Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson and Brewster Cortland Payne II, the founding partners of the firm, occupied offices on either side of the Large Conference Room. They shared a secretary, Mrs. Irene Craig, a tall, dignified, silver-haired woman in her fifties. Mrs. Craig had two secretaries of her own, set up in an office off her own tastefully furnished office. Although she could, if necessary, type nearly one hundred words per minute on her state-of-the-art IBM typewriter, Mrs. Craig rarely typed anything on it except Memoranda of Incoming Calls.
Her function, she had once told her husband, was to serve as sort of a traffic cop, offering, and barring, entrance to the attention, either in person or on the phone, of her bosses. Their time was valuable, and it was her job to see that it was not wasted.
She was very good at her job, and although it was a secret between them, she brought home more money than did her husband, who worked for the Prudential Insurance Company.
When she came to work, at her ritual time of 8:45, fifteen minutes before the business day actually began, she was surprised to see the colonel's office door open. Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson rarely appeared before ten, or ten-thirty. She went into his office. He wasn't there, but there was evidence that he had been.
There were cigarettes in his ashtray; two cardboard coffee containers from the machine way down the hall by the typists' pool; and crumpled paper in his wastebasket. The colonel's leather-framed doodle pad was covered with triangles, stars, a setting sun, and a multidigit telephone number Mrs. Craig recognized from the prefix to be one in London, England.
Mrs. Craig retrieved the crumpled paper from the wastebasket, unfolded it, and read it. There were names on it:Louise Button, Lt. DelRaye, Insp. Wohl (Wall?), and, underlined,Stanford Fortner Wells III. There was an address,6 Stockton Place, and several telephone numbers, none of which Mrs. Craig recognized. And then she remembered that Stanford Fortner Wells III had something to do with newspapers; what, exactly, she couldn't recall.
She dumped the contents of the ashtray in the waste-basket, added the cardboard coffee containers, and then carried it outside and dumped it in her own wastebasket. Then she went to the smaller office where her assistants worked and started the coffee machine. That was for her. She liked a cup of coffee to begin the day, and sometimes Mr. Payne came in wanting a cup.
Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson came in the office at ten past nine, smiled at her, and asked if Mr. Payne was in.
"Not yet, any minute," she said.
"Let me know the minute he does, will you please? And could you get me a cup of coffee?"
He went in his office, and as she went to fetch the coffee, she saw him go to the window of his office that gave a view of Market Street down to the river and stand, with his hands on his hips, as if he was mad at something, looking out.
Brewster Cortland Payne II came into her office as she was carrying a cup of coffee, with two envelopes of saccharin and a spoon on the saucer across it to the colonel's office.
"Good morning," Brewster Payne said, with a nod and a smile. He was a tall and thin, almost skinny, man wearing a single-breasted vested gray suit, a subdued necktie, and black shoes. Yet there was something, an air of authority and wisdom, Mrs. Craig knew, that made people look at him in a crowd. He looked, she thought, like what a successful attorney should look like. Sometimes, especially when she was annoyed with him, the colonel didn't look that way to her.
"Good morning," she said. "He asked me to let him know the minute you came in." Brewster Payne's face registered amused surprise.
"Do you think he is annoyed that I'm a little late?" he asked, and added: "I would be grateful for some coffee myself."
"Here," Mrs. Craig said, handing him the cup and saucer. "Tell him I' m getting his."
When she delivered the coffee, Brewster Payne was sprawled on the colonel's red leather couch, his long legs stretched out in front of him, balancing his coffee on his stomach. The colonel was standing beside his desk. When she handed him the coffee, he gave her an absent smile and set it down on the desk.
Mrs. Craig left, closing the door after her. There was someone new in the outer office.
"Hello, Matt," she said. She liked Matt Payne, thought that he was a really handsome, and more important,nice young man. She liked the way he smiled.
"Good morning, Mrs. Craig," he said, and then blurted: "Is there any chance I could see him this morning? He doesn't expect me, but…"
"He's in with the colonel," she said. "I don't know how long they'll be."
"I think this was a bad idea," Matt said.
"Don't be silly. Sit down, I'll get you some coffee."
"You're sure?"
"Positive."
He was enormously relieved, Mrs. Craig saw, and was glad that she had insisted that he stay, even though it would delay the morning's schedule by fifteen minutes or more. Fifteen minutes, plus however long the colonel and Mr. Payne were in the colonel's office.
Louise Dutton came out of the bathroom wearing Peter's bathrobe. It hung loosely on her but even in the dim light, he could see the imprint of her nipples. He thought she looked incredibly appealing.
She walked across the bedroom to the bed, looked down at Peter a moment, and then sat down on the bed.
"Well," she said. "Look who woke up."
"I wasn't asleep, Delilah," he said. "I watched you get out of bed."
"Delilah?"
"I never really thought she rendered Samson helpless by giving him ahaircut," Peter said. "That was the edited-for-children version."
"You Samson"-she chuckled-"me Delilah?"
"And as soon as I get my strength back, I'll tear the temple down," Peter said. "Actually, what I have to do is face the dragon in his lair."
"Now I'm the dragon? The dragon lady?"
"I was referring to Chief Inspector Matt Lowenstein, our beloved chief of detectives," Wohl said. He reached to his right, away from her, and took his wristwatch from the bedside table. He glanced at it, strapped it on, and said, "I've got to see how the Nelson investigation is going, and then go see Arthur J. Nelson. I'm late now."
"Then why aren't you out of bed, getting dressed?" she asked.
He held his arms out, and she came into them. He kissed the top of her head.
She purred, "Nice."
"I wasn't sure you would like me to do that," he said, her face against his chest.
"Why not?"
"It'safter, " Peter said. "Women have been known to regret a moment of passion."
"I was afraid when I came back in here, you would be all dressed and ready to leave," she said. "Because it'safter."
He laughed, and pulled his head back so that he could look at her face.
"Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am?" he asked.
"You're the type, Peter," she said.
"You like this better?"
"Much better," she said.
"Blow in my ear, and the world is yours," he said.
She giggled and kissed his chest.
"There's no small voice of reason in the back of your mind sending up an alarm?" she asked." 'What am I getting myself into with this crazy lady?' "
"What the small voice of reason is asking is, 'What happens when she realizes what she's done? The TV Lady and the Cop?' "
"That would seem to suggest there was more for you in what happened than one more notch on your gun." Louise said.
"If I wasn't afraid it would trigger one of your smartass replies, I would tell you it's never been that way for me before," Peter said.
She pushed herself into a sitting position and looked down at him.
"For me, either," she said. "I mean, really, I had to ask you."
"Oh, come on," he said.
"Yes, I did," she said. "And that suggests the possibility that I'm queer for cops. What do they call those pathetic little girls who chase the bands around?'Groupies'? Maybe I'm a cop groupie."