Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 24 Read Online Free PDF Page B

here.”
    She led the way into the room where I had watched the TV with Mrs. O’Shea, and through an arch into a larger room where a table toward one end was set with six places. She was telling me, “Since Mrs. Huck died we eat in here mostly, only I’m not often here for dinner. Sit down. We’ll have cocktails later, upstairs with Mr. Huck.”
    We sat, not at the table. She was saying, “I was Mrs. Huck’s secretary for four years, and when she died Mr. Huck kept me. He depends on me a lot. I wish you’d tell me something.”
    “Practically anything,” I assured her. “Name it.”
    “Well—Mr. Huck feels sure that his brother-in-law is trying to blackmail him, and so do I. What do you think?”
    Her gray-green eyes were at mine, intent, earnestly wanting to know what I thought. She couldn’t possibly have been that free of guile, so I realized she was pretty good. “I’m afraid,” I told her, “you’ll have to fill in some. Usually a man knows whether he’s being blackmailed or not without telling his good-looking secretary to ask a brainy detective what he thinks. Look out or you’ll have your fingers in a hard knot and they won’t come loose.”
    She jerked her fingers apart, extended a hand as if to touch me in appeal, and then took it back without reaching me.
    “I wish we could talk just like two people,” she saidhopefully. “I wish I knew how to ask you to help me.”
    “Nothing could be simpler. Help you what?”
    “With Mr. Huck.” Her eyes were holding mine. “I said he depends on me, and he always has, but now I don’t know. Your coming here like this has made him suspicious. He knows that his nephew, Paul Thayer, is friendly with Mr. Lewent, and he thinks Paul and I are friends, and I think he suspects we are in a plot to blackmail him. He hasn’t said so, but I think he does, and you know that isn’t true. Why can’t you tell me exactly how it stands, exactly what Mr. Lewent is after, and then possibly I can suggest something? I know Mr. Huck so well. I know how his mind works. Whatever it is you’re after for Mr. Lewent, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to make me lose a good job by getting Mr. Huck suspicious of me. Would you?”
    “I should say not.” I was emphatic. “But you said you agree with Huck, you feel sure that Lewent is trying to blackmail him. Since Lewent is our client, that hurts me, and I think we ought to clear it up. How about coming with me to ask Lewent and see what he has to say?”
    “Now?”
    “Right now.”
    She hesitated a moment, then stood up. “Come on.”
    In the hall we turned to the stairs instead of the elevator, and began the ascent. By the time we were up one flight, halfway, I had decided how to back out of it and postpone the discovery until I had had a chance to see a few more faces. But I didn’t have to do any backing. When we reached the second landing and I turned to her, she had already stopped, and was standing, straight and stiff, her head tilted back a little for her eyes to slant up at me.
    “No,” she said.
    “No what?”
    “It wouldn’t do any good. I can’t! I can’t talk with that man.” A shiver ran over her. “He gives me the creeps! I don’t want you—” She broke off, caught her lower lip with her teeth, and turned and headed along the hall toward the door to Huck’s room. She didn’t run, but she sure didn’t loiter. When she reached the door she knocked, and, without waiting for an invitation, opened, entered, and shut the door. I moved noiselessly on the thick carpet,got to the wide door and put an ear to the crack, and heard a faint murmur of voices, much too low to catch any words. I stayed put, hoping for more decibels if they got agitated, and was still at the crack when a sound from above warned me. I was standing at the elevator door and had pressed the button by the time feet and shapely calves had come into sight on the stairs.
    It was Sylvia Marcy. At the foot, instead of turning toward the