Champange for One

“You don’t know what?”

“Whether…” I let it trail, screwing my lips. “He doesn’t like to mix in when I’m involved personally. Also he’s pretty busy. But I’ll see.” I arose. “With him you never can tell.” I moved.

As I turned left in the hall Wolfe appeared at the corner of the wing. He stood there until I had passed and pushed the swing door, and then followed me into the kitchen. When the door had swung shut I spoke.

“I must apologize for that crack about salary. I forgot you were listening.”

He grunted. “Your memory is excellent and you shouldn’t disparage it. What does that man want of me?”

I covered a yawn. “Search me. If I had had some sleep I might risk a guess, but it’s all I can do to get enough oxygen for my lungs so my brain’s doing without. Maybe he wants to publish your autobiography. Or maybe he wants you to make a monkey of me by proving it was suicide.”

“I won’t see him. You have supplied a reason: that you are involved personally.”

“Yes, sir. I am also involved personally in the income of your detective business. So is Fritz. So is the guy who wrote you that letter from New Guinea , or he’d like to be.”

He growled, as a lion might growl when it realizes it must leave its cosy lair to scout around for a meal. I admit that for him a better comparison would be an elephant, but elephants don’t growl. Fritz, at the table shucking clams, started humming a tune, very low, probably pleased at the prospect of a client. Wolfe glared at him, reached for a clam, popped it into his mouth, and chewed. When I pushed the door open and held it, he waited until the clam was down before passing through.

He doesn’t like to shake hands with strangers, and when we entered the office and I pronounced names he merely gave Laidlaw a nod en route to his desk. Before I went to mine I asked Laidlaw to move to the red leather chair so I wouldn’t have him in profile as he faced Wolfe. As I sat, Laidlaw was saying that he supposed Goodwin had told Wolfe who he was, and Wolfe was saying yes, he had.

Laidlaw’s straight, steady eyes were now at Wolfe instead of me. “I want,” he said, “to engage you professionally. Do you prefer the retainer in cash, or a cheque?”

Wolfe shook his head. “Neither, until I accept the engagement. What do you want done?”

“I want you to get some information for me. You know what happened at Mrs Robilotti’s house last evening. You know that a girl named Faith Usher was poisoned and died. You know of the circumstances indicating that she committed suicide. Don’t you?”

Wolfe said yes.

“Do you know that the authorities have not accepted it as a fact that she killed herself? That they are continuing with the investigation on the assumption that she might have been murdered?”

Wolfe said yes.

“Then it’s obvious that they must have knowledge of some circumstance other than the ones I know about—or that any of us know about. They must have some reason for not accepting the fact that it was suicide. I don’t know what that reason is, and they won’t tell me, and as one of the people involved—involved simply because I was there—I have a legitimate right to know. That’s the information I want you to get for me. I’ll give you a retainer now, and your bill can be any amount you think is fair, and I’ll pay it.”

I was not yawning. I must say I admired his gall. Though he didn’t know that Wolfe had been at the hole, he must have assumed that I had reported the offer he had made, and here he was looking Wolfe straight in the eye, engaging him professionally, and telling him he could name his figure, no matter what, whereas with me ten grand had been his limit. The gall of the guy! I had to admire him.

The corners of Wolfe’s mouth were up. “Indeed,” he said. Laidlaw took a breath, but it came out merely as used air, not as words.

“Mr Goodwin has told me,” Wolfe said, “of the proposal you made to him. I am at a loss whether to respect your doggedness and applaud your dexterity or to deplore your naivete. In any case I must decline the engagement. I already have the information you’re after, but I got it from Mr Goodwin in confidence and may not disclose it. I’m sorry, sir.”

Laidlaw took another breath. “I’m not as dogged as you are,” he declared. “Both of you. In the name of God, what’s so top secret about it? What are you afraid of?”

Wolfe shook his head. “Not afraid, Mr Laidlaw, merely discreet. When a matter in which we have an interest and a commitment requires us to nettle the police we are not at all reluctant. In this affair Mr Goodwin is involved solely because he happened to be there just as you are, and I am not involved at all. It is not a question of fear or of animus. I am merely detached. I will not, for instance, tell the police of the offers you have made Mr Goodwin and me because it would stimulate their curiosity about you, and since I assume you have made the offers in good faith I am not disposed to do you an ill turn.”

“But you’re turning me down.”

“Yes. Flatly. In the circumstances I have no choice. Mr Goodwin can speak for himself.”

Laidlaw’s head turned to me and I had the eyes again. I wouldn’t have put it past him to renew his offer, with an amendment that he would now leave the figure up to me, but if he had that in mind he abandoned it when he saw my steadfast countenance. When, after regarding me for eight seconds, he left his chair, I thought he was leaving the field and Wolfe wouldn’t have to go to work after all, but no. He only wanted to mull, and preferred to have his face to himself. He asked, “May I have a minute?” and, when Wolfe said yes, he turned his back and moseyed across the rug towards the far wall, where the big globe stood in front of bookshelves; and, for double the time he had asked for, at least that, he stood revolving the globe. Finally he about-faced and returned to the red leather chair, not moseying.

“I must speak with you privately,” he told Wolfe.

“You are,” Wolfe said snortly.” If you mean alone, no. If a confidence weren’t as safe with Mr Goodwin as with me he wouldn’t be here. His ears are mine, and mine are his.”

“This isn’t only a confidence. I’m going to tell you something that no one on earth knows about but me. I’m going to risk telling you because I have to, but I’m not going to double the risk.”

“You will not be doubling it.” Wolfe was patient.” If Mr Goodwin left us I would give him a signal to listen to us on a contraption in another room, so he might as well stay.”

“You don’t make it any easier, Wolfe.”

“I don’t pretend to make things easier. I only make them manageable—when I can.”

Laidlaw looked as if he needed to mull some more, but he got it decided without going to consult the globe again. “You’ll have all you can do to manage this,” he declared. “I couldn’t go to my lawyer with it, or anyhow I wouldn’t, and even if I had it would have been too much for him. I thought I couldn’t go to anybody, and then I thought of you. You have the reputation of a wizard, and God knows I need one. First I wanted to know why Goodwin thinks it was murder, but evidently you’re not going—by the way—”

He took a pen from a pocket and a chequebook from another, put the book on the little table at his elbow, and wrote. He yanked the cheque off, glanced it over, got up to put it on Wolfe’s desk, and returned to the chair.

“If twenty thousand isn’t enough,” he said, “for a retainer and advances for expenses, say so. You haven’t accepted the job, I know, but I’m camping here until you do. You spoke of managing things. I want you to manage that if they go on with their investigation it doesn’t go deep enough to uncover and make public a certain event in my life. I also want you to manage that I don’t get arrested and put on trial for murder.”

Wolfe grunted. “I could give no guarantee against either contingency.”