"I thought you were going to do that."
"I know, that's what I said, but this is better because this way they'll be looking at the gun and you, and I'll be watching their faces. I'll have my eye right on them, and the one that took my gun, if one of them did it�when he or she suddenly sees you pull a gun out of the drawer that's exactly like it, it's going to show on his face, and I'm going to see it. We'll do it that way."
I admit it sounded better there on the spot than it had in Wolfe's office�and besides, he had revised it. This way he might really get what he wanted. I considered it, watching him finish the tonic water. The toast and egg were gone.
"It sounds all right," I conceded, "except for one thing. 130
You'll be expecting a look of surprise, but what if there are five looks of surprise? At seeing me take a gun out of your desk�those who don't know you had a gun there."
"But they do know."
"All of them?"
"Certainly. I thought I told you that. Anyhow, they all know. Everybody knows everything around this place. They thought I ought to get rid of it, and now I wish I had. You understand, Goodwin, all there is to this�I just want to know where the damn thing is, I want to know who took it, and I'll handle it myself from there. I told Wolfe that."
"I know you did." I got up and went to his side of the desk, at his left, and pulled a drawer open. "In here?"
"Yes."
"The rear compartment?"
"Yes."
I reached to my holster for the Marley, broke it, removed the cartridges and dropped them into my vest pocket, put the gun in the drawer, shut the drawer, and returned to my chair.
"Okay," I said, "get them up here. We can ad lib it all right without any rehearsing."
He looked at me. He opened the drawer for a peek at the gun, not touching it, and pushed the drawer to. He shoved the tray away, leaned back, and began working on his upper lip with the jagged yellow teeth.
"I'm going to have to get my nerve up," he said, as if appealing to me. "I'm never much good until late afternoon."
I grunted. "What the hell. You told me to be here at noon and called the conference for twelve-thirty."
"I know I did. I do things like that." He chewed the lip some more. "And I've got to dress." Suddenly his voice went high in protest. "Don't try to rush me, understand?"
I was fed up, but had already invested a lot of time and a dollar for a taxi on the case, so kept calm. "I know," I told him, "artists are temperamental. But I'll explain how Mr. Wolfe charges. He sets a fee, depending on the job, and if it takes more of my time than he thinks reasonable he adds an extra hundred dollars an hour. Keeping me here until late
afternoon would be expensive. I could go and come back."
He didn't like that and said so, explaining why, the idea being that with me there in the house it would be easier for him to get his nerve up and it might only take an hour or so. He got up and walked to the door and opened it, then turned and demanded, "Do you know how much I make an hour? The time I spend on my work? Over a thousand dollars. More than a thousand an hour! I'll go get some clothes on."
He went, shutting the door.
My wristwatch said 1:17. My stomach agreed. I sat maybe ten minutes, then went to the phone on the desk, dialed, got Wolfe, and told him how it was. He told me to go out and get some lunch, naturally, and I said I would, but after hanging up I went back to my chair. If I went out, sure as hell Koven would get his nerve up in my absence, and by the time I got back he would have lost it again and have to start over. I explained the situation to my stomach, and it made a polite sound of protest, but I was the boss. I was glancing at my watch again and seeing 1:42 when the door opened and Mrs. Koven was with me.
When I stood, her serious gray eyes beneath the wide smooth brow were level with the knot in my fourinhand. She said her husband had told her that I was staying for a conference at a later hour. I confirmed it. She said I ought to have something to eat. I agreed that it was not a bad notion.
"Won't you," she invited, "come down and have a sandwich with us? We don't do any cooking, we even have our breakfast sent in, but there are some sandwiches."
"I don't want to be rude," I told her, "but are they in the room with the monkey?"
"Oh, no." She stayed serious. "Wouldn't that be awful? Downstairs in the workroom." She touched my arm. "Come on, do."
I went downstairs with her.
132
rA large room at the rear on the ground floor the other four suspects were seated around a plain wooden table, dealing with the sandwiches. The room was a mess--drawing tables under fluorescent lights, open shelves crammed with papers, cans of all sizes, and miscellaneous objects, chairs scattered around, other shelves with books and portfolios, and tables with more stacks of papers. Messy as it was to the eye, it was even messier to the ear, for two radios were going full blast.
Marcelle Koven and I joined them at the lunch table, and I perked up at once. There was a basket of French bread and pumpernickel, paper platters piled with slices of ham, smoked turkey, sturgeon, and hot corned beef, a big slab of butter, mustard and other accessories, bottles of milk, a pot of steaming coffee, and a one-pound jar of fresh caviar. Seeing Pete Jordan spooning caviar onto a piece of bread crust, I got what he meant about liking to eat.
"Help yourself!" Pat Lowell yelled into my ear.
I reached for the bread with one hand and the corned beef with the other and yelled back, "Why doesn't someone turn them down or even off?"
She took a sip of coffee from a paper cup and shook her head. "One's By Hildebrand's and one's Pete Jordan's! They like different programs when they're working! They have to go for volume!"
It was a hell of a din, but the corned beef was wonderful and the bread must have been from Rusterman's, nor was there anything wrong with the turkey and sturgeon. Since the radio duel precluded table talk, I used my eyes for diversion and was impressed by Adrian Getz, whom Koven called the Squirt. He would break off a rectangle of bread crust, place a rectangle of sturgeon on it, arrange a mound of caviar on top, and pop it in. When it was down he would take three sips of coffee and then start over. He was doing that when
J33
Mrs. Koven and I arrived and he was still doing it when I was full and reaching for another paper napkin.
Eventually, though, he stopped. He pushed back his chair, left it, went over to a sink at the wall, held his fingers under the faucet, and dried them with his handkerchief. Then he trotted over to a radio and turned it off, and to the other one and turned that off. Then he trotted back to us and spoke apologetically.
"That was uncivil, I know."
No one contradicted him.
"It was only," he went on, "that I wanted to ask Mr. Goodwin something before going up for my nap." His eyes settled on me. "Did you know when you opened that window that sudden cold drafts are dangerous for tropical monkeys?"
His tone was more than mild, it was wistful. But something about him--I didn't know what and didn't ask for time out to go into it--got my goat.
"Sure," I said cheerfully. "I was trying it out."
"That was thoughtless," he said, not complaining, just giving his modest opinion, and turned and trotted out of the room.
There was a strained silence. Pat Lowell reached for the pot to pour some coffee.
"Goodwin, God help you," Pete Jordan muttered.
"Why? Does he sting?"
"Don't ask me why, but watch your step. I think he's a kobold." He tossed his paper napkin onto the table. "Want to see an artist create? Come and look." He marched to one of the radios and turned it on, then to a drawing table and sat.