The Missing Heiress

Chapter 4

The next morning, I parked at my desk in the office finishing my last cup of breakfast coffee when the elevator doors in the hall opened and Nero Wolfe strode into the office, right on time at 11:03. He placed a raceme of purple miltonia in the vase on his blotter and settled into the reinforced chair built to handle his weight.

“Good morning, Archie, did you sleep well?” he asked as he rang for beer.

“I did, the usual five hundred ten minutes. As you can see, I’ve stacked the morning delivery from the post office on your desk. Nothing particularly interesting.”

Wolfe flipped through the pile of mostly junk mail and scowled as Fritz Brenner brought in two bottles of chilled Remmers and a stein on a tray, placed the array in front of his boss, and returned to the kitchen.

After he had taken his first healthy drink of beer, I spoke to my employer: “Miss Rowan is highly troubled at the moment.”

“Indeed?” he said, eyebrows climbing halfway up his forehead. “And why would that be?”

Although Wolfe avoids the company of women whenever possible, he makes a marked exception for Lily Rowan. His affinity for her stems from their first meeting years ago when she asked if she could see his ten thousand orchids in the climate-controlled greenhouse on the roof of the brownstone. Since then he has sent her orchids from his collection every year on her birthday. And she is one of the few females who has shared dinner at his table — and on several occasions.

I proceeded to describe the Maureen Carr situation in detail, and when I had finished, Wolfe leaned back, interlacing his fingers over his middle mound. “You showed admirable restraint in stepping aside and allowing Miss Rowan to conduct her investigation unfettered,” he said. “She is an independent individual and needs to be treated as such.”

“I have known that about her for years,” I said. “She is aware that I will be around if needed, but for now, I plan to stay on the sidelines.”

Wolfe dipped his chin in what was a sign of approval for my stance. “If at any time you feel she has need for counsel, she will of course be welcome here.” His remark did not surprise me, and I told him we should keep that option open.

The days passed. We had one short-lived and reasonably remunerative case, in which Wolfe, with minimal help from me, was able to identify the embezzler at a large Midtown department store. I avoided telephoning Lily, lest I should seem nosy about her sleuthing progress. This restraint on my part meant, of course, that we did not see each other, which I found to be a strain, as we are used to spending frequent nights on the town, whether at dinner, a sports event, dancing, the opera, or a Broadway play.

Then one morning while I was at my desk typing letters Wolfe had dictated the day before, the phone rang, and for reasons I can’t explain, I knew it was Lily.

“Have you missed me?” she asked.

“That’s pretty good as a conversation starter,” I told her. “I could play coy, of course, but instead I will own up. Of course, I have missed you, and quite a bit.”

“Aren’t you going to ask what I’ve been up to all this time?”

“I figure that if you want me to know something, you will tell me.”

“Archie! You’re not miffed, are you?”

“Not in the least, my dear. I have just wanted to give you some space with this—”

“Investigation,” she said, finishing my sentence. “And I do thank you for your forbearing. As ever, you are a gentleman.”

“Forbearing. A very good word.”

“I believe I used it correctly. Would Nero Wolfe approve?”

“I am sure he would. I’ve heard it from him on numerous occasions. Now... just what have you been up to?”

Lily laughed. “Ah, so you are curious after all.”

“Do you blame me?”

Another laugh. “I’d like to talk to you about what I’ve learned. May I take you to dinner — and at Rusterman’s?”

“How can I say no to an offer like that?”

“I was hoping you couldn’t. Come by for me in a taxi at seven fifteen, and I will make a seven thirty reservation.”

When I pulled up in front of her building in a cab, Lily came out of the lobby, her high heels clicking on the sidewalk. I climbed out of the taxi, held open the door, and bowed as she stepped in; then I went around and got in through the street-side door.

“Ah, what a fine gesture,” she said as I settled next to her.

“I was not about to make you slide all the way across the seat,” I told her. “Only a cad would do that. Cabbie, take us to Rusterman’s Restaurant, as fast as this old chariot of yours can go.”

