understood I am trusting you?”
“You may,” he growled.
She hesitated, seeming to consider if that point was properly covered, and decided that it was. “Then I’ll tell you. I must explain that in France, where my brother and I were born and brought up, our name was not ‘Gallant.’ What it was doesn’t matter. I have been in this country only four years. Alec came here in 1946, more than a year after the war ended. He had changed his name to Gallant and entered legally under that name. Within five years he had made a reputation as a designer, and then — I don’t suppose you remember his fall collection in 1953?”
Wolfe merely grunted.
She fluttered a little hand. “But of course you are not married, and feeling as you do about women—” She let that hang. “Anyway, that collection showed everybody what my brother was — a creator, a true creator. He got financial backing, more than he needed, and opened his place on Fifty-fourth Street. That was when he sent for me to come to America, and I was glad to. From 1953 on, it has been all a triumph — many triumphs. Of course I have not had any hand in them, but I have been with him and have tried to help in my little way. The glory of great success has been my brother’s, but then, he can’t do everything in an affair so big as that. You understand?”
“No one can do everything,” Wolfe conceded.
She nodded. “Even you, you have Mr. Goodwin. My brother has Carl Drew, and Anita Prince, and Emmy Thorne — and me, if I count. But now trouble has come. The trouble is a woman — a woman named Bianca Voss.”
Wolfe made a face. She saw it and responded to it. “No, not an affaire d’amour, I’m sure of that. Though my brother has never married, I am certain this Bianca Voss has not attracted him that way. She first came there a little more than a year ago. My brother had told us to expect her, but we don’t know where he had met her or where she came from. He designed a dress and a suit for her, and they were made there in the shop, but no bill was ever sent her. Then he gave her one of the rooms, the offices, on the third floor, and she started to come every day, and soon the trouble began. My brother never told us she had any authority, but she took it and he allowed her to. Sometimes she interferes directly, and sometimes through him. She pokes her nose into everything. She got my brother to discharge a fitter, a very capable woman, who had been with him for years. She has a private telephone line in her office upstairs, but no one else has. About two months ago some of the others persuaded me to try to find out about her, what her standing is, and I asked my brother, but he wouldn’t tell me. I begged him to, but he wouldn’t.”
“It sounds,” Wolfe said, “as if she owns the business. Perhaps she bought it.”
Flora shook her head. “No, she hasn’t. I’m sure she hasn’t. She wasn’t one of the financial backers in 1953, and since then there have been good profits, and anyway, my brother has control. But now she’s going to cheapen it and spoil it, and he’s going to let her, we don’t know why. She wants him to design a factory line to be promoted by a chain of department stores using his name. She wants him to sponsor a line of Alec Gallant cosmetics on a royalty basis. And other things. We’re against all of them, and my brother is, too, really, but we think he’s going to give in to her, and that will ruin it.”
She stopped to swallow. “Mr. Wolfe, I want you to ruin her.”
He grunted. “By wiggling a finger?”
“No, but you can. I’m sure you can. I’m sure she has some hold on him, but I don’t know what. I don’t know who she is or where she came from. I don’t know if Bianca Voss is her real name. She speaks with an accent, and it may be French, but if it is, it’s from some part of France I don’t know; I’m not sure what it is. I don’t know when she came to America; she may be here illegally. She may have known my brother in France during the war; I was young then. You can find out. If she has a hold on my brother, you can find out what it is. If she is blackmailing him, isn’t that against the law? Wouldn’t that ruin her?”
“It might. It might ruin him too.”
“Not unless you betrayed him.” She gave a little gasp and added hastily, “I don’t mean that, I only mean I am trusting you, you said I could, and you could make her stop, and that’s all you would have to do. Couldn’t you do just that?”