Wolfe grunted. “What precisely would be my engagement?”
“To find out as soon as possible which one of them is hooking him.” Lewent aimed a thumb at the little stack he had put on Wolfe’s desk. “That thousand dollars is yours, succeed or fail, but it will have to cover everything because it’s all I can afford. It might seem hardly worth your while, but actually, since you never leave this house on business, it will take little of your time and talent. The work will be done by Mr. Goodwin, and you have to pay his salary anyhow, and the expense will be negligible — taxi fares to and from my father’s house on Sixty-ninth Street, now owned by Theodore Huck. I know something of Goodwin’s record and prowess, and one trip, one day, might be all he would require — with consultation with you, of course. He can go up there with me now.”
I didn’t throw him a kiss. I can take a compliment raw, with no chaser, as well as the next one, but I hope I have learned how to behave, and I had a weekend date.
Wolfe’s scowl had deteriorated to a mild frown. “You say you received a warning. From whom?”
“From Paul Thayer, Huck’s nephew. Huck lets him live there in the house. He’s as useless as I am — he composes music that no one will listen to. He hopes to inherit some of my father’s money from Huck, and he got alarmed and wrote me.”
“What alarmed him?”
“Some little things and one big thing. A man with cases came from Tiffany’s and was with Huck in his study for nearly an hour. That could mean only one thing: Huck was buying something expensive for a woman — one of those three.”
“Why? There are other women.”
Lewent shook his head. “Not for Huck. He can’t walk, and he hasn’t been out of the house more than two or three times since my sister died. No woman ever comes to see him. It’s one of those three. You might think Paul or I could discover which one, but it’s not so simple. He has his meals in his room or his study, and we see very little of him. Paul has tried approaching the women on it, and I have made a few little efforts in that direction myself, but it’s a delicate business.”
“Make friends with all three of them.”