The Father Hunt Read Free Page B

hadn’t returned the parcel to her bag; it was in her lap. I told her to come.
    Wolfe seldom rises when someone enters the office, and never if it’s a woman. His expression is always the same if it’s a woman, no matter who or what she is; he is concentrating on not making a face. There is no telling what he notices or doesn’t; for instance, whether he noticed that the skirt of Amy Denovo’s brown-striped summer dress wasn’t really a mini; it was only about two inches above her knees. Certainly he didn’t notice that the knees were worthy of notice, though they were, since that had no bearing on her acceptability as a client. The seat
    of the red leather chair near the end of his desk was too deep for her to settle back, so she sat on the front half, straight, and put her bag on the stand at her elbow, with the parcel in her lap.
    Wolfe, his chair swiveled to face her, his fingers curled over the arm ends, spoke. “So Mr. Goodwin impressed you at first sight.”
    Her eyes, meeting his, widened a little. “Yes. He did.”
    “That may be a point for you and it may not. It is nothing new for him to impress a young woman. He has reported his conversation with you yesterday, to its conclusion. He says that you now have in your possession, you say legally, twenty thousand dollars in cash, and you offer it to me as retainer for the job you want me to do. Is that correct?”
    “Yes, if Mr. Goodwin does the work.”
    “He would do his share, directed by me except when urgency forbids. The money is in that parcel'May I see it?”
    She got up and handed it to him and returned to the chair. He removed the rubber bands and wrapping and took a look at each batch, all twenty of them, stacking them neatly on his desk. He turned to me. “I see no indication of source. Did you?”
    I said no.
    He turned to her. “Did Miss Lily Rowan supply it?”
    “Of course not!”
    “But of course someone did. In view of what you told Mr. Goodwin yesterday, I would have to know the source of this money. Where and how did you get it?”
    Her lips were tight. She opened them to say, “I don’t see why you have to know that. There’s nothing wrong with the way I got it. It’s mine. If I went to a store to buy something and gave them one of those bills they wouldn’t ask me where I got it.”
    He shook his head. “Not a parallel, Miss Denovo. Yesterday you told Mr. Goodwin that two thousand dollars in the bank was all you had, and you rejected his suggestion that you ask Miss Rowan to help you.” He tapped the stack. “This is ten times two thousand. If it was a loan or a gift I would have to know from whom. If you sold something I would have to know what you sold and
    to whom. You may not know, at your age, that that is merely reasonable prudence. To accept a substantial retainer for a difficult and complicated operation without assurance of its legitimacy would be asinine, and if you won’t tell me where you got this money I won’t take it. If you do tell me it will have to be verified, with proper discretion, but to my satisfaction.”
    She was frowning again, not at him, at me, but it wasn’t really for me; it was for the problem she had been handed. But when she spoke it was to me and for me, a question: “Is he right, Mr. Goodwin'Or is he just shutting the door, as you did?”
    “No,” I said, “I’m afraid he’s right. As he said, just reasonable prudence. And after all, if it’s yours legally, as you told me, and if there’s nothing wrong with the way you got it, as you told him, why not spill it'It can’t be a deeper secret than the one we already know.”
    She looked at Wolfe and back at me. “I could tell you,” she said.
    “Okay, tell me, and we’ll pretend he’s not here.”
    “I guess I was being silly.” Her eyes were meeting mine. “After what you already know, you might as well know this too. That money came from my father. That and a lot more.”
    Both of my brows went up. “That makes a liar of