Black Orchids

She looked up at me. That way, with her head tilted up, from that angle, she looked kind of pretty.

"What did I-what?"

"That snapshot you took from my desk. It's the only picture I've got of you. Where did you put it?"

"I didn't-" Her mouth closed. "I didn't!" she said defiantly.

I sat down and shook my head at her. "Now listen," I said pleasantly. "Don't lie to me. We're comrades. Side by side we have sought the chitlin in its lair. The wild boar chitlin. That picture is my property and I want it. Let's say it fluttered into your bag. Look in your bag."

"It isn't there." With a new note of spunk in her voice, and a new touch of color on her cheeks, she was more of a person. Her bag was beside her on the chair, and her left hand was clutching it.

"Then I'll look in your bag." I started for her.

"No!" she said. "It isn't there!" She put a palm to her stomach. "It's here."

I stopped short, thinking for a second she had swallowed it. Then I returned to my chair and told her, "Okay. You will now return it. You have three alternatives. Either dig it out yourself, or I will, or I'll call in Maryella and hold you while she does. The first is the most ladylike. I'll turn my back."

"Please." She kept her palm against her stomach. "Please! It's my picture!"

"It's a picture of you, but it's not your picture."

"Miss Huddleston gave it to you."

I saw no point in denying the obvious. "Say she did."

"And she told you… she… she thinks I sent those awful letters! I know she does!"

"That," I said firmly, "is another matter which the boss is handling. I am handling the picture. It is probably of no importance except as a picture of the girl who thought up the Stryker dwarf and giant party. If you ask Mr. Wolfe for it he'll probably give it to you. It may even be that Miss Huddleston stole it; I don't know. She didn't say where she got it. I do know that you copped it from my desk and I want it back. You can get another one, but I can't. Shall I call Maryella?" I turned my head and looked like a man about to let out a yell.

"No!" she said, and got out of her chair and turned her back and went through some contortions. When she handed me the snapshot I tucked it under a paperweight on Wolfe's desk and then went to help her collect the breeding cards from the floor where they had tumbled from her lap.

"Look what you did," I told her, "mixed them all up. Now you can help me put them in order again…"