“I’m not after information about her death. That’s up to the police. What I’m after — Someone has engaged Mr. Wolfe to make inquiries about her, and he sent me to ask you people if you had any messages or letters from her in the past month or so, and if so, will you let him see them?”
“Messages or letters?”
“Right.”
“But what — who engaged him?”
“I don’t know.” I was not permitting my face or voice to show that I had caught sight of a fish. “If you have had messages or letters, and would like to know who wants to see them before you produce them, I suppose Mr. Wolfe would tell you. He would have to.”
“I have no messages or letters.”
I was disappointed. “None at all? I said the past month or so, but before that would help. Any time.”
He shook his head. “I have never had any. I doubt if she ever wrote a letter — that is, to anyone here — or any messages, except phone messages. She always did everything by telephone. And for the past month or so — longer than that, more than a year — she hasn’t been — uh — she hasn’t been around.”
“I know.” I was sympathetic, and I meant it, though not for him. “Anyway, I don’t think Mr. Wolfe would be interested in letters about clothes. I think it’s personal letters he wants, and he thought you might have known her well enough personally to have some.”
“Well, I haven’t. I can’t say I didn’t know her personally; she was a very fine customer here for two years, and she was a very personal person. But I never had a personal letter from her.”
I had to resist temptation. I had him talking, and there was no telling if or when I would get at the others. But Wolfe had said not to labor it, and I disobey instructions only when I have reason to think I know more about it than he does, and at the moment I didn’t even know why he had been consulting the phone book. So I didn’t press. I thanked him, and said I’d appreciate it if he would tell me when Mr. Gallant would be available.
He said he would find out, and left me, going to the rear and disappearing around the end of a screen, and soon I heard his voice, but too faint to get any words. There was no other voice, so, being a detective, I figured it out that he was on a phone. That accomplished, I decided to detect whether the woman, who was seated at a table going through a portfolio, had been listening. If so, and if my bringing up Sarah Yare had more significance for her than it had for me, she was keeping it to herself.
Drew reappeared, and I met him in the middle of the room. He said that Mr. Gallant was in his office with Miss Prince and could let me have five minutes. Another fish. Certainly Drew had told Gallant what my line was, and why did I rate even five seconds? As Drew led me to an elevator and entered with me, and pushed the button marked 2, I had to remember to look hopeful instead of smug.
The second floor hall was narrow, with bare walls, and not carpeted. As I said, not a palace. Following Drew down six paces and through a door, I found myself in a pinup paradise. All available space on all four walls was covered with women, drawings and prints and photographs, both black and white and color, all sizes, and in one respect they were all alike: none of them had a stitch on. It hadn’t occurred to me that a designer of women’s clothes should understand female anatomy, but I admit it might help. The effect was so striking that it took me four or five seconds to focus on the man and woman seated at a table. By that time Drew had pronounced my name and gone.
Though the man and the woman were fully clothed, they were striking too. He reminded me of someone, but I didn’t remember who until later. Lord Byron. A picture of Lord Byron in a book in my father’s library that had impressed me at an early age. It was chiefly Gallant’s dark, curly hair backing up a wide, sweeping forehead, but the nose and chin were in it too. The necktie was all wrong; instead of Byron’s choker, he was sporting a narrow ribbon tied in a bow with long ends hanging.
The woman didn’t go with him. She was strictly modern, small and trim, in a tailored suit that had been cut and fitted by an expert, and while her face was perfectly acceptable, the main thing was her eyes. They were as close to black as eyes ever get, and they ran the show. In spite of Alec Gallant’s lordly presence, as I approached the table I found myself aiming at Anita Prince’s eyes.
Gallant was speaking. “What’s this about Sarah Yare?”
“Just a couple of questions.” He had eyes, too, when you looked at them. “It shouldn’t take even five minutes. I suppose Mr. Drew told you?”
“He said Nero Wolfe is making an inquiry and sent you. What kind of an inquiry? What about?”
“I don’t really know.” I was apologetic. “The fact is, Mr. Gallant, on this I’m just an errand boy. My instructions were to ask if you got any messages or letters from her in the past month or so, and if so, will you let Mr. Wolfe see them?”
“My heaven!” He closed his eyes, tilted his head back and shook it — a lion pestered by a fly. He looked at the woman. “This is too much. Too much!” He looked at me. “You must know a woman was assassinated here yesterday. Of course you do!” He pointed at the door. “There!” His hand dropped to the desk like a dead bird. “And after that calamity, now this, the death of my old and valued friend. Miss Yare was not only my friend; in mold and frame she was perfection, in movement she was music, as a mannequin she would have been divine. My delight in her was completely pure. I never had a letter from her.” His head jerked to Anita Prince. “Send him away,” he muttered.
She put fingers on his arm. “You gave him five minutes, Alec, and he has had only two.” Her voice was smooth and sure. The black eyes came to me. “So you don’t know the purpose of Mr. Wolfe’s inquiry?”
“No, Miss Prince, I don’t. He tells me only what he thinks I need to know.”
“Nor who hired him to make it?”
So Drew had covered the ground. “Not that either. He’ll probably tell you, if you have what he wants, letters from her, and you want to know why he wants to see them.”
“I have no letters from her. I never had any. I had no personal relations with Miss Yare.” Her voice sharpened a little. “Though I saw her many times, my contact with her was never close. Mr. Gallant preferred to fit her himself. I just looked on. It seems—” She stopped for a word, and found it. “It seems odd that Nero Wolfe should be starting an inquiry immediately after her death. Or did he start it before?”
“I couldn’t say. The first I knew, he gave me this errand this morning. This noon.”
“You don’t know much, do you?”
“No. I just take orders.”
“Of course you do know that Miss Yare committed suicide?”
I didn’t get an answer in. Gallant, hitting the table with a palm, suddenly shouted at her. “Name of God! Must you? Send him away!”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Gallant,” I told him. “I guess my time’s up. If you’ll tell me where to find your sister and Miss Thorne, that will—”
I stopped because his hand had darted to an ash tray, a big metal one that looked heavy, and since he wasn’t smoking, he was presumably going to let fly with it. Anita Prince beat him to it. With her left hand she got his wrist, and with her right she got the ash tray and moved it out of reach. It was very quick and deft.
Then she spoke, to me. “Miss Gallant is not here. Miss Thorne is busy, but you can ask Mr. Drew downstairs. You had better go.”
I went. In more favorable circumstances I might have spared another five minutes for a survey of the pinups, but not then, not if I had to dodge ash trays. So I went.
That is, I started. But when I was near enough to the door to start a hand out for the knob, it suddenly swung in at me, and I had to jump back to give it room, and there was Flora Gallant.