There was a knock on the living-room door. She hurried out of the bedroom.
I called, “Come in.”
A tall, wedge-shouldered, ruddy-faced individual in full tails and white tie smiled affably at me, at Miss Moore.
“We’re waiting for our principal speaker—”
The secretary stepped in. “Oh, I’m so terribly sorry, Mister Yaker. Mister Vine, Mister Yaker.” She made the introduction with nice timing that didn’t allow for either of us to learn anything except the other’s name. “But I’m afraid Mister Lanerd won’t be able to make the banquet.”
“Oh, now!” The Yaker person smoothed back short, sandy crew-cut hair which needed no smoothing; he screwed up his pleasant, weather-reddened features into a grimace of disappointment. “I’ve been holding those hundred and fifty men to their chairs on the strength of Mister Lanerd being able to—”
“He’s so distressed about it.” Ruth Moore made him feel she was distressed, too. “He asked me to have you extend his personal apologies to everyone at the dinner and to say that if he is asked again he will certainly be delighted to make up for the—”
I left her soothing him. The phone was burring. When I picked it up and said, “Hello,” the earpiece replied:
“How y’ doin’, lovey-duck?” An oddly agreeable, throaty, feminine drawl.
“Just fine.” If she didn’t recognize it wasn’t Lanerd on the line, she couldn’t know him very well.