Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 41 Read Online Free PDF

stump.” I turned a palm up. “Look, Mrs. Bruner. Mr. Wolfe couldn’t possibly tackle it without something in writing. What if it got so hot you wanted out, leaving him in? What if you tried to hedge on what you hired him to do and wanted the retainer back?”
    “I wouldn’t do that. I’m not a hedger, Mr. Goodwin.”
    “Good. Then go ahead and sign it.”
    She looked at it, at me, back at it, and at Miss Dacos.
    “Here, Sarah,” she said, “make a copy of it.”
    “I have a carbon,” I said, and handed it to her. By gum, she read it through. Well trained by her husband, or by the lawyers after he died. She took a pen from a stand and signed the original, and I reached for it.
    “So that’s why Mr. Wolfe wanted you to come this morning,” she said.
    I nodded. “Partly. He wanted me to ask Miss Dacos a few questions about being tailed, and I have. I saw your tail yesterday. When you left a car followed you, close, with two men in it, and I got the license number. They were FBI. They want you to know. From here on we probably won’t have anything to ask you or tell youunless and until there’s a break, but we might, and there should be an arrangement. Since you have read that book, you know what ‘bugged’ means. Do you know if this room is bugged?”
    “No, I don’t. Of course I’ve thought about it, and we have examined it several times. I’m not sure. They have to get in, don’t they? Put something in it?”
    “Yes. Unless electronics has come up with something that isn’t being mentioned, and I doubt it. I don’t want to overplay it, Mrs. Bruner, but I don’t think any part of this house is a good place to talk. It’s cold out, but a little fresh air will do you good. If you’ll get a coat?”
    She nodded. “You see, Mr. Goodwin.
In my own house
. All right.” She got up. “Wait here.” She went.
    Sarah Dacos was smiling at me. “You could have gone upstairs,” she said. “I can’t hear through walls or even through keyholes.”
    “No?” I looked her up and down, glad to have an excuse. She was very lookable. “You may be wired for sound, and there would be only one way to make sure, and you wouldn’t enjoy it.”
    The hazel eyes laughed. “How do you know I wouldn’t?”
    “My knowledge of human nature. You’re the squeamish type. You haven’t walked up to your tail and said what’s your name and what do you want.”
    “Why, do you think I should?”
    “No. But you haven’t. May I ask, do you dance?”
    “Sometimes.”
    “I’d know more about you if you danced with me. I don’t mean about the possibility that you’re playing with the FBI. If they had you, right here in the house, they wouldn’t be dogging her and the whole family. The only reason I—”
    The client showed at the door. I hadn’t heard her footsteps. That was bad. Miss Dacos was attractive, but not enough to keep me from hearing footsteps, even though I was talking. That could only mean that my opinion of the job wouldn’t let me get fully on it, all of me, and that wouldn’t do. As I went and followed the client to the front my jaw was set. The man in black opened the door, and I got the vestibule door, and we were out in the January wind. We headed east, toward Park Avenue, and stopped at the corner.
    “We can talk better standing,” I said. “First, our getting you in a hurry if we have to. There’s absolutely no telling what’s going to happen. It’s even possible that Mr. Wolfe and I will have to leave his house and hole up somewhere. If you get a message, by phone or otherwise, no matter how, that the pizza is sour, go at once to the Churchill Hotel and find a man named William Coffey. He’s a house dick there—an assistant security officer. You can do that openly. He’ll have something for you, either to tell you or give you. Pizza is sour. Churchill Hotel, William Coffey. Remember it. Don’t write it down.”
    “I won’t.” She was frowning. “I suppose you’re sure you can