“Both, then. Get names and addresses, Archie.”
I did so. Prescott’s office and home, the Hawthorne house on 67th Street, where they all were temporarily, and, not least important, Naomi Karn’s apartment on Park Avenue. They straggled into the hall, and I left the front to Fritz. Stauffer, I noticed, was solicitous at April Hawthorne’s elbow. May was the last one out of the office, having lingered for a word with Wolfe which I didn’t catch. I heard the front door close, and Fritz glanced in on his way back to the kitchen.
“Pfui!” said Wolfe.
“And wowie,” I agreed. “But at that they’re not vultures. I’m going to marry April. Then after a bit I’ll divorce her and marry her blond secretary—”
“That will do. Confound it, anyway. Well, you have two hours—”
“Sure.” I assumed a false cheerfulness. “Let me say it for you. I am to have Miss Karn here at six o’clock. Or a few minutes before, so as not to keep you waiting.”
He nodded. “Say ten minutes to six.”
It was too damned hot to throw something at him. I merely made a disrespectful noise, beat it out to the sidewalk where the roadster was parked, climbed in, and was on my way.
Chapter 3
I suppose altogether, in business and out, I’ve had dealings of one kind or another with more than a hundred baby dolls. I was more or less taking it for granted that my call on Naomi Karn that afternoon would add one more to the number, but I was wrong. As the maid escorted me through the large and luxurious foyer of the apartment on the twelfth floor, on Park Avenue near 74th — where I had got admitted by saying I was sent by Mr. Glenn Prescott — and ushered me into a cool dim room with cool summer covers on the furniture, and I got close enough for a good look at the woman standing by the piano bench, I saw right away that I was wrong.