Too Many Clients

II I that room and the people who went there. But if they do learn about it, not from us, then look out. Not only that you walked in on Mr. and Mrs. Perez |h I and me, and your cigarette case, but what if they find your fingerprints on those five-dollar bills?" That was pure dumb luck. I would like to say that I had had a hunch and was playing it, but if I once started dolling up these reports there's no telling where I'd stop. I was merely letting my tongue go. If there was anything more in Meg Duncan than the fact (according to her) that she had gone straight home from the theater last night, I wanted to talk it out of her if possible. It was just luck that I didn't mention that the photographs were magazine and newspaper reproductions and that I tossed in the question about the bills. Luck or not, it hit. She gripped my knee with one of the hands she used so well and said, "My God, the bills. Do they show fingerprints?" "Certainly." "Where are they?" "In the safe in Mr. Wolfe's office. Also the photographs." "I only gave her one. You said three." "The other two are from magazines. When did you give it to her?" "I--I don't remember. There are so many . . ." My left hand moved to rest on the coverlet where her leg was, above her knee, the fingers bending, naturally, to the curve of the surface they were touching. Of course it would have been a mistake if I had given the hand a definite order to do that, but I hadn't. I'm not blaming the hand; it was merely taking advantage of an opportunity that no alert hand could be expected to ignore; but -N " 1 -l--^l J Too Many Clients 163 it got a quicker and bigger reaction than it had counted on. When that woman had an impulse she wasted no time. As she came up from the pillow I met her, I guess on the theory that she was going to claw, but her arms clamped around my neck and she took me back with her, and there I was, on top of her from the waist up, my face into the pillow. She was biting the side of my neck, not to hurt, just cordial. The time, the place, and the girl is a splendid combination, but it takes all three. The place was okay, but the time wasn't, since I had other errands, and I doubted if the girl's motives were pure. She was more interested in a cigarette case, a photograph, and some five-dollar bills than in me. Also I don't like to be bullied. So I brought my hand up, slipped it between her face and my neck, shoved her head into the pillow while raising mine, folded the ends of the pillow over, and had her smothered. She squirmed and kicked for ten seconds and then stopped. I got my feet on the floor and my weight on them, removed my hands from the pillow, and stepped back. I spoke. "When did you give her the photograph?" She was panting, gasping, to catch up on oxygen. When she could she said, "Damn you, you put your hand on me." "Yeah. Do you expect me to apologize? Patting a place on the bed for me to sit and you in that gauzy thing? You know darned well your nipples show through it. That wasn't very smart, trying to take my mind off of my work when you've got as much at stake as I have." I sat on the chair. "Look, Miss Duncan. The only way you can possibly get clear is by helping Nero Wolfe wrap it up, and we haven't

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