Free The Golden Spiders by Rex Stout

handle her personal checking account.”
    “Did she tell you what it was for?”
    “No. All she put on the stub was the word ‘retainer.’”
    “Well, I can’t tell you what it was for, but she was to see Mr. Wolfe again today. The check was certified yesterday and will be deposited Monday. Mr. Wolfe feels a responsibility to Mrs. Fromm and considers that he is obliged to investigate her death.”
    She was breathing better. “The police are investigating it. Two of them left here just half an hour ago.”
    “Sure. If they solve it, fine. But if they don’t, Mr. Wolfe will. Don’t you want him to?”
    “It doesn’t matter what I want, does it?”
    “It matters to Mr. Wolfe. The police can say to anybody involved, ‘Answer this one, or else,’ but he can’t. He wants to talk with you and sent me to bring you to his office, and I can persuade you to come only by one of three methods. I could threaten you if I had a good menace handy, but I haven’t. I could bribe you if I knew what to use for bait, but I don’t. All that’s left is to say that Mrs. Fromm came to see him and gave him that check, and he has reason to think that her death was connected with the matter she hired him to work on and therefore he feels obliged to investigate it, and he wants to start by talking with you. The question is whether you want to help. Naturally I should think you would, without any threats or bribes, even if I had some in stock. Our office is on Thirty-fifth Street. The cop out front will flag a taxi for us, and we can be there in fifteen minutes.”
    “You mean go now?”
    “Sure.”
    She shook her head. “I couldn’t. I have to-I couldn’t.” She was back in control, with all signs of the attack gone. “You say the question is whether I want to help, but that’s not it, it’s how I can help.” She hesitated, studying me. “I think I’ll tell you something.”
    “I’d appreciate it.”
    “I told you two policemen, detectives, left here half an hour ago.”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, while they were here, not long before they left, there was a phone call for one of them, and after he hung up he said I might be contacted by Nero Wolfe, probably through his assistant, Archie Goodwin, and I might be asked to go to see Nero Wolfe, and if so he hoped I would cooperate by going and then tell the police exactly what Wolfe said.”
    “That’s interesting. Did you agree to cooperate?”
    “No. I didn’t commit myself.” She got up, went to a desk, got a pack of cigarettes from a drawer, lit one, and took two healthy drags. She stood looking down at me. “The reason I told you that is purely selfish. I happen to think that Nero Wolfe is smarter than any policeman, but whether he is or not, Mrs. Fromm went to consult him yesterday and gave him that check, and I don’t know what for. Since I’m her secretary of course I’m involved in this, I can’t help that, but I’m not going to do anything to get more involved, and I certainly would be if I went to see Nero Wolfe. If I didn’t tell the police what Wolfe said they would never let up on me, and if I did tell them-what if he asked me about something that Mrs. Fromm had told him confidentially and wouldn’t want the police to know?”
    She took another drag at the cigarette, went to a desk and mashed it in a tray, and came back. “So I told you. I’m just a sweet innocent small-town girl from Nebraska, I don’t think. If ten years on your own in New York don’t teach you how to avoid collisions in heavy traffic, nothing will. Here I am in this mess, but I’m not going to say or do anything to make it worse than it is-for me. I’m going to have to get a job. I don’t owe Mrs. Damon Fromm anything-I worked for her, and she paid me, and nothing extravagant, either.”
    My head was tilted back to look up at her, with my face, if it was obeying orders, earnest and sympathetic. The starched collar was engraving the back of my neck. “You won’t get an argument