“Very well. Let Saul and Fred and Orrie out first, after you have given them expense money as specified.”
I went to the safe for the dough.
Chapter 8
From their manner, and glances that passed between them as I ushered the callers into the office and got them into chairs, I gathered that I had been too hasty in assuming they were sidekicks. The glances were not affectionate.
Dennis Horan was a little too much. His eyelashes were a little too long, and he was a little too tall for his width and a little too old for campus tailoring. He needed an expert job of toning down, but since he had apparently spent more than forty years toning up I doubted if he would consider an offer.
Maddox made it plain to Wolfe that his name was James Albert Maddox. He had been suffering with ulcers from the cradle on, close to half a century — or if not, it was up to him to explain how his face had got so sour that looking at him would have turned his own dog into a pessimist. I put them into a couple of the yellow chairs which the boys had vacated, not knowing which of them, if either, rated the red leather one.
Horan opened up. He said that he had not intended, on the phone that morning, to intimate that Wolfe was doing or contemplating anything improper or unethical. He had merely been trying to safeguard the interests of his former friend and client, Mrs. Damon Fromm, who had been—
“Not your client,” interposed Maddox in a tone that matched his face perfectly.
“I advised her,” Horan snapped.
“Badly,” Maddox snapped back.