“Conceivably.” Wolfe wasn’t enthusiastic. “I fear, madam, that you’re biting off more than you can chew. The procedure you suggest would be prolonged, laborious, and extremely expensive. It would probably require elaborate investigation abroad. Aside from my fee, which would not be modest, the outlay would be considerable and the outcome highly uncertain. Are you in a position to undertake it?”
“I am not rich myself, Mr. Wolfe. I have some savings. But my brother — if you get her away, if you release him from her — he is truly généreux — pardon — he is a generous man. He is not stingy.”
“But he isn’t hiring me, and your assumption that she is coercing him may be groundless.” Wolfe shook his head. “No. Not a reasonable venture. Unless, of course, your brother himself consults me. If you care to bring him? Or send him?”
“Oh, I couldn’t!” She waved it away. “You must see that isn’t possible! When I asked him about her, I told you, he wouldn’t tell me anything. He was annoyed. He is never abrupt with me, but he was then. I assure you, Mr. Wolfe, she is a villain. You are sagace — pardon — you are an acute man. You would know it if you saw her, spoke with her.”
“Perhaps,” Wolfe was losing patience. “Even so, my perception of her villainy wouldn’t avail. No, madam.”
“But you would know I am right.” She opened her bag, fingered in it with both hands, came out with something, left her chair to step to Wolfe’s desk, and put the something on the desk pad in front of him. “There,” she said, “that is three hundred dollars. For you that is nothing, but it shows how I am in earnest.” She returned to the chair. “I know you never leave your home on business, you wouldn’t go there, and I can’t ask her to come here so you can speak with her, she would merely laugh at me, but you can. You can tell her you have been asked in confidence to discuss a matter with her and ask her to come to see you. You will not tell her what it is. She will come — she will be afraid not to — and that alone will show you she has a secret, perhaps many secrets. Then, when she comes, you will ask her whatever occurs to you. For that you do not need my suggestions. You are sagace.”
“Pfui,” Wolfe shook his head. “Everybody has secrets; not necessarily guilty ones.”
“Yes,” she agreed, “but not secrets that would make them afraid not to come to see Nero Wolfe. When she comes and you have spoken with her, we shall see. That may be all or it may not. We shall see.”
I do not say that the three hundred bucks there on his desk was no factor. Even though income tax would take two-thirds of it, there would be enough left for three weeks’ supply of beer or for two days’ salary for me. Another factor was plain curiosity: would Bianca Voss come or wouldn’t she? Another was the chance that it might develop into a decent fee. Still another was her saying “We shall see” instead of “We’ll see” or “We will see.” He will always stretch a point, within reason, for people who use words as he thinks they should be used. But all of those together might not have swung him if he hadn’t known that if he turned her down, and she went, I was pigheaded enough to go with her on leave of absence.
So he muttered at her, “Where is she?”
“At my brother’s place. She always is.”
“Give Mr. Goodwin the phone number.”
“I’ll get it. She may be downstairs.” She got up and started for the phone on Wolfe’s desk, but I told her to use mine and left my chair, and she came and sat, lifted the receiver, and dialed. In a moment she spoke. “Doris? Flora. Is Miss Voss around?... Oh. I thought she might have come down... No, don’t bother; I’ll ring her private line.”
She pushed the button down, told us, “She’s up in her office,” waited a moment, released the button, and dialed again. When she spoke, it was with another voice, as she barely moved her lips and brought it out through her nose, “Miss Bianca Voss? Hold the line, please. Mr. Nero Wolfe wishes to speak with you... Nero Wolfe, the private detective.”
She looked at Wolfe and he got at his phone. Having my own share of curiosity, I extended a hand for my receiver, and she let me take it and left my chair. As I got it to my ear Wolfe was speaking.
“This is Nero Wolfe. Is this Miss Bianca Voss?”
“Yes.” It was more like “Yiss.”
“What do you want?” The “wh” and the “w” were way off.
“If my name is unknown to you, I should explain—”
“I know your name. What do you want?”
“I wish to invite you to call on me at my office. I have been asked to discuss certain matters with you, and—”
“Who asked you?”
“I am not at liberty to say. I shall—”
“What kind of matters?” The “wh” was more off.
“If you will let me finish. The matters are personal and confidential and concern you closely. That’s all I can say on the telephone. I assure you that you would be ill-advised—”
A snort stopped him — a snort that might be spelled “Tzchaahh!” Followed by: “I know your name, yes! You are scum, I know, in your stinking sewer! Your slimy little ego in your big gob of fat! And you dare to — owulgghh!”
That’s the best I can do at reporting it. It was part scream, part groan, and part just noise. It was followed immediately by another noise, a mixture of crash and clatter, then others, faint rustlings, and then nothing.
I spoke to my transmitter: “Hello, hello, hello. Hello! Hello?”
I cradled it, and so did Wolfe. Flora Gallant was asking. “What is it? She hung up?” We ignored her. Wolfe said, “Archie? You heard.”
“Yes, sir. So did you. If you want a guess, something hit her and she dragged the phone along as she went down and it struck the floor. The other noises, not even a guess, except that at the end she put the receiver back on and cut the connection or someone else did. It could be—”
Flora had grabbed my sleeve with both hands and was demanding. “What is it? What happened?”
I put a hand on her shoulder and made it emphatic: “I don’t know what happened. There was a collection of sounds. You heard what I told Mr. Wolfe. Apparently something fell on her and then hung up the phone.”
“But it couldn’t! It is not possible!”
“That’s what it sounded like. What’s the number? The one downstairs.”
She just gawked at me. I looked at Wolfe and he gave me a nod, and I jerked my arm loose, sat at my desk, got the Manhattan book, flipped to the G’s and got the number, PL2-0330, and dialed it.
A refined female voice came, “Alec Gallant, Incorporated.”
“This is a friend of Miss Voss,” I told her. “I was just speaking to her on the phone, on her private line, and from the sounds I got, I think something may have happened to her. Will you send someone up to see? Right away. I’ll hold the wire.”
“Who is this speaking, please?”
“Never mind that. Step on it. She may be hurt.”
I heard her calling to someone: then apparently she covered the transmitter. I sat and waited. Wolfe sat and scowled at me. Flora stood for some minutes at my elbow, staring down at me, then turned and went to the red leather chair and lowered herself onto its edge. I looked at my wristwatch: 11:40. It had said 11:31 when the connection with Bianca Voss had been cut.
More waiting, and then a male voice came: “Hello?”
“This is Carl Drew. What is your name please?”
“My name is Watson — John H. Watson. Is Miss Voss all right?”