Rex Stout Read Free

inhalation.
    “I’ll earn it and then I’ll eat it,” he muttered. If he had known how much of a chore the earning was to be, he might have added, “If I’m still alive.”

Two
    In the reception room of the executive offices of the Republic Products Corporation high above Lexington Avenue, the receptionist sat at her desk and tried not to yawn. Losing the struggle, she covered her mouth with a palm. It was five minutes past nine, Thursday morning. Life presented a dreary outlook. Her feet hurt. Dancing till after one o’clock, and less than six hours’ sleep, and standing up in the subway … no more, she just couldn’t take it, not at her age … that was all right when she was younger, but now she was twenty-three, nearly twenty-four—
    “Good morning,” said a twangy voice.
    The voice irritated her. Her tired eyes saw a man in a new-looking brown suit, and a face that was new to her, with a large envelope under his arm.
    “Who do you want to see?” she asked. Ordinarily she said “Whom,” but, feeling as she did, that was beyond her.
    “You,” the man said.
    That old gag deserved, and usually received, chilly disdain. But the idea that anyone on earth could want to see her then, the way her face felt and the way her feet hurt, was so perfectly excruciating that she had to laugh. She burst into laughter.
    “No,” the man protested. “Really. I want to ask if you’d like to take a trip to Hollywood.”
    “Sure,” she said scornfully. “Does Garbo need a double or what?”
    “You’ll never get anywhere,” said the man severely, “with an attitude like that. Here’s opportunity knocking at your door and listen to you.” He placed the envelope on the desk, opened the flap, extracted a large glossy photograph, and held it in front of her. “Who is that?”
    With one glance she said sarcastically, “John Barrymore.”
    “Very well,” he said reproachfully. “You’ll live to regret it. There’s four more pictures of movie stars in here. If you can identify all five, you get a year’s subscription to the
Movie Gazette.
Free. Then you write an article of a thousand words and send it to our contest editor—”
    “I don’t know any thousand words.” She glanced at the photograph again. “But if they’re all as easy as that. Shirley Temple.”
    “Right.” He pulled out another one. “Now watch your step.”
    She snorted. “Those eyes? Bette Davis.”
    “Two right. This one?”
    “Deanna Durbin.”
    “And this?”
    “Myrna Loy.”
    “Good for you. Four down and one to go. This last one?”
    She squinted at it. She took it from him and peered at it from different angles. “Huh,” she said, “I thought there was a catch in it. This is probably some dame that sat on a wagon in ‘Gone With the Wind’ when they fled from that town in Virginia, I think it was—”
    “Atlanta, Georgia. But you wrong me. I think you ought to recognize her without straining your brain beyond its capacity. Dressed differently, of course. For instance, imagine her getting out of the elevator and walking up to you here at your desk—with a hat on, remember, and some kind of a wrap probably, and sort of nervous, and saying for instance that she wanted to see Mr. Vail—”
    The girl hissed at him.
    He followed her glance and saw a man approaching—a large man, well fed and well shaved, with a broad nose and a thin mouth. He had been headed from the elevator for the corridor leading within, but swerved and was approaching.…
    “Good morning, Mr. Vail,” the girl said as brightly as though her feet were perfectly all right.
    His “Good morning” sounded more like Bulgarian. “What’s all this?” he demanded, stopping at the desk. He frowned at the photographs, at the stranger standing there. “I heard you mention my name—”
    “Just accidentally, Mr. Vail,” the girl said hastily. “He was only telling me—only showing me—”
    She stopped because something queer was happening. Vail had