She did all right. A woman who can toss you a check for a hundred grand without blinking hasn’t had much practice listening to reason from a hireling, but she managed it. She didn’t count ten, at least not audibly, but she picked up her glass and drank, gave me a straight look, put the glass down, and spoke. “I didn’t ‘conceal’ anything. It just didn’t occur to me to mention Morris Althaus. Or perhaps it did occur to me while I was thinking about it, but not while I was talking to Mr. Wolfe. Because it was just — I didn’t really know anything. I don’t know anything now. I had read about the murder and remembered that I had met him, but the only connection it had with the FBI was what Miss Dacos, my secretary, had told me, and that was just a girl talking. She didn’t really know anything either. It had nothing to do with my sending the books. I sent them because I had read it, and I thought it was important for important people to read it. Does that answer your questions?”
“Pretty well, but it raises another one. Just keep in mind that I’m working on your job. What had Miss Dacos told you?”
“Nothing but talk. She lived at the same address, she still does. Her—”
“What same address?”
“The same as that man, Morris Althaus. In the Village. Her apartment is on the second floor, below his. She was out that evening, and soon after—”
“The night he was killed?”
“Yes. Stop interrupting me. Soon after she returned to her apartment she heard footsteps outside, people going down the stairs, and she was curious about who it might be. She went to the window and looked out and saw three men leave the house and walk to the corner, and she thought they were FBI men. The only reason she had for thinking they were FBI men was that they looked like it; she said they were ‘the type.’ As I said, she didn’t know anything, and I didn’t know there was any connection between Morris Althaus and the FBI. You asked if I knew he was working on a piece on the FBI. No, not until you told me. I resent your suggestion that I concealed something.” She looked at her wristwatch. “It’s after one o’clock, and I have an appointment at half past two, a committee meeting that I must be on time for.”
I pushed a button, two shorts, on a slab on the table, and begged her pardon for asking her to lunch and then starving her. In a couple of minutes Pierre came with the lobster bisque, and I told him to bring the squabs in ten minutes without waiting for a ring.
There was a little question of etiquette. As a matter of business it would have been proper to tell her that neither Nero Wolfe nor I was ever allowed to pay for anything we or our guests ate at Rusterman’s, so it wouldn’t be an item on the expense account, but such a remark didn’t seem to fit with Squabs à la Moscovite, Mushrooms Polonaise, Salade Béatrice, and Soufflé Armenonville. I vetoed it. I didn’t resume on Miss Dacos, but our only known common interest was the FBI. I learned that she had received 607 letters thanking her for the book, most of them just a polite sentence or two; 184 disapproving letters, some pretty strong; and 29 anonymous letters and cards calling her names. I was surprised that it was only 29; out of the 10,000 there must have been a couple of hundred members of the John Birch Society and similar outfits.
With the coffee I returned to Miss Dacos, having done some calculating. If Wolfe left Hewitt’s at four o’clock he would get back around five-thirty, but he might leave, say five and arrive at six-thirty, in need of refreshment after the dangerous trip in the dark of night surrounded by thousands of treacherous machines. It would have to be after dinner. When Pierre left after serving coffee I told Mrs. Bruner, “Of course Mr. Wolfe will have to see Miss Dacos. She may know nothing, as you say, but he’ll have to satisfy himself on that. Will you tell her to be here at nine o’clock this evening? In this room. Our office may be bugged.”
“But I told you it was just a girl talking.”
I said she was probably right, but one of Wolfe’s specialties was prying something useful out of people who just talk, and when she finished her coffee I took her to Felix’s office in the rear, and she got Miss Dacos on the phone and arranged it.
After I escorted her downstairs and into her car I went back up and had another cup of coffee. I would wait to call Wolfe until I was sure they had finished lunch. I sat and looked things over. I had slipped up on one point; I hadn’t asked if Miss Dacos had been present when Morris Althaus and Frank Odell had talked with Mrs. Bruner in her office. Of course Miss Dacos could tell us, but it was the kind of detail that Wolfe expects me to cover, and I expect me to too. How good a guess was it that it was Sarah Dacos who had told the cops about the three men? Not good at all, unless she had dressed it up or down either for the cops or for Mrs. Bruner. She couldn’t see them go to a car around the corner, and get the license number, from the window of Number 63. Then we could be getting corroboration, but for the first alternative, that the FBI killed him, not for the one we preferred. But so what, since it was no longer futile, according to Wolfe’s program.
I remembered how, crossing Washington Square yesterday on my sightseeing trip, I had thought it was coincidence that Arbor Street was in the Village and Sarah Dacos lived in the Village. Now it might be more than coincidence; it might be some more cause and effect.
At three o’clock I went to Felix’s office and called Lewis Hewitt’s number. There’s something wrong with the way the people in that palace handle phone calls. It took a good four minutes, but finally Wolfe’s voice came.
“Yes, Archie?”
“Yes and no,” I said, “but more yes than no. I’m at Rusterman’s. Mrs. Bruner and I had lunch here. If you get here before six-thirty I can report before dinner. We might as well eat here because someone is coming at nine o’clock to discuss things.”
“Coming there?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why? Why not the office?”
“It will be better here. Unless you want an attractive young woman practically sitting on your lap for a couple of hours with the radio going.”
“What young woman?”
“Sarah Dacos, Mrs. Bruner’s secretary. I’ll report when you come.”
“If I come. Very well.” He hung up.
I dialed the number I knew best and told Fritz we would dine at Rusterman’s and he would have to leave the venison chops in the marinade until tomorrow. Then I got Mrs. David Althaus’s number from the book and dialed it, but by the time she got on I had decided not to ask her on the phone. All I wanted to know was if she had ever heard her son mention a girl named Sarah Dacos, but I had three hours to kill, so I might as well take a walk. I asked if she would let me in if I came around four-thirty, and she said yes. On the way out I told Felix that Wolfe and I would be there for dinner.
Chapter 9
I was back in the soundproofed room, on my fanny with my legs stretched out and my eyes focused on my toes, going over the mess for the tenth time, when Wolfe arrived at twenty minutes to seven, ushered in by Felix. Knowing that was the busiest time of day downstairs for Felix, I shooed him out and took Wolfe’s coat and hung it up and said I hoped he had had an interesting trip.