Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 25 by Before Midnight Read Free Book Online Page B

voice, “that I didn’t want to come here, but Mr. O’Garro said it was absolutely necessary. I have decided I shouldn’t say anything to anybody. But if you have something to tell me—go ahead.”
    Wolfe was glowering at her, and I would have liked to tell her that it meant nothing personal, it was only that the sight of a hungry human was painful to him, and the sight of one who must have been hungry for months was intolerable. He spoke. “You understand, Mrs. Wheelock, that I am acting for the firm ofLippert, Buff and Assa, which is handling the contest for Heery Products, Incorporated.”
    “Yes, Mr. O’Garro told me.”
    “I do have a little to tell you, but not much. For one item, I have had a talk with one of the contestants, Miss Gertrude Frazee. You may know that she is the founder and president of an organization called the Women’s Nature League. She says that some three hundred of its members have helped her in the contest, which is not an infraction of the rules. She does not say that she has telephoned to them the verses that were distributed last evening, and that they are now working on them, but it wouldn’t be fanciful to assume that she has and they are. Have you any comment?”
    She was staring at him, her mouth working.
    “Three hundred,” she said.
    Wolfe nodded.
    “That’s cheating. That’s—she can’t do that. You can’t let her get away with it.”
    “We may be helpless. If she has violated no rule and nothing that was agreed upon last evening, what then? This is one aspect of the grotesque situation created by the murder of Louis Dahlmann.”
    “I’ll see the others.” The fire behind her eyes was showing through. “We won’t permit it. We’ll refuse to go ahead with those verses. We’ll insist on new ones when we’re allowed to go home.”
    “That would suit Miss Frazee perfectly. She would send in her answers before the agreed deadline and demand the first prize, and if she didn’t get it she could sue and probably collect. You’ll have to do better than that if you want to head her off—emulate her, perhaps. Of course you’ve had help too—your husband, your friends; get them started.”
    “I’ve had no help.”
    She started to tremble, first her hands and then her shoulders, and I thought we were in for it, but she pulled one that I had never expected to see. Women of all ages and shapes and sizes have started to have a fit in that office. Some I have caught in time with a good shot of brandy, some I have stopped with a smack or other physical contact, and some I have had to ride out—with Wolfe gone because he can’t stand it. I left my chair and started for her, but she stuck her tongue out at me. So I thought, but that wasn’t it. She was only getting the tongue between her teeth and clamping down on it. Its end bulged and curled up and was purple, but she only clamped harder. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked. She stopped trembling, opened her fists and closed them and opened them again, and got her shoulders set, rigid. Then she retrieved her tongue. I had a notion to give her a pat before returning to my chair, in recognition of an outstanding performance, but decided that a woman who could stand off a fit like that in ten seconds flat probably didn’t care for pats.
    “I beg your pardon,” she said.
    “Brandy,” Wolfe told me.
    “No,” she said, “I’m all right. I couldn’t drink brandy. I guess what did it was what you said about help. I haven’t had any. The first few weeks weren’t bad, but after that they got harder, and later, when they got really hard … I don’t know how I did it. I said I wasn’t going to say anything, but after what you said about Miss Frazee having three hundred women helping her … well. I’m thirty-two years old, and I have two children, and my husband is a bookkeeper and makes fifty dollars a week. I was a schoolteacher before I married. I had been goingalong for years, just taking it, and I saw this