No! Fritz said.
Why no?
You, Archie?
Why not me?
It will ruin everything. They will all be back at Grantham House in less than a year.
No, I said sternly. I appreciate the compliment, but this is a serious matter and I need advice. Consider: these girls are mothers, but they are improved mothers. They are supposed to be trying to get a toehold on life. Say they are. Inviting them to dinner at that goddam palace, with four young men from the circle that woman moves in as table partners, whom they have never seen before and dont expect ever to see again, is one hell of a note. Okay, I cant help that; I cant improve Grantham, since hes dead, and I would hate to undertake to improve Mrs Robilotti, dead or alive, but I have my personal problem: how do I act? I would welcome suggestions.
Fritz cocked his head. Why do you go?
Because a man I know asked me to. Thats another question, why he picked me, but skip it. I guess I agreed to go because I thought it would be fun to watch, but now I realize it may be pretty damn grim. However, Im stuck, and whats my programme? I can try to make it gay, or clown it, or get one of them talking about the baby, or get lit and the hell with it, or shall I stand up and make a speech about famous mothers like Venus and Mrs Shakespeare and that Roman woman who had twins?
Not that. No.
Then what?
I dont know. Anyway, you are just talking.
All right, you talk a while.
He aimed a knife at me. I know you so well, Archie. As well as you know me, maybe. This is just talk and I enjoy it. You need no suggestions. Programme? He slashed at it with the knife. Ha! You will go there and look at them and see, and act as you feel. You always do. If it is too painful you will leave. If one of the girls is enchanting and the men surround her, you will get her aside and tomorrow you will take her to lunch. If you are bored you will eat too much, no matter what the food is like. If you are offendedTheres the elevator! He looked at the clock. My God, its eleven! The larding! He headed for the refrigerator.
I didnt jump. Wolfe likes to find me in the office when he comes down, and if Im not there it stirs his blood a little, which is good for him, so I waited until the elevator door opened and his footsteps came down the hall and on in. I have never understood why he doesnt make more noise walking. You would think that his feet, which are no bigger than mine, would make quite a business of getting along under his seventh of a ton, but they dont. It might be someone half his weight. I gave him enough time to cross to his desk and get himself settled in his custom-built oversize chair, and then went. As I entered he grunted a good morning at me and I returned it. Our good mornings usually come then, since Fritz takes his breakfast to his room on a tray, and he spends the two hours from nine to eleven, every day including Sunday, up in the plant rooms with Theodore and the orchids.
When I was at my desk I announced, I didnt deposit the cheques that came yesterday on account of the weather.
It may let up before three.
He was glancing through the mail I had put on his desk. Get Dr Vollmer, he commanded.
The idea of that was that if I let a little thing like a cold gusty March rain keep me from getting cheques to the bank I must be sick. So I coughed. Then I sneezed. Nothing doing, I said firmly. He might put me to bed, and in all this bustle and hustle that wouldnt do. It would be too much for you.
He shot me a glance, nodded to show that he was on but was dropping it, and reached for his desk calendar. That always came second, after the glance at the mail.
What is this phone number? he demanded. Mrs Robilotti? That woman?
Yes, sir. The one who didnt want to pay you twenty grand but did.
What does she want now?
Me. Thats where you can get me this evening from seven oclock on.
Mr Hewitt is coming this evening to bring a Dendrobium and look at the Renanthera. You said you would be here.
I know, I expected to, but this is an emergency. She phoned me this morning.
I didnt know she was cultivating you, or you her.
Were not. I havent seen her or heard her since she paid that bill. This is special. You may remember that when she hired you and we were discussing her, I mentioned a piece about her I had read in a magazine, about the dinner party she throws every year on her first husbands birthday. With four girls and four men as guests? The girls are unmarried mothers who are being rehabil
I remember, yes. Buffoonery. A burlesque of hospitality. Do you mean you are abetting it?
I wouldnt say abetting it. A man I know named Austin Byne phoned and asked me to fill in for him because hes in bed with a cold and cant go. Anyhow, it will give me a fresh outlook. It will harden my nerves. It will broaden my mind.
His eyes had narrowed. Archie.
Yes, sir.
Do I ever intrude in your private affairs?
Yes, sir. Frequently. But you think you dont, so go right ahead.
I am not intruding. If it is your whim to lend yourself to that outlandish performance, very well. I merely suggest that you demean yourself. Those creatures are summoned there for an obvious purpose. It is hoped that they, or at least one of them, will meet a man who will be moved to pursue the acquaintance and who will end by legitimating, if not the infant already in being, the future produce of the womb. Therefore your attendance there will be an imposture, and you know it. I begin to doubt if you will ever let a woman plant her foot on your neck, but if you do she will have qualities that would make it impossible for her to share the fate of those forlorn creatures. You will be perpetrating a fraud.