And Four To Go Read Free Page A

though she was highly decorative, but as a possible source of new light on human relations. Margot had told me that her father was half Chinese and half Indian-not American Indian-and her mother was Dutch.
    I said that apparently I had come too early, but Alfred Kiernan said no, the others were around and would be in shortly. He added that it was a pleasant surprise to see me, as it was just a little family gathering and he hadn't known others had been invited. Kiernan, whose title was business manager, had not liked a certain step I had taken when I was hunting the tapestries, and he still didn't, but an Irishman at a Christmas party likes everybody. My impression was that he really was pleased, so I was too. Margot said she had invited me, and Kiernan patted her on the arm and said that if she hadn't he would. About my age and fully as handsome, he was the kind who can pat the arm of a queen or a president's wife without making eyebrows go up.
    He said we needed another sample and turned to the bartender. 'Mr. Claus, we'll try the Veuve Clicquot.' To us: 'Just like Kurt to provide different brands. No monotony for Kurt.' To the bartender: 'May I call you by your first name, Santy?'
    'Certainly, sir,' Santa Claus told him from behind the mask in a thin falsetto that didn't match his size. As he stopped and came up with a bottle a door at the left opened and two men entered. One of them, Emil Hatch, I had met before. When briefing Wolfe on the tapestries and telling us about his staff, Bottweill had called Margot Dickey his contact woman, Cherry Quon his handy girl, and Emil Hatch his pet wizard, and when I met Hatch I found that he both looked the part and acted it. He wasn't much taller than Cherry Quon and skinny, and something had either pushed his left shoulder down or his right shoulder up, making him lopsided, and he had a sour face, and a sour voice, and a sour taste.
    When the stranger was named to me as Leo Jerome, that placed him. I was acquainted with his mother, Mrs. Perry Porter Jerome. She was a widow and an angel-that is, Kurt Bottweill's angel. During the investigation she had talked as if the tapestries belonged to her, but that might have only been her manners, of which she had plenty. I could have made guesses about her personal relations with Bottweill, but hadn't bothered. I have enough to do to handle my own personal relations without wasting my brain power on other people's. As for her son Leon, he must have got his physique from his father-tall, bony, big-eared and long-armed. He was probably approaching thirty, below Kiernan but above Margot and Cherry.
    When he shoved in between Cherry and me, giving me his back, and Emil Hatch had something to tell Kiernan, sour no doubt, I touched Margot's elbow and she slid off the stool and let herself be steered across to a divan which had been covered with designs by Euclid in six or seven colors. We stood looking down at it.
    'Mighty pretty,' I said, 'but nothing like as pretty as you. If only that license were real! I can get a real one for two dollars. What do you say?'
    'You!' she said scornfully. 'You wouldn't marry Miss Universe if she came on her knees with a billion dollars.'
    'I dare her to try it. Did it work?'
    'Perfect. Simply perfect.'
    'Then you're ditching me?'
    'Yes, Archie darling. But I'll be a sister to you.'
    'I've got a sister. I want the license back for a souvenir, and anyway I don't want it kicking around. I could be hooked for forgery. You can mail it to me, once my own.'
    'No, I can't. He tore it up.'
    'The hell he did. Where are the pieces?'
    'Gone. He put them in his wastebasket. Will you come to the wedding?'
    'What wastebasket where?'
    'The gold one by his desk in his office. Last evening after dinner. Will you come to the wedding?'
    'I will not. My heart is bleeding. So will Mr. Wolfe's-and by the way, I'd better get out of here. I'm not going to stand around and sulk.'
    'You won't have to. He won't know I've told you, and anyway,