WHERE THERE by Rex Stout

Author:Rex Stout [Stout, Rex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-02-12T21:17:02+00:00

Chapter Ten

Evidently I lost my aplomb. I may even have stared with my jaw hanging open.

Anyhow, I came to when Wolfe fired at me:

"What's the matter with you? Palsy?"

Fred Durkin says I tittered. I did not. I merely said in a composed voice, "Mr.

Brenner would like to speak to you a moment privately. In the hall."

He glared at me suspiciously, then lifted his bulk with a grunt, crossed, and passed through the door which I opened. I pulled the door shut.

"Well?" he demanded.

I said in an undertone, "We're being stalked. Engage in earnest whispered conversation, mumble umble, diddie riggie..."

The footsteps I had heard became Mr. John Charles Dunn and his wife June. Coming up the stairs, they reached our level, and, turning for the corridor, saw us. Dunn called:

"Have you seen Prescott, Mr. Wolfe? He's here and wants to talk with you."

Wolfe replied that he hadn't seen the lawyer but would do so presently. Dunn nodded and, his wife beside him, dragged his feet along the corridor to the next flight of stairs. As soon as they were out of sight I switched to English again: "Naomi Karn is down in the living room, but that's not what gave me palsy. Daisy Hawthorne is there with her talking to her."

He growled, "What the devil did you drag me out here for? If you think this is a time for childish flummery -"

"No, sir, I don't. Far from it. I'm telling you, the veiled widow is there in the library.

She is also downstairs chatting with Naomi Karn. I just this second saw her.

Someone's playing a funny joke. But who's the joke on, us up here, or Naomi down there?"

"Do you mean to tell me someone is masquerading -"

"Yeah, that's the idea. These Hawthorne girls certainly are cards. But which is which?"

"In the living room talking with Miss Karn?"

"Yep."

"You just saw them?"

"Yep."

"Did you see Orrie?"

"Yep. She led him here at 2:28 and was admitted by the butler."

He frowned at me a moment, pursing his lips, and then said, "Ask Fred to come here."

I did so. Wolfe told him: "Go on up there and do your utmost to keep awake. Don't lose the letter to Mr. Ames. Don't get in a fight. I'll be either here or at home."

"Mr. Wolfe, I'm sorry I-"

"So am I. Goon."

Fred went. Wolfe eyed me. "Now. We don't need to flounder around with this. I'll sit where I was. You sit beyond her. I'll ask you to hand me something, and as you pass her you will lift that confounded veil."

"I don't want to."

"I don't blame you. Please open the door."

That was one of the times I would have resigned on the spot but for the practical certainty that he would have given the job to Johnny Keems out of pure cussedness. I am not a softy. I once smacked a dainty little Cuban lassie out of her senses when she came to the office with a dagger in her sock, with the intention of presenting it to Nero point first because he had draped a smuggling job around the neck of her blackeyed boy friend.

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