“So you did. So I did.”
“But not with the right person. I would like to take advantage of your acquaintance with the elder Miss Sperling, but you may balk. You may have scruples.”
“Much obliged. It would depend on the kind of advantage. If all I’m after is facts, scruples are out. She knows I’m a detective and she knows where we stand, so it’s up to her. If it turns out that she killed Rony I’ll help you pin the medal on her. What is it you want?”
“I want you to go up there tomorrow morning.”
“Glad to. What for?”
He told me.
Chapter 17
Like all good drivers, I don’t need my mind for country driving, just my eyes and ears and reflexes. So when we’re on a case and I’m at the wheel of the car in the open, I’m usually gnawing away at the knots. But as I rolled north on the parkways that fine sunny June morning I had to find something else to gnaw on, because in that case I couldn’t tell a knot from a doughnut. There was no puzzle to it; it was merely a grab bag. So I let my mind skip around as it pleased, now and then concentrating on the only puzzle in sight, which was this: had Wolfe sent me up here because he thought I might really get something, or merely to get me out of the way while he consulted his specialist? I didn’t know. I took it for granted that the specialist was Mr. Jones, whom I had never been permitted to meet, though Wolfe had made use of him on two occasions that I knew of. Mr. Jones was merely the name he had given me offhand when I had had to make an entry in the expense book.
On the phone I had suggested to Madeline that it might be more tactful for me to park outside the entrance and meet her somewhere on the grounds, and she replied that when it got to where she had to sneak me in she would rather I stayed out. I didn’t insist, because my errand would take me near the house anyway, and Sperling would be away, at his office in New York, and I doubted if Jimmy or Mom would care to raise a howl at sight of me since we were now better acquainted. So I turned in at the entrance and drove on up to the house, and parked on the plaza behind the shrubbery, at the exact spot I had chosen before.
The sun was shining and birds were twittering and leaves and flowers were everywhere in their places, and Madeline, on the west terrace, had on a cotton print with big yellow butterflies on it. She came to meet me, but stopped ten feet off to stare.