If Death Ever Slept

Jarrell’s office, which was called the library, was also on the first floor, in the rear. When I arrived with him, Monday afternoon, he took me straight there after turning my luggage over to Steck, the butler. It was a big square room with windows in only one wall, and no decorator had had a go at it. There were three desks, big, medium, and small. The big desk had four phones, red, yellow, white, and black; the medium one had three, red, white and black; and the small one had two, white and black. All of one wall was occupied by a battery of steel filing cabinets as tall as me. Another was covered by shelves to the ceiling, crammed with books and magazines; I found later that they were all strictly business, everything from Profits in Oysters to North American Corporation Directory for the past twenty years. The other wall had three doors, two big safes, a table with current magazines-also business-and a refrigerator.

Jarrell led me across to the small desk, which was the size of mine at home, and said, “Nora, this is Alan Green, my secretary. You’ll have to help me show him the ropes.”

Nora Kent, seated at the desk, tilted her head back to aim a pair of gray eyes at me. Her age, forty-seven, was recorded in my notebook, but she didn’t look it, even with the gray showing in her soft brown hair. But the notebook also said that she was competent, trustworthy, and nobody’s fool, and she looked that. She had been with Jarrell twenty-two years. There was something about the way she offered a hand that gave me the feeling it would be more appropriate to kiss it than to grip it, but she reciprocated the clasp firmly though briefly.

She spoke. “Consider me at your service, Mr. Green.” The gray eyes went to Jarrell. “Mr. Clay has called three times. Toledo operator seven-nineteen wants you, a Mr. William R. Bowen. From Mrs. Jarrell there will be three guests at dinner; the names are on your desk, also a telegram. Where do you want me to start with Mr. Green?”

“There’s no hurry. Let him get his breath.” Jarrell pointed to the medium-sized desk, off to the right. “That’s yours, Green. Now you know your way here, and I’ll be busy with Nora for a while. I told Steck-here he is.” The door had opened and the butler was there. “Steck, before you show Mr. Green to his room take him around. We don’t want him getting lost. Have you told Mrs. Jarrell he’s here?”

“Yes, sir.”