Too Many Clients

"Nero Wolfe?" she asked. I nodded. "His house." "I want to see him. I'm Ellen Yeager. Mrs. Thomas G. Yeager." When a caller comes without an appointment, I am supposed to leave him on the stoop until I consult Wolfe, and I do, but this was a crisis. Not only were we up a stump; there was even a chance that Wolfe would be pigheaded enough to try that cockeyed stunt with the Perez family if he wasn't sidetracked. So I invited her to enter, led her to the office and on in, and said, "Mr. Wolfe, Mrs. Yeager. Mrs. Thomas G. Yeager." He glared at me. "I wasn't informed that I had an appointment." "No, sir. You didn't." "I didn't stop to phone," Ellen Yeager said. "It's urgent." She went to the red leather chair and took it as if she owned it, put her bag on the stand, and aimed sharp little eyes at Wolfe. "I want to hire you to do something." She reached for the bag, opened it, and took out a checkfold. "How much do you want as a retainer?" Client number four, not counting the phony Yeager. When I go scouting for clients I get results. She was going on. "My husband was murdered, you know about that. I want you to find out who killed him and exactly what happened, and then I will decide what to do about it. He was a sick man, he was oversexed, I know all about that. I've kept still about it for years, but I'm not going to let it keep me from--" Too Many Clients 95 Wolfe cut in. "Shut up," he commanded. She stopped, astonished. "I'm blunt," he said, "because I must be. I can't let you rattle off confidential information under the illusion that you are hiring me. You aren't and you can't. I'm already engaged to investigate the murder of your husband." "You are not," she declared. "Indeed?" "No. You're engaged to keep it from being investigated, to keep it from coming out, to protect that corporation, Continental Plastic Products. One of the directors has told me all about it. There was a meeting of the board this morning, and Benedict Aiken told them what he had done and they approved it. They don't care if the murderer of my husband is caught or not. They don't want him caught. All they care about is the corporation. I'll own a block of stock now, but that doesn't matter. They can't keep me from telling the District Attorney about that room if I decide to." "What room?" "You know perfectly well what room. In that house on Eighty-second Street where Julia McGee went last night and you got her and brought her here. Benedict Aiken told the board about it, and one of them told me." Her head jerked to me. "Are you Archie Goodwin? I want to see that room. When will you take me there?" She jerked back to Wolfe. That's a bad habit, asking a question and not waiting for an answer, but it's not always bad for the askee. She opened the checkfold. "How much do you want as a retainer?" She was impetuous, no question about that, but she was no fool, and she didn't waste words. She 96 Rex Stout didn't bother to spell it out: and if Wolfe tried to do what she thought he had been hired to do, clamp a lid on it, she could queer it with a phone call to the DA's office, and therefore he had to switch to her. He leaned back and clasped his fingers at the center of his frontal mound. "Madam, you have been misinformed. Archie, that paper Mr. Aiken signed. Let her read it." I went and got it from the cabinet and took it to her. To read it she got glasses from her bag. She took the glasses off. "It's what I said, isn't it?" "No. Read it again. Archie, the typewriter. Two carbons." I sat, pulled the machine around, arranged the paper with carbons, and inserted them. "Yes, sir." "Single-spaced, wide margins. The date. I, comma, Mrs. Thomas G. Yeager, comma, hereby engage Nero Wolfe to investigate the circumstances of the death of my late husband. The purpose of this engagement is to make sure that my husband's murderer is identified and exposed, comma, and Wolfe is to make every effort to achieve that purpose. If in doing so a conflict arises between his obligation under this engagement and his obligation under his existing engagement with Continental Plastic Products it is understood that he will terminate his engagemeent with Continental Plastic Products and will adhere to this engagement with me. It is also understood that I will do nothing to interfere with Wolfe's obligation to Continental Plastic Products without giving him notice in advance."