“I owe Miss Alving nothing.” Mrs. Whitten had raised her head from the pillow, aiming her eyes at me, but now she let it fall back, and again she sighed, taking in all the air she could get. “It is no secret that my husband knew her once, but their — it was ended when he got married. That is no secret either.”
“I know that,” I agreed. “But I couldn’t discuss things even if I knew about them. I’m just a messenger boy. My job was to arrange for Mr. Wolfe to talk with you, and it looks as if I’ll have to pass it up for now, since he never leaves his house to see anyone on business, and you can’t very well be expected to leave yours if your doctor has put you to bed.” I grinned down at her. “That’s why I apologized for bothering you. Maybe tomorrow or next day?” I backed away. “I’ll phone you, or Mr. Wolfe will.”
Her head had come up again. “You’re going to tell me,” she said in a tone that could not have been called a cluck, “exactly why Miss Alving sent you here to annoy me.”
“I can’t,” I told her from the door. “Because I don’t know. And I promised your son I’d make it brief.” I turned the knob and pulled. “You’ll be hearing from us.”
Two daughters and a son were out on the landing. “Okay,” I told them cheerfully, got by, and started down. Bahr and Mortimer were in the reception hall, and I nodded as I breezed past, opened the door for myself, and was out.
Since what I wanted was the nearest phone booth, I turned left, toward Madison, and one block down, at the corner, entered a drug store.
Routine would have been to call Wolfe and get his opinion of my interesting idea, but he had sicked me onto them with nothing to go by but his snooty remark that circumstances might offer suggestions, so I went right past him. I could have got what I wanted from 20th Street, but if I got a break and my hunch grew feathers I didn’t want the Homicide boys in on it, so the number I dialed was that of the Gazette office. Lon Cohen was always there until midnight, so I soon had him.
“I’m looking,” I told him, “for a good doctor to pierce my ears for earrings, and I think I’ve found one. Call me at this number” — I gave it to him — “and tell me who New York license UMX four three three one seven belongs to.”
He had me repeat it, which shouldn’t have been necessary with a veteran newspaperman. I hung up and did my waiting outside the booth, since the temperature inside was well over a hundred. The phone rang in five minutes, exactly par for that routine item of research, and a voice — not Lon’s, for he was a busy man at that time of night — gave me a name and address: Frederick M. Cutler, M.D., with an office on East 65th and a residence on Park Avenue.
It was ten blocks away, so I went for the car and drove it, parked on the avenue a polite distance from the canopy with the number on it, and went in. The lobby was all it should have been in that locality, and the night man took exactly the right attitude toward a complete stranger. On my way I had decided what would be exactly the right attitude for me.