Rex Stout Read Online Free PDF Page B

detective agency should not look like a beauty parlor. She might, before getting on her feet, have to borrow money from some other source than Sylvia, but the obligation of a debt ceased when it was discharged with interest. In any event, Dick should go to Gresham and be maintained there—both her brother and her pride deserved that. She sat considering these things, and others connected with them, when she might better have been devoting her talents to the problems of some of the Bonner & Raffray clients: the $400 gown that had unaccountably disappeared between thesalon of Elizabeth Hawes and the Park Avenue apartment of Anita Gifford; the whereabouts of the champion Sealyham whose prolonged absence was sending Colonel Fethersee into fits; the strangled pheasants of Martin Foltz; the intentions of a showgirl name Lili Lombard with regard to a youth named Harold Ives Beaton, and his with regard to her. But she was so far away from those problems and the immediate scene that she did not hear the sounds accompanying an arrival in the ante-room.
    There was a tap at the door of her room, and it opened, and closed. Martha was there. Her eyes looked red.
    “A man to see you, Miss Bonner. It’s the man that phoned.”
    “Oh. Has he remembered his name?”
    “I … I didn’t ask him. Shall I ask him?”
    Dol shook her head. “Send him in.”
    Martha, out again, left the door open, and in a moment a man came through, and Martha, behind him, was at the knob. At sight of the caller there was a flicker of surprise beneath Dol’s black lashes. But it was not noticeable in her voice: “How do you do, Mr. Storrs.—You may go, Martha. I won’t need you.”
    “I can stay if you want, Miss Bonner.”
    “No. I don’t want. Behave yourself. See you Monday.”
    Martha backed out with the knob. P. L. Storrs approached the desk. He removed a handsome topcoat, placed it on a chair and his hat on top, took another chair for himself, and rumbled in his bass:
    “You’re surprised to see me, I suppose. I didn’t give my name on the telephone because I know you’re temperamental and you might have run away.”
    “Run away?” Dol’s brows went up. “From you?”
    Storrs nodded. “Pique. Resentment. I suppose Sylvia came here from my office this morning. Naturally you’re in a tantrum.”
    Dol laughed a little. “I’m not much on tantrums. I think you have interfered in something that was none of your business, but that seems—”
    “That thing in the Gazette was none of my business?” Storrs showed a little color. “That outrageous—” Hestopped himself abruptly. “But here now. That’s a waste of time. I came here for something else.”
    Dol observed sweetly. “You started it. Temperament, tantrums, pique …”
    “Forget it. I didn’t come here to quarrel, and I didn’t come to apologize. But my attitude toward Sylvia, and toward that infamous newspaper article, has nothing to do with my admiration of your abilities. I’ve seen enough of you to realize that you are a very competent person. I can use that competence. I want to hire you to do a job.”
    “A job?” Dol sounded surprised. “I’m a detective.”
    “This is a detective job. A confidential and difficult one.”
    Dol looked at him suspiciously. “I think not.” She shook her head. “It’s pretty transparent, Mr. Storrs. Congratulations on your kind heart, but if you think you’ve been tough on a poor young girl trying to get along in the world and want to make up for it—no, thanks. It isn’t necessary. I don’t despise charity for those who have to have it, but I certainly despise it for myself.” She smiled at him and finished briskly. “Thank you very much.”
    “Don’t thank me.” Storrs rewarded her smile with a scowl. “And don’t jump ahead like that. Your mind needs discipline. I have no notion of making anything up to you. Even if I were inclined that way, at present I am too damned busy trying to make things up to myself. I