Rex Stout_Nero Wolfe 07 Read Online Free PDF Page A

good reason why you must help her, and she agreed to it because she had to. The reason is that my friend, Neya Tormic, is your daughter.”
    Wolfe’s eyes popped open to a new record. Not liking the sight of that, I transferred my astonished stare to the girl.
    Wolfe exploded: “My daughter? What’s this flummery?”
    “She is your daughter.”
    “My daugh—” Wolfe was speechless. He found a piece of his voice:
    “You said her name is Tormic.”
    “I told you her name in America is Neya Tormic just as mine is Carla Lovchen.”
    Wolfe, erect, was glaring at her. She glared back. They stayed that way.
    Wolfe blurted, “I don’t believe it. It’s flummery. My daughter disappeared. I have no daughter.”
    “You haven’t seen her since she was three years old. Have you?”
    “No.”
    “You should. Now you will. She’s very good-looking.” She opened her handbag and fished in it. “I suspected you wouldn’t want to believe me, so I got this from Neya and brought it along. Here.” She reached to hand him a paper. “There is your name where you signed it …”
    She went on talking. Wolfe was scowling at the paper. He went over it slowly and carefully, holding it at an angle for better light from the window. His jaw was clamped. I watched him and listened to her. What with the paper hid in his book and now this, it began to look as if the Montenegrin female situation held great promise.
    He finished inspecting the thing, folded it with deliberation, and stuck it in his pocket.
    Miss Lovchen extended a hand. “No, you must give it back. I must return it to Neya. Unless you take it to her yourself?”
    Wolfe regarded her. He grunted. “I don’t know anything about this. The paper’s all right. That is my signature. It belonged to that girl. It still does, if she lives. How do I know it wasn’t stolen?”
    “For what?” She shrugged. “You’re suspicious beyond anything to be expected. Stolen to be brought across the ocean for what? To have an effect on you, here in America? No, you are famous, but not as famous as all that. It was not stolen from her. She sent me to show it to you and to tell you. She is in trouble!” Her eyes flashed at him. “What are you in your opinion, a rock on Durmitor for a goat to stand on? You will see your grown daughter for the first time perhaps in a jail?”
    “I don’t know. I am not in my opinion a rock. Neither am I a gull. I couldn’t find that girl when I went back to Yugoslavia to look for her. I don’t know her.”
    “But your America will know her! The daughter of Nero Wolfe! In jail for stealing! Only she didn’t steal! She is no thief!” She sprang up and put her hands on his desk and leaned across at him. “Pfui!” She sat down again and flashed her eyes at me to let me know she was making no exceptions. I winked at her. Admitting the princess theory and counting me as a peasant. I suppose it was out of character.
    Wolfe sighed, long and deep. There was a silence during which I could hear both of them breathing. At length he muttered:
    “It’s preposterous. Grotesque. No matter how many tricks you learn, life knows a better one. I’ve put many people in jail, and kept many out. Now this. Archie, your notebook. Miss Lovchen, please give Mr. Goodwin the details of this trouble your friend had got into.” He leaned back and shut his eyes.
    She told it and I put it down. It looked to me, as it unfolded, as if somebody’s confidence in someone’s daughter might turn out to be misplaced. The two girls taught both dancing and fencing at Nikola Miltan’s studio on East 48th Street. It was an exclusive joint with a pedigreed clientele and appropriate prices for lessons. They had got their jobs through an introduction from Donald Barrett, son of John P. Barrett of Barrett & De Russy, the bankers. Dancing lessons were given in private rooms. The salle d’armes, on the floor above, consisted of a large room and two smaller ones, and there were two locker