Over My Dead Body

I turned it off, because he was ignoring me and giving his attention to the cards. Reflecting that that was an unusually childish gesture even for him, since it lacked only three minutes till eleven o'clock, the hour when he invariably proceeded from the plant rooms to the office, I snorted audibly, wheeled, and went for the stairs.

The immigrant was still in the chair, reading, but had abandoned the book for a magazine. I looked around for it to return it to the shelf, but saw that she had already done so; it was back in its place, and I gave her a good mark for that, because I've noticed that most girls are so darned untidy around a house. I told her Wolfe would be down soon, and had just got my notes cleared away and the typewriter lowered when I heard the door of his personal elevator clanging, and a moment later he entered. A pace short of his desk he arrested his progress to acknowledge the visitor's presence with a little bow which achieved only one degree off the perpendicular, then continued to his chair, got deposited, glanced at the vase of cattleyas and the morning mail under the weight, put his thumb to the button to summon beer, leaned back and adjusted himself, and sighed. The visitor, with the magazine closed on her lap, was gazing at him through long, lowered lashes.

Wolfe said abruptly and crisply, "Lovchen? That is not your name. It is no one's name."

Her lashes fluttered. "My name," she said with a half-smile, "is what I say it is. Would you call it a convenience? Not to irritate the Americans with a name like Kraljevitch?"

"Is that yours?"

"No."

"No matter." Wolfe sounded testy-as far as I could see, for no reason. "You came to see me?"

Her lips parted for a soft little laugh. "You sound like a Tsernagore," she declared. "Or a Montenegrin if you prefer it, as the Americans do. You don't look like one, since Tsernagores grow up and up, not out and all around like you. But when you talk I feel at home. That's exactly how a Tsernagore speaks to a girl. Is it what you eat?"

I turned my head to enjoy a grin. Wolfe demanded, almost bellowing at her, "What can I do for you, Miss Lovchen?"