“Oh. You are Archie Goodwin, aren’t you? I’ve seen your picture too.”
“Then I’m it.”
“I—” She hesitated, then made up her mind. “I want to ask you something.”
“Shoot.”
Someone trotted in from the street, a brisk female in mink, executive type, between twenty and sixty, and the girl and I moved aside to clear the lane to the elevator. The newcomer told Nils Lamm she was seeing Leo Heller and refused to give her name, but when Lamm insisted she coughed it up: Agatha Abbey, she said, and he let her take the elevator. The girl told me she had been working all night and was tired, and we went to a bench by the fireplace. Close up, I would still have said twenty-three or — four, but someone or something had certainly been harassing her. Naturally there was a question in my mind about the night work.
She answered it. “My name’s Susan Maturo, and I’m a registered nurse.”
“Thanks. You know mine, and I’m a registered detective.”
She nodded. “That’s why I want to ask you something. If I hired Nero Wolfe to investigate a — a matter, how much would it cost?”
I raised my shoulders half an inch and let them down. “It all depends. The kind of matter, the amount of time taken, the wear and tear on his brain, the state of your finances....”
I paused, letting it hang, to return a rude stare that was being aimed at us by another arrival, a thin tall bony specimen in a brown suit that badly needed pressing, with a bulging briefcase under his arm. When my gaze met his he called it off and turned and strode to the elevator, without any exchange with Nils Lamm.