If twenty thousand isnt enough, he said, for a retainer and advances for expenses, say so. You havent accepted the job, I know, but Im camping here until you do. You spoke of managing things. I want you to manage that if they go on with their investigation it doesnt go deep enough to uncover and make public a certain event in my life. I also want you to manage that I dont get arrested and put on trial for murder.
Wolfe grunted. I could give no guarantee against either contingency.
I dont expect you to. I dont expect you to pass miracles, either. And two things I want to make plain: first, if Faith Usher was murdered I didnt kill her and dont know who did; and second, my own conviction is that she committed suicide. I dont know what Goodwins reason is for thinking she was murdered, but whatever it is, Im convinced that hes wrong.
Wolfe grunted again. Then why come to me in a dither? If youre convinced it was suicide. Since they are human the police do frequently fumble, but usually they arrive at the truth. Finally.
Thats the trouble. Finally. This time, before they arrive, they might run across the event I spoke of, and if they do, they might charge me with murder. Not they might, they would.
Indeed. It must have been an extraordinary event. If that is what you intend
to confide in me, I make two remarks: that you are not yet my client, and that even if you were, disclosures to a private detective by a client are not a privileged communication. Its an impasse, Mr Laidlaw. I cant decide whether to accept your job until I know what the event was; but I will add that if I do accept it I will go far to protect the interest of a client.
Im desperate, Wolfe, Laidlaw said. He pushed his hair back, but it needed more than a push. I admit it. Im desperate. Youll accept the job because theres no reason why you shouldnt. What Im going to tell you is known to no one on earth but me, Im pretty sure of that, but not absolutely sure, and thats the devil of it.
He pushed at his hair again. Im not proud of this, what Im telling you. Im thirty-one years old. In August, nineteen fifty-six , a year and a half ago, I went into Cordonis on Madison Avenue to buy some flowers, and the girl who waited on me was attractive, and that evening I drove her to a place in the country for dinner. Her name was Faith Usher. Her vacation was to start in ten days, and by the time it started I had persuaded her to spend it in Canada with me. I didnt use my own name; Im almost certain she never knew what it was. She only had a week, and when we got back she went back to work at Cordonis, and I went to Europe and was gone two months. When I returned I had no idea of resuming any relations with her, but I had no reason to avoid her, and I stopped in at Cordonis one day. She was there, but she would barely speak to me. She asked me, if I came to Cordonis again, to get someone else to wait on me.
I suggest, Wolfe put in, that you confine this to the essentials.
I am. I want you to know just how it was. I dont like to feel that I owe anyone anything, especially a woman, and I phoned her twice to get her to meet me and have a talk, but she wouldnt. So I dropped it. I also stopped buying flowers at Cordonis, but some months later, one rainy day in April, I went there because it was convenient, and she wasnt there. I didnt ask about her. I include these details because you ought to know what the chances are that the police are going to dig this up.
First the essentials, Wolfe muttered.
All right, but you ought to know how I found out that she was at Grantham House. Grantham House is an institution started by
I know what it is.
Then I dont have to explain it. A few days after I had noticed that she wasnt at Cordonis a friend of mine told mehis name is Austin Byne, and he is Mrs Robilottis nephewhe told me that he had been at Grantham House the day before on an errand for Mrs Robilotti and had seen a girl there that he recognized. He said I might recognize her toothe girl with the little oval face and green eyes who used to work at Cordonis. I told him I doubted it, that I didnt remember her. But I
Was Mr Bynes tone or manner suggestive?
No. I didnt thinkIm sure it wasnt. But I wondered. Naturally. It had been eight months since the trip to Canada , and I did not believe that she had been promiscuous. I decided that I must see her and talk with her. I prefer to think that my chief reason was my feeling of obligation, but I dont deny that I also wanted to know if she had found out who I was, and if so whether she had told anyone or was going to. In arranging to see her I took every possible precaution. Shall I tell you exactly how I managed it?
Later, perhaps.
All right, I saw her. She said that she had agreed to meet me only because she wanted to tell me that she never wanted to see me or hear from me again. She said she didnt hate meI dont think she was capable of hatebut that I meant only one thing to her, a mistake that she would never forgive herself for, and that she only wanted to blot me out. Those were her words: blot you out. She said her baby would be given for adoption and would never know who its parents were. I had money with me, a lot of it, but she wouldnt take a cent. I didnt raise the question whether there could be any doubt that I was the father. You wouldnt either, if it had been you, with her, the way she was.