“My mind was elsewhere. You ought to know that too. We can compare notes on that some other time. Thank you very much for stalling it until it was too late for your father to head us off. Also thank you for taking my word for it that this is the best we can do for Gwenn. How many names have I got here now and where do they fit?”
“Oh, you’re Archie everywhere. I explained that much to Webster and Paul and Connie too, because they’ll eat lunch with us and it would have been too complicated, and anyway with Nero Wolfe here — they’re not halfwits. Incidentally, you’ve made lunch late; we usually have it at one, so come on. How’s your appetite?”
I told her I’d rather show her than tell her, and we went in.
Lunch was served in the big dining room. Wolfe and I were the only ones with neckties on, though the day was too chilly for extremes like shorts. Sperling had a striped jacket over a light blue silk shirt open at the neck. Jimmy and Paul Emerson were sporting dingy old coat sweaters, one brown and one navy. Webster Kane varied it with a wool shirt with loud red and yellow checks. Mrs. Sperling was in a pink rayon dress and a fluffy pink sweater, unbuttoned; Connie Emerson in a dotted blue thing that looked like a dressing gown but maybe I didn’t know; Gwenn in a tan shirt and slacks; and Madeline in a soft but smooth wool dress of browns and blacks that looked like a PSI fabric.
So it was anything but a formal gathering, but neither was it free and easy. They ate all right, but they all seemed to have trouble deciding what would be a good thing to talk about. Wolfe, who can’t stand a strained atmosphere at meals, tried this and that with one and then another, but the only line that got anywhere at all was a friendly argument with Webster Kane about the mechanism of money and a book by some Englishman which nobody else had ever heard of, except maybe Sperling, who may have known it by heart but wasn’t interested.
When that was over and we were on our feet again, there was no loitering around. The Emersons, with Paul as sour as ever and Connie not up to form in her dressing gown if she will excuse me, went in the direction of the living room, and Webster Kane said he had work to do and went the other way. The destination of the rest of us had apparently been arranged. With Sperling in the lead, we marched along halls and across rooms to arrive at the library, the room with books and a stock ticker where I had wangled the master key and had later phoned Saul Panzer. Wolfe’s eyes, of course, immediately swept the scene to appraise the chairs, which Sperling and Jimmy began herding into a group; and, knowing he had had a hard night, I took pity on him, grabbed the best and biggest one, and put it in the position I knew he would like. He gave me a nod of appreciation as he got into it, leaned back and closed his eyes, and sighed.
The others got seated, except Sperling, who stood and demanded, “All right, justify this. You said you could.”
Chapter 7
Wolfe stayed motionless for seconds. He raised his hands to press his fingertips against his eyes, and again was motionless. Finally he let his hands fall to the chair arms, opened the eyes, and directed them at Gwenn.
“You look intelligent, Miss Sperling.”