After we hung up, I swiveled toward to Wolfe. “Lily isn’t happy with what’s happened, as you no doubt could tell from my end of the conversation.”
He set down his book and scowled. “What would you have me do?” he demanded.
“You are the genius in this operation. Figure something out.”
“Pfui. I will not be badgered!”
“Way back in the dark ages, you hired me to be a burr under your saddle, among my other duties. So that’s what I am being — a burr.”
Wolfe’s response was to pick up the book and continue reading. I had been dismissed, a not-unusual occurrence in the office.
When we reached an impasse like this one, I had several options: one, I could go for a walk; two, I could continue to badger Wolfe; or three, I could threaten to resign. As I was mulling these options, the phone jangled and I answered, as usual, “Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking.”
“Mr. Goodwin, this is Eric Mason. You may not recall this, but we met briefly at Lily Rowan’s penthouse last year, where she was having a cocktail benefit for one of her charities.”
“Yes, I do remember you, Mr. Mason. You’re with the ad agency Gordon and Grove, and Lily has told me you have won a lot of creative awards.”
“You have a good memory, and you are too kind. I know from Lily that you work for Nero Wolfe, and I would, uh... like to hire him.”
“Really? May I ask for what purpose?”
“To find the woman I intend to marry — Maureen Carr.”
That stopped me in my tracks. “What do you know about Miss Carr at present?”
“I am aware, of course, that she has disappeared. And you probably know that Lily came to see me recently to ask if I had any idea where she was.”
“Yes, I do know that she talked to you. And you told her you couldn’t imagine where she had gone.”
“That is correct, and I have been unable to reach Maureen for more than two weeks now. Also, no one I have talked to who knows her has any clue as to where she is.”
“You may be aware that Mr. Wolfe charges extremely high rates for his services.”
“So I have heard, and I am confident that I can afford those rates.”
“I do not doubt that, but I am unsure of Mr. Wolfe’s willingness to take on your assignment.”
“I would like to come to his office — I know he rarely leaves home — and talk to him face-to-face.”
“I will have to confer with Mr. Wolfe. Please give me the best telephone number where I can reach you.”
Mason gave me a number and asked, “When am I likely to hear from him — or you?”
“I can’t say for sure, but I promise I will do my best to give you a response within a day or so.”
He started to impress upon me the urgency of his request, and I said that everyone who wants to employ Nero Wolfe is in a hurry. I finally had to tell him I had other business and terminated the call.
“Well, I just got thrown a curveball,” I told Wolfe, or whoever that was hiding behind the Eisenhower memoir.
He put the book down. “Another of your time-worn baseball aphorisms. Very well, report.” He sighed.
I recounted verbatim my conversation with Eric Mason, which was hardly a challenge, given its brevity. “So here is a potential client, and a very prosperous one,” I concluded.
“I already have a client!” he barked.
“You do only if you have decided you are going the pro bono route,” I countered. “You often have told me how much money it takes to support this operation, and as I am the keeper of the checkbook and of our financial records, I am well aware of the cash flow necessary to keep this grand old building afloat.”
“I am committed to Miss Rowan — you of all people should know that.”
“And I am pleased that you are, for both professional and personal reasons. However, it appears that both she and Eric Mason have the same goal, the locating of Maureen Carr. I hardly think Lily would object if the two of them became ‘joint clients,’ with one paying the freight.”
Wolfe leaned back, closed his eyes, and spread his arms out on the desk, palms down. “I know little about this man, other than what has been reported and described by both you and Miss Rowan.”
“You have nothing whatever to lose by seeing him. If he doesn’t measure up to your standards, then, okay, consider that he’s out of the picture. And if he seems to you to be a decent sort, then you can ask Miss Rowan if she has any objection to his being a co-client.”
Wolfe doesn’t like it when I argue with him, but he knows I am his equal in stubbornness, if that’s even a word. He said nothing for several beats, then drew in a bushel of air, exhaled, and said, “Very well. Communicate with Mr. Mason and tell him to be here at nine p.m. tonight.”
I dialed the number he had given to me, and on the first ring, he crisply said, “Mason here.”
“Archie Goodwin on this end. Nero Wolfe can see you at nine tonight.” I gave him our address.
“I hoped that was you calling. Excellent. Is there anything I should be prepared for?”
“Just that you will have some questions tossed your way, probably quite a batch of them. How you answer will depend on whether you will become a client, not to put too much pressure on you.”
Mason chuckled. “Hey, I’m in the ad business, Mr. Goodwin, which is nothing if not a pressure cooker. If I couldn’t handle it, I would have been out on my tail a long time ago.”
“See you at nine. Be prompt,” I told him.
In the next half hour, Saul, Fred, and Orrie all checked in, and none of them reported having any success at all in learning more about Everett Carr from the bookies they had visited. I told each of them to cease any further work until they heard back from me.
Eric Mason was more than prompt that evening. He rang our bell at eight fifty, and I swung open the front door to his grin. He must have come straight from work, because he was dressed like a model in a men’s fashion magazine, and he wore his clothes well on his slender six-foot-plus frame. “You look sharp,” I told him.
“Don’t make too much of it,” he replied. “Because I’m in the agency’s creative department, I usually dress casually, but late this afternoon, we had to give a campaign presentation to a Newark bank, and their bunch always dresses in three-piece pinstripes and the like, so we figured we needed to dress like they do.”
“Did it work?” I asked as we walked down the hall to the office.
“Too early to tell. They’re still digesting what we showed them, but I am confident we will get the account.”
Wolfe looked up as we entered the office, and I made the introductions, gesturing Mason to the red leather chair.
“Would you like something to drink, sir? As you can see, I am having beer.”
“I’ll have a scotch and water, thanks,” our guest said, crossing one leg over the other. I went to the wheeled cart and played bartender, handing Mason his drink and settling in at my desk with my notebook.
“Now, Mr. Mason, I understand you wish to hire me to search for Maureen Carr, is that correct?”
“It is,” he said after taking a sip of his drink and nodding approvingly. I had poured from our best label.
“Do you have any idea about her whereabouts, or why she disappeared?”
“I do not, Mr. Wolfe, and I am at a total loss to understand what has happened to her. The last time we were together, which was... well, almost three weeks ago now, I had asked Maureen to marry me.”
“And the woman’s response?” Wolfe asked.
Mason took a deep breath. “Maureen told me she had been expecting my proposal for some time, so she already had given it some thought — a lot of thought, she said. And she told me she was flattered but wanted time to think it over.”
“Your reaction?”