If Death Ever Slept

Chapter 3

Of course it could have been that she planned it that way, that she waited until everyone else was there to make her entrance, and then, floating in, deliberately underplayed it. But also it could have been that she didn’t like crowds, even family crowds, and put it off as long as she could, and then, having to go through with it, made herself as small and quiet as possible. I reserved my opinion, without prejudice — or rather, with two prejudices striking a balance. The attraction of the snake theory was that she had to be one if we were going to fill our client’s order. The counterattraction was that I didn’t like the client and wouldn’t have minded seeing him stub his toe. So my mind was open as I watched her move across toward the fireplace, to where her husband was talking with Nora Kent. There was nothing reptilian about the way she moved. It might be said that she glided, but she didn’t slither. She was slender, not tall, with a small oval face. Her husband kissed her on the cheek, then headed for the bar, presumably to get her a drink.

Trella called my name, Alan, making free with the secretary, and I went over to her and was introduced to Corey Brigham. When she patted the vacant arm of the chair and told me to sit I did so, thinking it safer there than it had been in the studio, and Brigham got up and left. She said I hadn’t answered her question about leg of lamb, and she wanted to know. It seemed possible that I had got her wrong, that her idea was merely to function as a helpmate and see to it that the hired help liked the grub — but no. She might have asked it, but she didn’t; she cooed it. I may not know as much about women as Wolfe pretends he thinks I do, but I know a coo when I hear it.

While giving her due attention as my hostess and my boss’s wife, I was observing a phenomenon from the corner of my eye. When Wyman returned to Susan with her drink, Roger Foote was there. Also Corey Brigham was wandering over to them, and in a couple of minutes there went Herman Dietz. So four of the six males present were gathered around Susan, but as far as I could see she hadn’t bent a finger or slanted an eye to get them there. Jarrell was still at the bar with Dietz’s redheaded wife. Lois and Nora Kent had stepped out to the terrace.

Apparently Trella had seen what the corner of my eye was doing, for she said, “You have to be closer to appreciate her. She blurs at a distance.”

“Her? Who?”

She patted my arm. “Now now, I don’t mind. I’m used to it. Susan. My stepdaughter-in-law. Go and put an oar in.”

“She seems to have a full crew. Anyway, I haven’t met her.”

“You haven’t? That won’t do.” She turned and sang out, “Susan! Come here.”

She was obeyed instantly. The circle opened to make room, and Susan crossed to us. “Yes, Trella?”

“I want to present Mr. Green. Alan. He has taken Jim’s place. He has met everyone but you, and that didn’t seem fair.”

I took the offered hand and felt it warm and firm for the fifth of a second she let me have it. Her face had blurred at a distance. Even close up none of her features took your eye; you only saw the whole, the little oval face.

“Welcome to our aerie, Mr. Green,” she said. Her voice was low, and was shy or coy or wary or demure, depending on your attitude. I had no attitude, and didn’t intend to have one until I could give reasons. All I would have conceded on the spot was that she didn’t hiss like a cobra or rattle like a rattler. As for her being the only one of the bunch to bid me welcome, that was sociable and kindhearted, but it would seem that she might have left that to the lady of the house. I thanked her for it anyway. She glanced at Trella, apparently uncertain whether to let it go at that or stay for a chat, murmured something polite, and moved away.

“I think it’s in her bones,” Trella said. “Or maybe her blood. Anyhow it’s nothing you can see or hear. Some kind of hypnotism, but I think she can turn it on and off. Did you feel anything?”

“I’m a secretary,” Mrs. Jarrell. Secretaries don’t feel.”

“The hell they don’t. Jim Eber did. Of course you’ve barely met her and you may be immune.”

Trella was telling me about a book on hypnotism she had read when Steck came to tell her dinner was ready.

It was uneven, five women and six men, and I was put between Lois and Roger Foote. There were several features deserving comment. The stenographer not only ate with the family, she sat next to Jarrell. The housekeeper, Mrs. Latham, helped serve. I had always thought a housekeeper was above it. Roger Foote, who had had enough to drink, ate like a truck driver — no, cut that — like a panhandler. The talk was spotty, mostly neighbor-to-neighbor, except when Corey Brigham sounded off about the Eisenhower budget. The leg of lamb was first-rate, not up to Fritz’s, but good. I noticed Trella noticing me the second time around. The salad was soggy. I’m not an expert on wine, but I doubted if it deserved the remarks it got from Herman Dietz.

