Paula came in.
“Nothing much,” she said. “Salzer started his sanatorium in 1940. It’s a luxury place. Two hundred dollars a week.”
“Nice profit,” I said enviously.
“Some people must be crazy. Imagine paying all that dough for a glass of fruit juice,” Kerman said, horrified. “It sounds the kind of racket we should be in.”
“Nothing else?”
“He’s married. Speaks French and German fluently. Has a Doctor of Science degree. No hobbies. No children. Age fifty-three,” Paula said, reading from the card. “That’s all, Vic.”
“Okay,” I said, getting to my feet. “Give Jack a hand, will you? He wants the dope on this Parmetta girl and Sherrill. I’m going downstairs to have a word with Mother Bendix. I want to check on the Crosbys’ staff. That butler struck me as a phoney. Maybe she got him the job.”
V
At first glance, and come to that, even at second glance, Mrs. Martha Bendix, executive director of the Bendix Domestic Agency, could easily have been mistaken for a man. She was big and broad shouldered and wore her hair cut short, a man’s collar and tie, and a man’s tweed coat. It was only when she stood up and moved away from her desk you were surprised to see the tweed skirt, silk stockings and heavy brogue shoes. She was very hearty, and, if you weren’t careful to keep out of her reach, she had a habit of slapping you violently on the back, making you feel sick for the next two or three hours. She also had a laugh as loud as the bang of a twelve-bore shot-gun, and if you weren’t watching for it, you jumped out of your skin when she let it off. A woman I wouldn’t want to live with, but a good-hearted soul, generous with her money, and a lot more interested in nervous, frail little blondes than a big husky like me.
The timid bunny-faced girl who showed me into Mrs. Bendix’s cream and green office edged away from me as if I were full of bad intentions, and gave Mrs. Bendix a coy little smile that could have meant something or nothing depending on the state of your mind.