She laughed. “Where would we go to dance?”
“Anywhere. The Flamingo Club.”
I told the driver.
She turned out to be a pretty fair dancer, but not much at bending the elbow. The dinner mob already had the place nearly filled, but I declared a priority on a table in a corner that was being held for some deb’s delight, and when he turned up with his Abigail Spriggs alumna I just stared him out of it into the jungle. Ann and I got along fine. Socially the evening was absolutely okay, but fundamentally I was there on business and from that angle it was close to a washout.
Not that I didn’t gather information. I learned that the pigeon I had seen in the coop was a Sion-Stassart pigeon named Dusky Diana, the holder of nine diplomas and the mother of four 500-mile winners, and Roy Douglas had paid $90 for her, and she had hit a chimney three days ago in a gust of wind while out exercising, and was being nursed. Also that there had been a feud between Miss Leed’s mother and Mrs. Chack, Ann’s grandmother, dating from the 19th century, which Mrs. Chack and Miss Leeds were carrying on. The cause of the feud was that Chack fed squirrels and Leeds fed pigeons, both using Washington Square as a base of operations. They were both there every morning soon after dawn, staying a couple of hours, and again in the late afternoon. Mrs. Chack could stay later than Mrs. Leeds, often until after dark, because pigeons went to bed earlier than squirrels, and it was Mrs. Chack’s daily triumph when the enemy had to give up and go home. The bitterest and deepest aspect of the feud was that Mrs. Chack had accused Miss Leed’s mother of poisoning squirrels on December 9, 1905, and tried to have her arrested. That date had not been forgotten and never would be.
Also I learned that Miss Leed’s mother had died on December 9, three months ago. Mrs. Chack had announced to the neighborhood that it had been a visitation of God’s slow anger at an ancient crime, and whisperings that got to the ears of the police had resulted in a discreet investigation, but nothing had come of it. Here I thought I had something up a tree, in fact I was sure I had, from the way Ann acted, but that was as far as I got. Nor was she discussing her fiancé, even to the extent of admitting she had one. Evidently she was sticking to it that I was just handsome.
All of a sudden, around midnight, I realized something. What brought it to my attention was the fact that I was noticing the smell of her hair while we were dancing. I was even sniffing it. It had startled me so I bumped into a couple on the right and nearly toppled them over. There I was — presumably on duty, working, and sore at her for being too damn stubborn to open up — and there I was deliberately smelling hair! That was a hell of a note. I steered her around to an edge, off the floor and back to the table, and sat her down and called for the check.
“Oh,” she said, “must we go?”
“Look here,” I told her, looking in her wide-open eyes, “you’re giving me a run-around. Maybe you did the same to Lily Rowan, or she did to me. Are you in trouble, or aren’t you?”
“Why, yes. Yes, Archie, I am.”