The Rubber Band/The Red Box 2-In-1 Read Online Free PDF Page B

it.”
    “Right. Did he make a thorough search of your room?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t care if he did.”
    “Now don’t get sore. I don’t care either. After you copied the cablegram and took the original back to Miss Fox in Muir’s room, what was she carrying when she left there?”
    “She was carrying the cablegram.”
    “But where did she have the thirty grand, down her sock? Didn’t it show?”
    Miss Barish compressed her lips to show that she was putting up with me. “I did not see Miss Fox carrying anything except the cablegram. I have told Mr. Muir and Mr. Perry that I did not see Miss Fox carrying anything except the cablegram.”
    I grinned at her. “And you are now telling Mr. Goodwin that you did not see Miss Fox carrying anything except the cablegram. Check. Are you a friend of Miss Fox’s?”
    “No. Not a real friend. I don’t like her.”
    “Egad. Why don’t you like her?”
    “Because she is extremely attractive, and I am homely. Because she has been here only three years and she could be Mr. Perry’s private secretary tomorrow if she wanted to, and that is the job I have wanted ever since I came here. Also because she is cleverer than I am.”
    I looked at Miss Barish, more interested at all the frankness. Deciding to see how far down the frankness went, I popped at her, “How long has Miss Fox been Perry’s mistress?”
    She went red as a beet. Her eyes dropped, and she shook her head. Finally she looked up at me again, but didn’t say anything. I tried another one:
    “Then tell me this. How long has Muir been trying to get her away from Perry?”
    Her eyes got dark again, and the color stayed. She stared at me a minute, then all at once rose to her feet and stood there squeezing her handkerchief. Her voice trembled a little, but it didn’t seem to bother her.
    “I don’t know whether that’s any of your business, Mr. Goodwin, but it’s none of mine. Don’t you see … don’t you see how this is a temptation to me? Couldn’t I have said I saw her carrying something out of that room?” She squeezed the handkerchief harder. “Well … I didn’t say it. Don’t I have to keep my self-respect? I’ll go out of my way too, I don’t know anything about it, but I don’t believe Clara Fox has ever been anybody’s mistress. She wouldn’t have to be, she’s too clever. I don’t know anything about that money either, but if you want to ask me questions to see if I do, go ahead.”
    I said, “School’s out. Go on home. I may want you again in the morning, but I doubt it.”
    She turned pale as fast as she had turned red. She certainly was a creature of moods. I got up from Perry’s chair and walked all the way across the room to open the door and stand and hold it. She went past, still squeezing the handkerchief and mumbling good night to me, and I shut the door.
    Feeling for a cigarette and finding I didn’t have any, I went back to the windows and stood surveying the view. As I had suspected, the thing wasn’t a good clear theft at all, it was some kind of a mess. From the business standpoint, it was obvious that the thing to do was go back and tell Nero Wolfe it was a case of refusing to let the administrative heads of the Seaboard Products Corporation use our office for a washtub to dump their dirty linen in. But what reined me up on that was my professional curiosity about Clara Fox. If sneak thieves came as cool and sweet as that, it was about time I found it out. And if she wasn’t one, my instinctive dislike of a frame-up made me hesitate about leaving her parked against a fireplug. I was fairly well disgusted, and got more disgusted, after gazing out of the window for a while, when I felt in my pockets again for a cigarette with no results.
    I wandered around The Office Beautiful a little, sightseeing and cogitating, and then went out to the corridor. It was empty. Of course, it was after office hours. All its spacious width and length, there was no traffic,