As we were passing through the Moorish arch — half-Moorish, anyway — to return to the lounge for coffee, Trella asked me if I played bridge, and Jarrell heard her.

“Not tonight,” he said. “I need him. I won’t be here tomorrow. You’ve got enough.”

“Not without Nora. You know Susan doesn’t play.”

“I don’t need Nora. You can have her.”

If Susan had played, and if I could have swung it to be at her table, I would have been sorry to miss it. Perhaps you don’t know all there is to know about a woman after watching her at an evening of bridge, but you should know more than when you sat down. By the time we were through with coffee they had chosen partners and Steck had the tables ready. I had wondered if Susan would go off to her pit, but apparently not. When Jarrell and I left she was out on the terrace.

He led the way through the reception hall, across a Kirman twice as big as my room at home — I have a Kirman there, paid for by me, 8’4” x 3’2” — down the corridor, and around a couple of corners, to the door of the library. Taking a key fold from a pocket, he selected one, used it, and pushed the door open; and light came at us, so sudden and so strong that it made me blink. I may also have jumped.

He laughed, closing the key fold. “That’s my idea.” He pointed above the door. “See the clock? Anyone coming in, his picture is taken, and the clock shows the time. Not only that, it goes by closed circuit to the Horland Protective Agency, only three blocks away. A man there saw us come in just now. There’s a switch at my desk and when we’re in here we turn it off — Nora or I. I’ve got them at the doors of the apartment too, front and back. By the way, I’ll give you keys. With this I don’t have to wonder about keys — for instance, Jim Eber could have had duplicates made. I don’t give a damn if he did. What do you think of it?”

“Very neat. Expensive, but neat. I ought to mention, if someone at Horland’s saw me come in with you, he may know me, by sight anyway. A lot of them do. Does that matter?”

“I doubt it.” He had turned on lights and gone to his desk. “I’ll call them. Damn it, I could have come in first and switched it off. I’ll call them. Sit down. Have a cigar?”

It was the cigar he had lit in the lounge after dinner that had warned me to keep my eyes on the road. I don’t smoke them myself, but I admit that the finest tobacco smell you can get is a whiff from the lit end of a fine Havana, and when the box had been passed I had noticed that they were Portanagas. But I had not enjoyed the whiff I had got from the one Jarrell had lit. In fact, I had snorted it out. That was bad. When you can’t stand the smell of a Portanaga because a client is smoking it, watch out or you’ll be giving him the short end of the stick, which is unethical. Anyway, I saved him three bucks by not taking one.

He leaned back, let smoke float out of his mouth, and inquired, “What impression did you get?”

I looked judicious. “Not much of any. I only spoke a few words with her. Your suggestion that I get the others talking about her, especially your wife and your wife’s brother — there has been no opportunity for that, and there won’t be while they’re playing cards. I think I ought to cultivate Corey Brigham.”

He nodded. “You saw how it was there before dinner.”

“Sure. Also Foote and Dietz, not to mention your son. Your wife thinks she hypnotizes them.”

“You don’t know what my wife thinks. You only know what she says she thinks. Then you discussed her with my wife?”

“Not at any length. I don’t quite see when I’m going to discuss her at length with any of them. I don’t see how this is going to work. As your secretary I should be spending my day in here with you and Miss Kent, and if they spend the evening at bridge?”

“I know.” He tapped ash off in a tray. “You won’t have to spend tomorrow in here. I’m taking a morning plane to Toledo, and I don’t know when I’ll be back. Actually my secretary has damn little to do when I’m not here. Nora knows everything, and I’ll tell her to forget about you until I return. As I told you this afternoon, I’m certain that everybody here, every damn one of them, knows things about my daughter-in-law that I don’t know. Even my daughter. Even Nora.” His eyes were leveled at me. “It’s up to you. I’ve told you about my wife, she’ll talk your head off, but everything she tells you may or may not be so. Do you dance?”

“Yes.”

“Are you a good dancer?”

“Yes.”

“Lois likes to dance, but she’s particular. Take her out tomorrow evening. Has Roger hit you for a loan yet?”

“No. I haven’t been alone with him.”

