Too Many Cooks

Without erasing the doubt, he made to move. “Okay. The next time I tell a man a joke it’ll be the one about Pat and Mike. Come on, Rollo.”

He led me through the lobby, down past the elevators, and along a ways to a narrow side corridor. It had doors with frosted glass panels, and he opened one on the right side and motioned me in. It was a small room, and all its furniture consisted of a switchboard running its entire length, perhaps fifteen feet, six maidens in a row with their backs to us, and the straight-backed chairs which the maidens inhabited. Odell went to the one at the end and conversed a moment, and then thumbed me over to the third in the line. From the back her neck looked a little scrawny, but when she turned to us she had smooth white skin and promising blue eyes. Odell said something to her, and she nodded, and I told her:

“I’ve just thought up a new way to make a phone call. Mr. Wolfe in Suite 60, Upshur Pavilion, wants to put in a call to New York and I’m going to stay and watch you do it.”

“Suite 60? That’s the man that was shot.”

“Yep.”

“And it was you that told me I’m a wonder.”

“Yep. In a way I came to check up. If you’ll just get—”

“Excuse me.” She turned and talked and listened, and monkeyed with some plugs. When she was through I said:

“Get New York, Liberty 2-3306, and put it on Suite 60.”

She grinned. “Personally conducted phone calls, huh?”

“Right. I haven’t had so much fun in ages.”

She got busy. I became aware of activity at my elbow, and saw that Odell had got out a notebook and pencil and was writing something down. I craned the neck for a glimpse of his scrawl, and then told him pleasantly, “I like a man that knows his job the way you do. To save you the trouble of listening for the next one, it’s going to be Spring 7-3100. New York Police Headquarters.”

“Much obliged. What’s he doing, yelling for help because he got a little scratch on the face?”

I made a fitting reply with my mind elsewhere, because I was watching operations. The board was an old style, and it was easy to tell if she was listening in. Her hands were all over the place, pushing and dropping plugs, and it was only five minutes or so before I heard her say, “Mr. Wolfe? Ready with New York. Go ahead, please.” She flashed me a grin. “Who was I supposed to tell about it? Mr. Odell here?”

I grinned back. “Don’t you bother your little head about it. Be good, dear child—”

“And let who will wear diamonds. I know. Have you heard the one—excuse me.”

Odell stayed with me till the end. He had a long wait, for Wolfe’s talk with Saul Panzer lasted a good quarter of an hour, and the second one, with Inspector Cramer—provided he got Cramer—almost as long. When it was finished and the plugs had been pulled, I thought it was only sociable to ask the maiden whether she preferred oblong diamonds or round ones, and she replied that she would much rather have a copy of the Bible because most of hers were getting worn out, she read them so much. I made a feint to pat her on the head and she ducked and Odell plucked me by the sleeve.

I left him in the lobby with thanks and an assurance that I hadn’t forgotten his aspirations to the Hotel Churchill, regarding which Mr. Wolfe would sound out Mr. Liggett at the first opportunity.

A minute later I had an opportunity myself, but was too busy to take advantage of it. Going away from the main entrance in the direction of my next errand took me past the mounting block, and there was a bunch of horses around, some mounted and some not, with greenjacket grooms. I like the look of horses at a distance of ten feet or more, and I slowed down as I went by. It was there I saw Liggett, with the right clothes on which I suppose he had borrowed, dismounting from a big bay. Another reason I slowed down was because I thought I might see another guest get stepped on, but it didn’t happen so. Not that I have anything against guests as guests; it’s only my natural feeling about people who pay twenty bucks a day for a room to sleep in, and they always look either too damn sleek or as if they had been born with a bellyache. I know if I was a horse …