Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 10 by Not Quite Dead Enough Page B

of the way. He was beginning to get riled. “I am going on the assumption,” he said testily, “that you either killed Miss Amory or you didn’t, which seems reasonable. If you did, the way you conduct yourself here is strictly your own affair. If you didn’t you are foolish to act in a way that enforces suspicion of you. It would be a good plan for you to give the impression that you are willing to help us find out who killed Miss Amory, in either case.”
    “I am perfectly willing. More than willing. I’m anxious. But this is a fine way to go about it. Keeping me sitting here for hours while you pump this Roy Douglas.” Lily was indignant. “Cops in front of the house. That room probably full of cops. Starting out by telling me I’m suspected of murder. Archie taking down what I say.” She turned on me. “You bum, this is a swell way to repay me for obeying orders the way I did! I never took orders from anyone else in my life and you know it!”
    She went back to Wolfe. “As far as Ann Amory is concerned, if Archie has told you what I told him, you know all I know. I hadn’t seen her or thought of her for years until she came to see me a few weeks ago and said she was in trouble and wanted me to send her to a lawyer. All I can do is repeat what I told Archie.”
    “Do so,” Wolfe muttered.
    “I will not! Let him do it!” She was warming up. She turned on me again:
    “Look at you, you damn stenographer! Telling me to come here and talk it over, and this is what I run into! I used to have some sense until I met you! Now what do I do? Chase off down to Washington just to find out where you are because you won’t answer my telegrams! Use enough pull to get my picture on the coverof
Life
just to find you’re taking an airplane and get a seat on it! Not only that, blab it all out to you because it might soften your heart! And you were too busy to make any social engagements, and I phone here fifty times, and finally I go out for a drink, and there you are dancing! If I ever do go in for murder, I know exactly where I’ll start! And on top of all that I’m enough of a sap to pack up and take a train—”
    “Please!” Wolfe said peremptorily. “Miss Rowan!”
    She sat back. “There,” she said in a tone of satisfaction, “I feel better. I wanted to get that off my chest in the presence of witnesses. Now if you’ll instruct him to take me somewhere and buy me a drink—”
    “Please,” Wolfe said curtly, “don’t get started again. I sympathize with your resentment at the presence of the police, but it’s not my fault. None of this is my fault. I abandon any attempt to question you about Miss Amory, but I would like to ask you one or two things about Mr. Goodwin. Apparently you find him as vexatious as I do. Did I understand you to say that you went to Washington in search of him, and went to some trouble to get a seat on the airplane he was taking, and informed him of that fact?”
    “Yes.”
    “On Monday? Day before yesterday?”
    “Yes.”
    “Indeed.” Wolfe pursed his lips. “He said that meeting was accidental. I didn’t know he had a streak of modesty in him.”
    “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Lily said sarcastically. “He hasn’t. He wouldn’t think it was worth bragging about unless it was the three Soong sisters.”
    Wolfe nodded. “It’s only that it gives me an idea. You say he hadn’t answered your telegrams. Possibly your pestering—that is, your recent efforts to communicatewith me came from your desire, not so much to help Miss Amory as to learn the whereabouts of Mr. Goodwin. If you would care to answer that—”
    “They did.”
    “I see. And the phone ringing here Monday evening, that was you. And Tuesday? Yesterday? Was that also you?”
    “Yes. You might as well—”
    “Please. I can guess what all that frustration might have done to a woman of your temperament. It is only a guess, but it deserves a little investigation.” Wolfe raised his voice. “Mr.