“Of course. Not illegal, no felony, but at least odd. Miss Page deserves an explanation, and she’ll get it. Doubtless you’ll get it too, later, from her. Mr. Goodwin and I are taking Miss Page up to the plant rooms to show her my orchids and have a talk with her,” He waved a hand. “There are books and magazines here, or you may go down to the office if you prefer.”
The muscles of Morton’s jaw had set. “I must insist—”
“No. Don’t try.” Wolfe was curt. “Since this concerns Miss Page, I do not intend to substitute my discretion for hers. We’ll rejoin you in half an hour or so. Archie, tell Fritz that there will be two luncheon guests, at one sharp.”
XI
Wolfe never tries to deny he’s vain, but I doubt if he’ll ever admit that it’s an exercise of vanity when he takes someone who is under a strain up to the plant rooms. He acts nonchalant, but I can tell when he’s enjoying himself. Beulah met expectations. In the blaze of the Cattleya room she only looked dazed, but the Dendrobiums and Phalaenopsis really got her. She stopped dead and just looked, with her mouth open.
“Someday,” Wolfe said, not sounding pleased, with his usual self-control, “you must spend an hour up here. Or two hours. Now I’m afraid we haven’t time.”
He nudged her along to the potting room and told Theodore, the orchid nurse, that he had better go and see to the ventilators. When Theodore had gone and Wolfe was in his chair and Beulah and I on stools, he said abruptly, “You’re not an infant, Miss Page. You’re nineteen years old.”
She nodded, “In Georgia I could vote.”
“So you could. Then I won’t have to use a nipple for this. We’ll ignore non-essentials; they can be dealt with later, at more leisure — as, for instance, why Mr. Goodwin chose such a name as Harold Stevens to lure you down here yesterday. Do you know what a hypothetical question is?”
“Certainly.”