Gambit by Rex Stout Page A

same room with her (according to Sally), and when Lon Cohen had been bewitched by her on sight, the circumstances had been different. The strain of the past ten days had to be considered, and allowing for it, I conceded that I too might have enjoyed being in the same room with her. I suspected that she might even have what will pull three men out of five, that without knowing it she could give you the feeling that she knew absolutely nothing but understood everything. It’s a rare gift. I once knew a woman in her sixties who - but Mrs.
    Blount had asked me a question. She had a long way to go to her sixties.
    “That depends,” I said. “If your daughter’s over twenty-one and she pays Mr.
    Wolfe with her own money, who can say it’s wrong?”
    “I can. I’m her mother.”
    I nodded. “Sure, but that doesn’t settle it, that just starts an argument. If by “wrong” you mean illegal or unethical, the answer is no. Isn’t it fairly simple,
    Mrs. Blount'Isn’t it just a difference of opinion'Your daughter thinks the services of Nero Wolfe are needed, and you don’t. Isn’t that it?”
    “No. I mean it’s not just a difference of opinion.”
    “Then what is it?”
    Her lips parted and closed again. Her eyes went to Sally and came back to me. “I don’t know what my daughter has told you,” she said.
    I turned to Sally. “This isn’t going to get us anywhere unless I have a free hand. Unless you turn me loose, no strings. Yes or no?”
    “Yes,” she said.
    “I’m not a wizard, Sally.”
    “That’s all right if you meant what you said about being with me.”
    “I did. Sit down.”
    “I’d rather stand.”
    I turned to Mrs. Blount. “Your daughter told Mr. Wolfe that her father thinks Dan Kalmus is competent to handle his defense, and you do too, but she doesn’t;
    that Kalmus may be good on business matters but he is no good for this; and she is afraid that if it is left to Kalmus her father will be convicted of murder.
    So I will say it’s a difference of opinion. Admitting that she may be wrong,
    it’s her opinion, and it’s her money. And even if she’s wrong and Kalmus makes good, why all the fuss'She’ll have the satisfaction of making a try, her father will be free, and Mr. Wolfe will collect a fee, so everyone will be happy. The only ground for objection is that Mr. Wolfe might mess it up and make it tougher instead of easier, and of course for him and me that’s out. It would also be out for anyone who knows his record.”
    She was slowly shaking her head, and I, looking at her, was getting a faint glimmer of the impression she had made on Lon Cohen. It didn’t come from her eyes or from anything about her you could name, it simply came somehow from her to me, the idea that though she could explain nothing, she didn’t have to;
    between her and me no explanation was needed. Of course that can come to a man from any woman he has fallen for, or is falling, but I wasn’t falling for her,
    far from it, and yet I was distinctly feeling it. Probably a witch and didn’t know it, Lon had said. A damned dangerous woman, whether she knew it or not.
    She spoke. “It’s not that, Mr. Goodwin.”
    Guessing what a woman means is usually the shortest way, but guessing that one wrong would have been risky, so I asked, “What’s not what, Mrs. Blount?”
    “Read this,” she said, and extended a hand with a folded paper.
    I took it and unfolded it. It was a memo size, 4ȕ6, good quality, with from the desk of Daniel Kalmus printed at the top. Written on it with a ball-point pen was this:
    Friday. My dearest - I send this by Dan. Tell Sally I know she means well, but I fully agree with Dan about her idea of hiring that detective, Nero Wolfe. I don’t see how it could help and it isn’t necessary. As Dan has told you, there is a certain fact known only to him and me which he will use at the right time and in the right way - a fact I haven’t told even you. Don’t worry, my dearest,
    don’t