“That wouldn’t stop him. When he does, let him have fifty or a hundred. Give him the impression that you stand in well with me — even let him think you have something on me. Buy my wife some flowers — nothing elaborate, as long as it’s something she thinks you paid for. She loves to have men buy things for her. You might take her to lunch, to Rusterman’s, and tip high. When a man tips high she takes it as a personal compliment.”

I wanted to move my chair back a little to get less of his cigar, but vetoed it. “I don’t object to the program personally,” I said, “but I do professionally. That’s a hell of a schedule for a secretary. They’re not halfwits.”

“That doesn’t matter.” He flipped it off with the cigar. “Let them all think you have something on me — let them think anything they want to. The point is that the house is mine and the money is mine, and whatever I stand for they’ll accept whether they understand it or not. The only exception to that is my daughter-in-law, and that’s what you’re here for. She’s making a horse’s ass out of my son, and she’s getting him away from me, and she’s sticking a finger in my affairs. I’m making you a proposition. The day she’s out of here, with my son staying, you get ten thousand dollars in cash, in addition to any fee Nero Wolfe charges. The day a divorce settles it, with my son still staying, you get fifty thousand. You personally. That will be in addition to any expenses you incur, over and above Wolfe’s fee and expenses.”

I said that no man can stop a conversation the way a woman can, but I must admit that Otis Jarrell had made a darned good stab at it. I also admit I was flattered. Obviously he had gone to Wolfe just to get me, to get me there in his library so he could offer me sixty grand and expenses to frame his daughter-in-law, who probably wasn’t a snake at all. If she had been, his itch to get rid of her would have been legitimate, and he could have left it as a job for Wolfe and just let me earn my salary.

It sure was flattering. “That’s quite a proposition,” I said, “but there’s a hitch. I work for Mr. Wolfe. He pays me.”

“You’ll still be working for him. I only want you to do what I hired him to do. He’ll get his fee.”

That was an insult to my intelligence. He didn’t have to make it so damned plain. It would have been a pleasure to square my shoulders and lift my chin and tell him to take back his gold and go climb a tree, and that would have been the simplest way out, but there were drawbacks. For one thing, it was barely possible that she really was a snake and no framing would be required. For another, if she wasn’t a snake, and if he was determined to frame her, she needed to know it and deserved to know it, but he was still Wolfe’s client, and all I had was what he had said to me with no witnesses present. For still another, there was the ten grand in Wolfe’s safe, not mine to spurn. For one more if we need it, I have my full share of curiosity.

I tightened my face to look uncomfortable. “I guess,” I said, “I’ll have to tell Mr. Wolfe about your proposition. I think I will. I’ve got to protect myself.”

“Against what?” he demanded.

“Well ... for instance, you might talk in your sleep.”

He laughed. “I like you, Goodwin. I knew we’d get along. This is just you and me, and you don’t need protection any more than I do. You know your way around and so do I. What do you want now for expenses? Five thousand? Ten?”

“Nothing. Let it ride and we’ll see.” I loosened the face. “I’m not accepting your proposition, Mr. Jarrell. I’m not even considering it. If I ever found myself feeling like accepting it, I’d meet you somewhere that I was sure wasn’t wired for sound. After all, Horland’s Protective Agency might be listening in right now.”

He laughed again. “You are cagey.”

“Not cagey, I just don’t want my hair mussed. Do you want me to go on with the program? As you suggested?”

“Certainly I do. I think we understand each other, Goodwin.” He put a fist on the desk. “I’ll tell you this, since you probably know it anyway. I’d give a million dollars cash any minute to get rid of that woman for good and call it a bargain. That doesn’t mean you can play me for a sucker. I’ll pay for what I get, but not for what I don’t get. Any arrangements you make, I want to know who with and for exactly what and how much.”

“You will. Have you any more suggestions?”

He didn’t have, at least nothing specific. Even after proposing, as it looked to me, an out-and-out frame, he still thought, or pretended to, that I might raise some dust by cultivating the inmates. He tried to insist on an advance for expenses, but I said no, I would ask for it if and when needed. I was surprised that he didn’t refer again to my notion that I might have to tell Wolfe about his proposition; apparently he was taking it for granted that I would take my bread buttered on both sides if the butter was thick enough. He was sure we understood each other, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t sure of anything. Before I went he gave me two keys, one for the front door and one for the library. He said he had to make a phone call, and I said I was going out for a walk. He said I could use the phone there, or in my room, and I said that wasn’t it, I always took a little walk in the evening. Maybe we understood each other at that, up to a point.

