Stop it!”
“My dear Calida!
Stop when I've just started?
Give the fellow what he wants and he'll let us alone. It's a pity we can't give him his red box; Boyd really should have told us about that.
But I realize that his chief interest is in Boyd's death, not his life.
I can be helpful on that too.
Knowing so well how Boyd lived, surely I should know how he died.
As a matter of fact, when I heard of his death last evening, I was reminded of a quotation from Norboisin-the girl Denise gasps it as she expires:
‘Au moins, je meurs ardemment!’
Might not Boyd have used those very words, Calida?
Of course, with Denise the adverb applied to herself, whereas with Boyd it would have been meant for the agent-”
“Perren!”
It was not a protest this time, but a command.
Mrs. Frost's tone and look together refrigerated him into silence.
She surveyed him:
“You are a babbling fool. Would you make a jest of it?
No one but a fool jests at death.”
Gebert made her a little bow.
“Except his own, perhaps, Calida.
To keep up appearances.”
“You may.
I am Scotch, too, like Boyd.
It is no joke to me.”
She turned her head and let me have her eyes again. “You may as well go.
As you say, this is my daughter's house; we do not put you out.
But my daughter is still a minor-and anyway, we cannot help you. I have nothing whatever to say, beyond what I have told the police.
If you enjoy Mr. Gebert's vaudeville I can leave you with him.”
I shook my head.
“No, I don't like it much.” I stuck my notebook in my pocket.
“Anyhow, I've got an appointment downtown, to squeeze blood out of a stone, which will be a cinch. It's just possible Mr. Wolfe will phone to invite you to his office for a chat.
Have you anything on for this evening?”
She froze me.
“Mr. Wolfe's taking advantage of my daughter's emotional impulse is abominable.
I don't wish to see him.
If he should come here-”
“Don't let that worry you.” I grinned at her. “He's done all his traveling for this season and then some. But I expect I'll be seeing you again.” I started off, and after a few steps turned.
“By the way, if I were you I wouldn't make much of a point of persuading your daughter to fire us.
It would just make Mr. Wolfe suspicious, and that turns him into a fiend.
I can't handle him when he's like that.”
It didn't look as if even that one was going to cause her to burst into sobs, so I beat it.
In the entrance hall I tried to open up the wrong mirror, then found the right one and got my hat.
The etiquette seemed to be turned off, so I let myself out and steered for the elevator.
I had to flag a taxi to take me home, because I had ridden up with our client and her cousin, not caring to leave them alone together at that juncture.
It was after six o'clock when I got there.
I went to the kitchen first and commandeered a glass of milk, took a couple of sniffs at the goulash steaming gently on the simmer plate, and told Fritz it didn't smell much like freshly butchered kid to me.
I slid out when he brandished a skimming spoon.
Wolfe was at his desk with a book, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, by Lawrence, which he had already read twice, and I knew what mood he was in when I saw that the tray and glass were on his desk but no empty bottle.
It was one of his most childish tricks, every now and then, especially when he was ahead of his quota more than usual, to drop the bottle into the wastebasket as soon as he emptied it, and if I was in the office he did it when I wasn't looking.
It was that sort of thing that kept me skeptical about the fundamental condition of his brain, and that particular trick was all the more foolish because he was unquestionably on the square with the bottle caps; he faithfully put every single one in the drawer; I know that, because I've checked up on him time and time again.
When he was ahead on quota he made some belittling remark about statistics with each cap he dropped in, but he never tried to get away with one.