Death of a Doxy (Crime Line)

"I won't. I now report what he told me. He was up a stump. He was going to marry a girl named Jill Hardy, an airline stewardess. He showed me a picture of her. They had set a date early in May, when she would have a vacation coming. But it had hit a snag. Another girl, by name Isabel Kerr, was objecting. She had the idea of marrying Orrie herself, and also the idea that he was, or would be, the father of the baby she expected to have in about seven months. She intended to make an issue of it, in public if necessary. She said she had in her possession, presumably in a locked drawer in her apartment, or possibly stashed somewhere, certain objects she could use. One of the objects was his private investigator's license, which she had lifted from his pocket one night about a month ago. Also some pictures and letters, and perhaps other items that Orrie didn't know about. The big point wasn't that she could hook him, but that she could queer him with Jill Hardy."

Wolfe grunted. "She couldn't force him to marry her. Why marry at all?"

"Sure. That's your slant, but it wasn't Orrie's. He wanted the objects, and he was pretty sure they were in the apartment. He knew she spent two or three afternoons a week at the movies, and nearly always Saturday afternoons. He had keys. The idea was that I was to go there the next day, Saturday, now yesterday, at a quarter past four, ring the bell, get no response, go in and up, and look around. I didn't care for it much. Such a chore for Saul or Fred, of course, but while I have nothing against Orrie, I wouldn't borrow his socks. He pointed out that I wouldn't be out on a limb, no matter what. If she was there and answered the bell I would bow out. Almost certainly she wouldn't come before I left, but if she or anyone did I could just be polite; I hadn't broken and entered, I had used keys which she had given him."

"So you went," Wolfe growled.