I went to the front vestibule, took the private elevator down, nodded at the sentinel in the lobby — not the one who had been there when I arrived — walked east to Madison, found a phone booth, and dialed a number.

After one buzz a voice was in my ear. “Nero Wolfe’s residence, Orville Cather speaking.”

I was stunned. It took me a full second to recover. Then I spoke, through my nose. “This is the city mortuary. We have a body here, a young man with classic Grecian features who jumped off Brooklyn Bridge. Papers in his wallet identify him as Archie Goodwin and his address—”

“Toss it back in the river,” Orrie said. “What good is it? It never was much good anyway.”

“Okay,” I said, not through my nose. “Now I know. May I please speak to Mr. Wolfe?”

“I’ll see. He’s reading a book. Hold it.”

I did so, and in a moment got a growl. “Yes?”

“I went for a walk and am in a booth. Reporting: the bed is good and the food is edible. I have met the family and they are not mine, except possibly the daughter, Lois. She shot a squirrel and wrote a poem about it. I’m glad you’ve got Orrie in to answer the phone and do the chores because that may simplify matters. You can stop my salary as of now. Jarrell has offered me sixty grand and expenses, me personally, to get the goods on his daughter-in-law and bounce her. I think his idea is that the goods are to be handmade, by me, but he didn’t say so in so many words. If it takes me twelve weeks that will be five grand a week, so my salary would be peanuts and you can forget it. I’ll get it in cash, no tax to pay, and then I’ll probably marry Lois. Oh yes, you’ll get your fee too.”

“How much of this is flummery?”

“None of the facts. The facts are straight. I am reporting.”

“Then he’s either a nincompoop or a scalawag or both.”

“Probably but not necessarily. He said he would give a million dollars to get rid of her and consider it a bargain. So it’s just possible he has merely got an itch he can’t reach and is temporarily nuts. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt because he’s your client.”

“And yours.”

“No, sir. I didn’t accept. I decided an advance for expenses. I turned him down, but with a manner and a tone of voice that sort of left it hanging. He thinks I’m just being cagey. What I think, I think he expects me to fix up a stew that will boil her alive, but I have been known to think wrong. I admit it’s conceivable that she has it coming to her. One thing, she attracts men without apparently trying to. If a woman gathers them around by working a come-on, that’s okay, they have a choice, they can play or not as they please. But when they come just because she’s there, with no invitation visible to the naked eye, and I have good eyes, look out. She may not be a snake, in fact she may be an angel, but angels can be more dangerous than snakes and usually are. I can stick around and try to tag her, or you can return the ten grand and cross it off. Which?”

He grunted. “Mr. Jarrell has taken me for a donkey.”

“And me for a goop. Our pride is hurt. He ought to pay for the privilege, one way or another. I’ll keep you informed of developments, if any.”

“Very well.”

“Please remind Orrie that the bottom drawer of my desk is personal and there’s nothing in it he needs.”

He said he would, and even said good night before he hung up. I bought a picture postcard at the rack, and a stamp, addressed the card to Fritz, and wrote on it, “Having wonderful time. Wish you were here. Archie,” went and found a mailbox and dropped the card in, and returned to the barracks.

In the tenth-floor vestibule I gave my key a try, found that it worked, and was dazzled by no flash of light as I entered, so the thing hadn’t been turned on for the night. As I crossed the reception hall I was thinking that the security setup wasn’t as foolproof as Jarrell thought, until I saw that Steck had appeared from around a corner for a look at me. He certainly had his duties.

I went to him and spoke. “Mr. Jarrell gave me a key.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is he around?”

“In the library, sir, I think.”

“They’re playing cards?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If you’re not tied up I cordially invite you to my room for some gin. I mean gin rummy.”

He batted an eye. “Thank you, sir, but I have my duties.”

“Some other time. Is Mrs. Wyman Jarrell on the terrace?”

“I think not, sir. I think she is in the studio.”

“Is that on this floor?”

“Yes, sir. The main corridor, on the right. Where you were with Mrs. Jarrell this afternoon.”

Now how the hell did he know that? Also, was it proper for a butler to let me know he knew it? I suspected not. I suspected that my gin invitation, if it hadn’t actually crashed the sound barrier, had made a dent in it. I headed for the corridor and for the rear, and will claim no credit for spotting the door because it was standing open and voices were emerging. Entering, I was in semi-darkness. The only light came from the corridor and the television screen, which showed the emcee and the panel members of “Show Your Slip.” The voices were theirs. Turning, I saw her, dimly, in a chair.

