“Now, now,” he said. “You’re too modest. Just let me know if you think it’s time to gather all the suspects so you can reveal the solution.”
I was about to explain how unlikely it was that I would be revealing the solution anytime this century when the switchboard blinked again. Another reporter. We’d been getting quite a few calls from reporters - who seemed to think, from the questions they asked me, that anyone whose job included answering the phone must automatically be an idiot.
“No, I will not give you Mr. Langslow’s home number,” I was telling the latest Woodward-and-Bernstein wannabe when I noticed that Roger was once again lurking beside the reception desk. “I can take a message, and if you rephrase that last remark a little more politely, I just might remember to give it to him. What was that? Thank you - the feeling is mutual.”
I hung up, closed my eyes, and counted to ten. When I opened them again, Roger the Stalker was leaning against the wall by my desk. He wasn’t a relaxed leaner. The way he hunched his shoulders forward made it look as if he had been ordered to lean and found touching the wall vaguely distasteful.
“Yes?” I said. “Anything I can do for you?”
He frowned as if this were a trick question.
“While you’re thinking, do you want to make yourself useful?”
He shrugged. Was that a yes or a no?
“It’s almost time to feed George; you want to take care of that?”
He glanced at George, pried himself awkwardly off the wall, and left.
Good riddance.
Of course, that meant I still had to feed George myself, eventually.
Later, I thought, answering another line.
“Meg! What’s going on?” shrieked a voice. I winced as I recognized the caller - Dahlia Waterston, Michael’s mother.
“What in the world are you doing with my poor baby?”
“Michael’s fine,” I said. “He’s out in California, remember? In fact, I just talked to him a few minutes ago, and he says the filming’s going very well.”
“Of course Michael’s fine,” she said. “I meant Spike.”
“Spike’s fine, too,” I said. “He had a nice breakfast and a long walk, and he’s sitting right here at my feet.”
“I knew it - you’re still bringing him into that death trap!”
“It’s not a death trap. It’s a perfectly ordinary office,” I said, and then winced at how inaccurate that was. “Anyway, you can relax. We iiaven’t had any dogs killed. Just humans. Just one human, actually. So you don’t have to worry.”
She didn’t seem to be worried about my presence in the office, of course. I put her on hold, answered another call, and then returned.
“Sorry,” I said. “Busy day.”
“I want to talk to him,” she said.
“Talk to whom?”
“Spike. I want to talk to Spike. Put the phone near his face so he can hear me.”
Okay. I leaned down and put the phone to the wire at the front of Spike’s crate.
“It’s for you,” I said.
He opened one eye, saw that I wasn’t holding out food, and closed it again.
I could hear Mrs. Waterston’s voice chirping out endearments. He ignored her, too. I gave it a couple of minutes and then took the receiver back.
“Is that okay?” I said.
“He’s not speaking to me,” she said. “Is he ill?”
“Just asleep.”
“Are you sure he’s really asleep? What if he’s being slowly poisoned by carbon monoxide fumes?”
“We have a bird in the room,” I said. “Remember how they used to keep little canaries in the mines, to detect gases before they affected the miners? I’m sure if we had any toxic fumes, it would affect the bird before Spike.”
Actually, George was as big as Spike, and I’d bet he was more impervious to toxic fumes than most humans, but it sounded good.
“I still don’t understand why he won’t speak to me.”
“Let me see if i can wake him up a moment.”
I put her on hold and fished out a doggie treat. Slowly, because several other lines interrupted me by ringing while I was doing it. I could see Spike perk up when the treat box rattled. Then I reached down with the treat and scraped it against the wire of the crate.