The Golden Spiders (Crime Line)

I had been informed by Lon Cohen that I shouldn’t mark it against the Association for the Aid of Displaced Persons that they sported an elegant sunny office on the twenty-sixth floor of one of the newer midtown commercial palaces, because Mrs. Fromm owned the building and they paid no rent. Even so, it was a lot of dog for an outfit devoted to the relief of the unfortunate and oppressed. There in the glistening reception room I had an example before my eyes. At one end of a brown leather settee, slumped in weariness and despair, wearing an old gray suit two sizes too large for him, was a typical specimen. As I shot him a glance I wondered how it impressed him, but then I glanced again and quit wondering. It was Saul Panzer. Our eyes met, then his fell, and I went to the woman at the desk, who had a long thin nose and a chin to match.

She said Miss Wright was engaged and was available only for appointments. After producing a card and persuading her to relay not only my name but the message under it, I was told I would be received, but she didn’t like it. She made it clear, with her tight lips and the set of her jaw, that she wanted no part of me.

I was shown into a large corner room with windows on two sides, giving views of Manhattan south and east. There were two desks, but only one of them was occupied, by a brown-haired female executive who looked almost as weary as Saul Panzer but wasn’t giving in to it and didn’t intend to.

She greeted me with a demand. “May I see your card, please?”

It had been read to her on the phone. I crossed and handed it over. She looked at it and then up at me. “I’m very busy. Is this urgent?”

“It won’t take long, Miss Wright.”

“What good will it do to discuss it with me?”

“I don’t know. You’ll have to leave that open, whether it does any good or not. I’m speaking strictly for myself, not for Nero Wolfe, and there’s no-”

“Didn’t Nero Wolfe send you here?”

“No.”

“Did the police?”

“No. This is my idea. I’ve had some bad luck and I need some cash, and I’ve got something to sell. I know this is a bad day for you, with Mrs. Fromm’s funeral this afternoon, but this won’t keep-at least I can’t count on it-and I need five thousand dollars as soon as I can get it.”

She smiled with one side of her mouth. “I’m afraid I haven’t that much with me, if this is a stickup. Aren’t you a reputable licensed detective?”