If Death Ever Slept (3 page)

'The one that lost an arm.'

'That's it. One day in March a squirrel was skipping around on it, up near the top. I was nine years old. My father had given my brother a rifle for his birthday. I went and got the rifle and loaded it, and came out and stood here, right at this spot, and waited until the squirrel stopped to rest, and shot it. It tumbled off. On the way down it bumped against limbs twice. I yelled for Wy, my brother, and he came and I showed it to him, there on the ground not moving, and he-but the rest doesn't matter. With anyone I might possibly fall in love with I like to start off by telling him the worst thing I ever did, and anyway you brought it up by saying you were looking at a squirrel. Now you know the worst, unless you think it's worse that several years later I wrote a poem called 'Requiem for a Rodent.' It was published in my school paper.'

'Certainly it's worse. Running it down by calling it a rodent, even though it was one.'

She nodded. 'I've suspected it myself. Some day I'll get analyzed and find out.' She waved it away, into the future. 'Where did you ever get the idea of being a secretary?'

'In a dream. Years ago. In the dream I was the secretary of a wealthy pirate. His beautiful daughter was standing on the edge of a cliff shooting at a gopher, which is a rodent, down on the prairie, and when she hit it she felt so sorry for it that she jumped off the cliff. I was down below and caught her, saving her life, and it ended romantically. So I became a secretary.'

Her brows were lifted, opening her eyes as wide as they would go. 'I can't imagine how a pirate's daughter happened to be standing on a cliff on top of a prairie. You must have been dreaming.'

No man could stop a conversation as dead in its tracks as that. It takes a woman. But at least she had the decency to start up another one. With her eyes back to normal, she cocked her head a little to the side and said, 'You know, I'm bothered. I'm sure I've seen you before somewhere, and I can't remember where, and I always remember people. Where was it'Have you forgotten too?'

I had known that might come from one or more of them. My picture hadn't been in the papers as often as the president of Egypt's, or even Nero Wolfe's, and the latest had been nearly a year ago, but I had known it might happen. I grinned at her. I hadn't been grinning in any published picture. One thing, it gave me a chance to recover the ball she had taken away from me.

I shook my head. 'I wouldn't forget. I only forget faces I don't care to remember. The only way I can account for it, you must have seen me in a dream.'

She laughed. 'All right, now we're even. I wish I could remember. Of course I may have seen you in a theater or restaurant, but if that's it and I do remember I won't tell you, because it would puff you up. Only you'll need puffing up after you've been here a while. He's my dear father, but he must be terrible to work for. I don't see- Hi, Roger. Have you met Alan Green'Dad's new secretary. Roger Foote.'

I had turned. Trella's brother bore as little resemblance to her as Wyman Jarrell did to his father. He was big and broad and brawny, with no stuffing at all between the skin and the bones of his big wide face. If his size and setup hadn't warned me I might have got some knuckles crushed by his big paw; as it was, I gave as good as I got and it was a draw.

'Muscle man,' he said. 'My congratulations. Trust the filly to arch her neck at you. Ten to one she told you about the squirrel.'

'Roger,' Lois told me, 'is horsy. He nearly went to the Kentucky Derby. He even owned a horse once, but it sprang a leak. No Pimlico today, Roger?'

'No, my angel. I could have got there, but I might never have got back. Your father has told Western Union not to deliver collect telegrams from me. Not to mention collect phone calls.' He switched to me. 'Do you suppose you're going to stick it?'

'I couldn't say, Mr. Foote. I've only been here two hours. Why, is it rough going?'

'It's worse than rough. Even if you're not a panhandler like me. My brother-in-law is made of iron. They could have used him to make that godawful stuff in the lounge, and I wish they had. Look at the Derby. I was on Iron Liege, or would have been if I had had it. I could have made myself independent for a week or more. You get the connection. You would think a man made of iron would stake me for a go on Iron Liege'No.' He lifted a hand to look at it, saw it was empty, and dropped it. 'I must have left my drink inside. You're not thirsty?'

'I am,' Lois declared. 'You, Mr. Green'Or Alan. We make free with the secretary.' She moved. 'Come along.'

I followed them into the lounge, and across to a portable bar where Otis Jarrell, with a stranger at each elbow, a man and a woman, was stirring a pitcher of Martinis. The man was a wiry little specimen, black-eyed and black-haired, very neat in charcoal, with a jacket that flared at the waist. The woman, half a head taller, had red hair that was either natural or not, a milk-white face, and a jaw. Jarrell introduced me, but I didn't get their names until later: Mr. and Mrs. Herman Dietz. They weren't interested in the new secretary. Roger Foote moved to the other side of the bar and produced a Bloody Mary for Lois, a scotch and water for me, and a double bourbon with no accessories for himself.

I took a healthy sip and looked around. Wyman, the son, and Nora Kent, the stenographer, were standing over near the fireplace, which had no fire, presumably talking business. Not far off Trella was relaxed in a big soft chair, looking up at a man who was perched on one of the arms.

Lois' voice came up to my ear. 'You've met my stepmother, haven't you?'

I told her yes, but not the man, and she said he was Corey Brigham, and was going to add something but decided not to. I was surprised to see him there, since he was on my list as the guy who had spoiled a deal, but the guests had been invited by her, not him. Or maybe not. Possibly Jarrell had suggested it, counting on bringing me home with him and wanting me to meet him. From a distance he was no special treat. Leaning over Trella with a well-trained smile, he had all the earmarks of a middle-aged million-dollar smoothie who would slip a headwaiter twenty bucks and tip a hackie a dime. I was taking him in, filing him under unfinished business, when he lifted his head and turned it left, and I turned mine to see what had got his attention.

The snake had entered the room.

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.