“Right you are, Govn’r,” he answered with a lame attempt at a British accent.

Felix, owner Marko Vukcic’s right-hand man at the restaurant, seated us in a corner well removed from other diners and smiled at Lily, asking, “Is this table to your liking, Miss Rowan?”

“It certainly is, Felix. Thank you so much for remembering our favorite spot.” He presented menus and a wine list, promised that our waiter would be with us shortly, then executed a snappy about-face and left us.

Lily turned to me with a grin. “After we order some wine and decide on our entrées — and remember, this is on me — I will give you a report on my recent activities.”

“As a sleuth?”

“Well... I guess you could call it sleuthing. I was able to reach every one of the men Maureen had gone out with who was listed in her calendar.”

“Congratulations.”

“Not so fast with any plaudits; I really learned very little,” Lily said. “Most of them had little or no idea where she had gone, and none thought that she had behaved in any strange way the last time each was with her.”

“What about the last guy she was seen with, according to her calendar — Lloyd Thorne, wasn’t it?”

“Ah, your memory is as sharp as ever. I talked to him in his office, and he was the only one who said he sensed some unease in Maureen.”

“What did he say about her?”

Lily paused as I chose a wine and the waiter retreated. “With that memory of yours, you will of course remember that they went to the opera Tannhäuser. Thorne said from the moment he picked her up in a cab that night, Maureen was very distracted, not at all like she had been on previous occasions.”

“Any idea how many dates they’d had?”

Lily shook her head. “As I mentioned to you before, she has never talked a lot about her social life, at least not to me. But I got the impression from Thorne that theirs was not an overly serious relationship.”

“What else did he say about that night?”

“That Maureen was not her usual, talkative self on the way to the opera, at the intermissions, or when they had drinks later. ‘She seemed to be somewhere else,’ Thorne told me,” Lily added as she pulled some sheets of paper out of her purse and read from them. “‘I can’t explain it exactly, except to say it was almost like I wasn’t even there,’ Thorne said. ‘She didn’t ask me anything about myself, as she had on previous occasions, and she didn’t seem to be the least bit interested in any topic I brought up. Now you tell me that none of her friends has heard from her for days.’”

“How did Thorne seem to you?”

“Concerned, definitely. We talked in a conference room at his law firm, and he acted genuinely surprised that she had dropped out of sight. ‘I can’t imagine where she has gone to,’ he said. ‘She always seemed so well grounded to me, so self-confident.’ He really had no suggestions as to anyone else I might talk to about her whereabouts.”

“It sounds like the other men you spoke to also weren’t really helpful,” I said.

“They weren’t. Each one was agreeable to meet me. I talked to Jason Reed, the book publisher, and Eric Mason, the ad man, in their offices. Will Talmadge, whose company makes electric cables, met with me in his apartment at the Dakota; and Clay Dalton and I had coffee at a café in Greenwich Village near where he lives. Each of them, like Thorne, said he had no idea where Maureen might have gone.

“Also, they all professed genuine affection for her, especially Eric Mason, the one she sees more frequently than the others. He seemed to be the most concerned about her. If I were to guess, I’d now say that something serious might be cooking between them.”

“Interesting. Anything else to add?”

Lily paused and shook her head as if in disbelief. “Talmadge told me he thought it would be a good idea — no, make that a great idea — if he and I were to go out together sometime soon. He even suggested I might stay for a while in his apartment and have lunch with him, served by his own chef.”

“And then after lunch?”

“We did not get that far. I told him, politely, I believe, that my social calendar is well filled, and it is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.”

“How did he take that?”

“Actually, quite well. My suspicion is that Mr. Talmadge is used to making similar suggestions to other women.”

“And getting the kind of responses he got from you?”

“I cannot be certain, of course, but given the man’s suavity — if that’s even a word — I suspect that he is not always stymied in his, shall we say, approaches.”

“I can only say that I am glad he was stymied on this occasion.”

“You say the sweetest things to a girl, you smooth talker.”

“Lord knows, I try.”