“Yes, I do,” she declared firmly. “I never had a detective working for me before, and if you can’t hire a detective when you’re suspected of murder when can you hire one?”
Demarest nodded. “I thought so,” he said in a satisfied tone. “Just what I thought. Did you say eight-thirty, Goodwin?”
“That would be best. Mr. Wolfe works better when he isn’t looking forward to a meal. You’ll come?”
“Certainly I’ll come. To save energy. I like to economize on energy, and it will take less to attend that meeting than it would to argue Miss Nieder out of it.” He smiled at her. “My dear child! I want a private talk with you.”
“Maybe it can wait a few minutes?” I suggested. “Until I finish arranging this? How about it, Mr. Daumery? You’ll be with us?”
Bernard was sunk in gloom or something — anyhow, he was sunk. He was hunched in his chair, his eyes going from Cynthia to Demarest to me to Cynthia.
“Okay?” I prodded him.
“I don’t know,” he muttered. “I’ll think it over.”
Cynthia emitted a little snort.
Demarest regarded Bernard with exasperation. “As usual. You’ll think it over. What is there to think about?”
“There’s this business to think about,” Bernard declared. “It’s bad enough already, with a murdered man found here in the office. We would practically be admitting our connection with it, wouldn’t we, the five of us going to discuss it with a detective?”
“I’ve hired the detective personally,” Cynthia snapped.
“I know you have, Cynthia.” His tone implied that he was imploring her to make allowances for the air spaces in his skull. “But damn it, we have to consider the business, don’t we? It may be inadvisable. I don’t know.”
“How long would you need to think?” I asked pleasantly. “It’s five o’clock now, so there isn’t a lot of time. Say an hour and a half? By six-thirty?”
“I suppose so.” He sounded uncertain. He looked around at us as if he were a woodchuck in a hole and we were terriers digging to get him. “I’ll let you know. Where’ll you be?”
“That depends,” I replied for us. “There are two more to invite — Miss Zarella and Mr. Roper. It might help if you would get them in here. Would that require thinking over too?”
Demarest chuckled. Cynthia sent me a warning glance, to caution me against aggravating him.
Bernard retorted with spirit. “You do your thinking and I’ll do mine.” He got up and went to his desk. “Would you mind using another chair, Mr. Demarest?”
Demarest moved out. Bernard sat down and picked up the phone transmitter, and told it, “Please ask Mr. Roper and Miss Zarella to come in here.”
IX
They entered together.
I had seen Polly Zarella before. It was she who, the preceding afternoon, had emerged from the door on the left and given the signal that started the show. She still resembled my mother only in point of age. Her lipstick supply was holding out, and so was her shoulder padding, though she had on a different dress. Seeing her on the street, I would have tagged her for a totally different role from the one she filled — Cynthia having informed me that she was a scissors-and-needle wizard, in charge of all Daumery and Nieder production, and a highly important person.
After I had been introduced Bernard invited them to sit. Then he said, “I’m sorry to take your time, but this day is all shot to hell anyhow. Mr. Goodwin wants to ask you something.”
They aimed their eyes at me. I grinned at them engagingly.
“You’re busy and I’ll cut it short. More trouble and fuss, all on account of a dead man. The cops are making it hot for Miss Nieder because she was here last night and said she wasn’t when they first brought it up. Now she’s in a fix, and she has hired my boss, Nero Wolfe, to get her out. Mr. Wolfe would like to have a talk with five people, the five who carry keys to this place — the five who are here now. He sent me to ask if you will come to his office this evening at half-past eight. Miss Nieder will of course be there. Mr. Demarest is coming. Mr. Daumery is thinking it over and will let us know later. It will be in the interest of justice, it will help to clear up this muddle and let you get back to work, and it will be a favor to Miss Nieder. Will you come?”
“No,” Polly Zarella said emphatically.
“No?” I inquired courteously.
“No,” she repeated. “I losed much time today. I will be here all evening with cutters cutting.”
“This is pretty important, Miss Zarella.”
“I do not think so.” She said “zink.” “He was here, he is gone, and we forget it. I told that to the policemen and I tell it to you. Miss Nieder is not dangered. If she was dangered I would fight it off with these hands” — she lifted them as claws — “because she is the best designer in America or Europe or the world. But she is not. No.”
She got up and started for the door. Cynthia, darting to her feet, intercepted her and caught her by the arm.
“I think you ought to wait,” I said, “for Mr. Roper’s vote. Mr. Roper?”
Ward Roper cleared his throat. “It doesn’t seem to me,” he offered, in the sort of greasy voice that makes me want to take up strangling, “that this is exactly the proper step to take, under the circumstances.”
Seeing that Polly’s exit was halted, I was looking at Roper. Getting along toward fifty, by no means too old to strangle, he was slender, elegant, and groomed to a queen’s taste if you let him pick the queen. His voice fitted him to a T.
“What’s wrong with it?” I asked him.
He cocked his head to one side to contemplate me. “Almost everything, I would say. I understand and sympathize with Mr. Daumery’s desire to think it over. It assumes that we, the five of us, are involved in this matter, which is ridiculous. One may indeed be involved, deeply involved, but not the other four. Not the rest of us.”
“What the hell are you getting at?” Bernard demanded with heat.
“Nothing, Bernard. Nothing specific. Just a comment expressing my reaction.”
Plainly it was no time for diplomacy. I arose and stepped to a spot nearer Cynthia, where I could face them all without neck-twisting.
“This is a joke,” I declared offensively, “and if you ask me, a rotten one.” I focused on Bernard. “Have you got around to your thinking, Mr. Daumery? Made up your mind?”
“Certainly not!” He resented it. “Who do you think you are?”
“Just at present I’m Miss Nieder’s hired man.” My eyes went around. “You’re acting, all but Demarest, like a bunch of halfwits! Who do I think I am? Who do you think Miss Nieder is, some little girl asking you to please be nice and help her out? You damn fools, she owns half of this outfit!” I looked at Bernard. “Who are you? You’re her business partner, fifty-fifty, and what couldn’t she do to you if she felt like it! So you say you’ll think it over! Nuts!” I looked at Polly and Roper. “And what are you? You’re her employees, her hired help. She owns half of this firm that you work for. And through me she makes a sensible and reasonable request, and listen to you! As for you, Roper, I hear that you’re a good imitator and adapter. I understand that you, Miss Zarella, are as good as they come at producing the goods. But you’re not indispensable — neither or both of you. In this affair Mr. Wolfe and I are acting for Miss Nieder. Speaking as her representative, I hereby instruct you to report at the office of Nero Wolfe, Nine-twenty-four West Thirty-fifth Street, at half-past eight this evening.”
I wheeled and got Cynthia’s eye. “You confirm that, Miss Nieder?”
Her yes was creaky. There was a tadpole in her throat, and she got rid of it and repeated, “Yes. I confirm it.”