bed. It’s nearly midnight.”
“If we don’t ring you tonight we will in the morning. Stand by, huh?”
He said he would. I cradled the phone and sat a minute looking at it. It was the kind of thing Wolfe hates and I’m not too fond of myself. Trying to find someone or ones who had seen that car in Harlem that evening, granting it had been there, was a job for an army. Facing her with it as a known fact without naming the source would be a waste of breath. I got up, said a word aloud that needn’t be in the record, went to the hall, and found that the party was over. Two of them were on their way to the front, and the others were filing out of the office, all but Paul Whipple, who was having a word with Wolfe at his desk.
I went to help with coats and hats, and deliberately selected Maud Jordan’s, letting one of the others serve Miss Tiger. I didn’t want to give her the impression that I was at her beck, let alone her call. Then Paul Whipple came, and I had his ready for him. He was the last one out.
When I went to the office Wolfe had his reading light on and had opened _The Minister and the Choir Singer_. That was as it should be; he would stay to keep me company while I took things out and straightened up. To go to bed, leaving the mess to me, would sort of imply that I was merely a menial, so he stayed to collaborate. As I entered he looked a question.
I nodded. “Saul. Mrs. Brooke forgets things. Monday evening, March second, around a quarter to eight, she got her car from the garage and brought it back an hour or more later. Saul shelled out twenty dollars to the garage attendant and promised not to reveal the source. No one with her.”
He growled. “Confound her.”
“Yes, sir. I told Saul we’d ring him tonight or in the morning. Any instructions?”
“It’s past bedtime. Ask Saul to come at eleven. If Miss Kallman hasn’t called by ten o’clock you should call her.”
“Right. Do you want to see Magnus?”
“No. You will.”
Meaning he only did the tricky ones. He raised his book, and I started collecting glasses. Miss Tiger’s was still two-thirds full. Wasting good gin, Follansbee’s.
Nero Wolfe 40 - A Right To Die
9
A problem like Dolly Brooke’s lie is plain ornery. Even if we could get the garage man to play along and he said it to her face, a big if, she could say that he was mistaken, it had been another evening, or that she had gone on a personal errand which she preferred to keep to herself; and if she had actually driven to 128th Street and killed Susan Brooke it wouldn’t heip any to let her know we had caught her in a lie just to show her how smart we were. You might like to know how Nero Wolfe would handle such a problem, but I can’t tell you in this particular case because he didn’t handle it at all. Luck did. The luck rang the doorbell of the old brownstone at five minutes to ten Tuesday morning.
But first William Magnus. Rae Kallman phoned while I was at my breakfast table in the kitchen, on my fourth homemade Creole pork sausage and my third Creole fritter. She had discovered that she had Magnus’s phone number in a notebook at home, and she had called him early, to get him before he left. By now he had gone for a day at school. He would have no free time until four-thirty, and we could expect him a little before five. As I resumed with the sausage and fritters I considered the fact that Miss Kallman was cooperating beyond the call of duty; she had promised only to supply his address and phone number. Sometimes-not often, but it does happen-such a little detail has a point. Had she wanted to brief him, and if so, why'A corner of my mind was still considering it in the office as I opened the morning mail.
When luck rang the doorbell at 9:55 I didn’t know it was luck, even after I went to the hall and saw him on the stoop. Peter Vaughn was mereiy the long and lanky specimen who was still trying to hang onto the notion that he had been going to marry Susan
“If we don’t ring you tonight we will in the morning. Stand by, huh?”
He said he would. I cradled the phone and sat a minute looking at it. It was the kind of thing Wolfe hates and I’m not too fond of myself. Trying to find someone or ones who had seen that car in Harlem that evening, granting it had been there, was a job for an army. Facing her with it as a known fact without naming the source would be a waste of breath. I got up, said a word aloud that needn’t be in the record, went to the hall, and found that the party was over. Two of them were on their way to the front, and the others were filing out of the office, all but Paul Whipple, who was having a word with Wolfe at his desk.
I went to help with coats and hats, and deliberately selected Maud Jordan’s, letting one of the others serve Miss Tiger. I didn’t want to give her the impression that I was at her beck, let alone her call. Then Paul Whipple came, and I had his ready for him. He was the last one out.
When I went to the office Wolfe had his reading light on and had opened _The Minister and the Choir Singer_. That was as it should be; he would stay to keep me company while I took things out and straightened up. To go to bed, leaving the mess to me, would sort of imply that I was merely a menial, so he stayed to collaborate. As I entered he looked a question.
I nodded. “Saul. Mrs. Brooke forgets things. Monday evening, March second, around a quarter to eight, she got her car from the garage and brought it back an hour or more later. Saul shelled out twenty dollars to the garage attendant and promised not to reveal the source. No one with her.”
He growled. “Confound her.”
“Yes, sir. I told Saul we’d ring him tonight or in the morning. Any instructions?”
“It’s past bedtime. Ask Saul to come at eleven. If Miss Kallman hasn’t called by ten o’clock you should call her.”
“Right. Do you want to see Magnus?”
“No. You will.”
Meaning he only did the tricky ones. He raised his book, and I started collecting glasses. Miss Tiger’s was still two-thirds full. Wasting good gin, Follansbee’s.
Nero Wolfe 40 - A Right To Die
9
A problem like Dolly Brooke’s lie is plain ornery. Even if we could get the garage man to play along and he said it to her face, a big if, she could say that he was mistaken, it had been another evening, or that she had gone on a personal errand which she preferred to keep to herself; and if she had actually driven to 128th Street and killed Susan Brooke it wouldn’t heip any to let her know we had caught her in a lie just to show her how smart we were. You might like to know how Nero Wolfe would handle such a problem, but I can’t tell you in this particular case because he didn’t handle it at all. Luck did. The luck rang the doorbell of the old brownstone at five minutes to ten Tuesday morning.
But first William Magnus. Rae Kallman phoned while I was at my breakfast table in the kitchen, on my fourth homemade Creole pork sausage and my third Creole fritter. She had discovered that she had Magnus’s phone number in a notebook at home, and she had called him early, to get him before he left. By now he had gone for a day at school. He would have no free time until four-thirty, and we could expect him a little before five. As I resumed with the sausage and fritters I considered the fact that Miss Kallman was cooperating beyond the call of duty; she had promised only to supply his address and phone number. Sometimes-not often, but it does happen-such a little detail has a point. Had she wanted to brief him, and if so, why'A corner of my mind was still considering it in the office as I opened the morning mail.
When luck rang the doorbell at 9:55 I didn’t know it was luck, even after I went to the hall and saw him on the stoop. Peter Vaughn was mereiy the long and lanky specimen who was still trying to hang onto the notion that he had been going to marry Susan
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