“Do you mind if I join you?” I asked.

“Of course not,” she said, barely loud enough. That was all she said. I moved to a chair to her left, and sat.

I have no TV favorites, because most of the programs seem to be intended for either the under-brained or the over-brained and I come in between, but if I had, “Show Your Slip” wouldn’t be one of them. If it’s one of yours, you can assume you have more brains than I have, and what I assume is my own affair. I admit I didn’t give it my full attention that evening because I was conscious of Susan there within arm’s reach, and was keeping myself receptive for any sinister influences that might be oozing from her, or angelic ones either. I felt none. All that got to me was a faint trace of a perfume that reminded me of the one Lily Rowan uses, but it wasn’t quite the same.

When the windup commercial started she reached to the chair on her other side, to the control, and the sound stopped and the picture went. That made it still darker. The pale blur of her face turned to me. “What channel do you want, Mr. Green?”

“None particularly. Mr. Jarrell finished with me, and the others were playing cards, and I heard it going and came in. Whatever you want.”

“I was just passing the time. There’s nothing I care for at ten-thirty.”

“Then let’s skip it. Do you mind if we have a little light?”

“Of course not.”

I went to the wall switch at the door, flipped it, and returned to the chair, and her little oval face was no longer merely a pale blur. I had the impression that she was trying to produce a smile for me and couldn’t quite make it.

“I don’t want to intrude,” I said. “If I’m in the way—”

“Not at all.” Her low voice, shy or coy or wary or demure, made you feel that there should be more of it, and that when there was you would like to be present to hear it. “Since you’ll be living here it will be nice to get acquainted with you. I was wondering what you are like, and now you can tell me.”

“I doubt it. I’ve been wondering about it myself and can’t decide.”

The smile got through. “So to begin with, you’re witty. What else? Do you go to church?”

“I don’t know because I don’t know you yet. I don’t go as often as I should. I noticed you didn’t eat any salad at dinner. Don’t you like salad?”

“Yes.”

“Aha!” A tiny flash came and went in her eyes. “So you’re frank too. You didn’t like that salad. I have been wanting to speak to my mother-in-law about it, but I haven’t dared. I think I’m doing pretty well. You’re witty, and you’re frank. What do you think about when you’re alone with nothing to do?”

“Let’s see. I’ve got to make it both frank and witty. I think about the best and quickest way to do what I would be doing if I were doing something.”

She nodded. “A silly question deserves a silly answer. I guess it was witty too, so that’s all right. I would love to be witty — you know, to sparkle. Do you suppose you could teach me how?”

“Now look,” I protested, “how could I answer that? It makes three assumptions — that I’m witty, that you’re not, and that you have something to learn from me. That’s more than I can handle. Try one with only one assumption.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize. But I do think you could teach me— Oh!” She looked at her wristwatch. “I forgot!” She got up — floated up — and was looking down at me. “I must make a phone call. I’m sorry if I annoyed you, Mr. Green. Next time, you ask questions.” She glided to the door and was gone.

I’ll tell you exactly how it was. I wasn’t aware that I had moved until I found myself halfway to the door and taking another step. Then I stopped, and told myself, I will be damned, you might think she had me on a chain. I looked back at the chair I had left; I had covered a good ten feet before I realized I was being pulled.

I went and stood in the doorway and considered the situation. I started with a basic fact: she was a little female squirt. Okay. She hadn’t fed me a potion. She hadn’t stuck a needle in me. She hadn’t used any magic words, far from it. She hadn’t touched me. But I had come to that room with the idea of opening her up for inspection, and had ended by springing up automatically to follow her out of the room like a lapdog, and the worst of it was I didn’t know why. I am perfectly willing to be attracted by a woman and to enjoy the consequences, but I want to know what’s going on. I am not willing to be pulled by a string without seeing the string. Not only that; my interest in this particular specimen was supposed to be strictly professional.

I had an impulse to go to the library and tell Jarrell he was absolutely right, she was a snake. I had another impulse to go find her and tell her something. I didn’t know what, but tell her. I had another one, to pack up and go home and tell Wolfe we were up against a witch and what we needed was a stake to burn her at. None of them seemed to be what the situation called for, so I found the stairs and went up to bed.