"Right. Archie Goodwin."

"I was wondering," she said, "because that woman told me I would sit between Mr Edwin Laidlaw and Mr Austin Byne, but now your name’s Goodwin. The other day I was telling a friend of mine about coming here, this party, and she said there ought to be unmarried fathers here too, and you seem to have changed your name-are you an unmarried father?"

Remember the tact, I warned myself. "I’m half of it," I told her. "I’m unmarried. But not, as far as I know, a father. Mr Byne has a cold and couldn’t come and asked me to fill in for him. His bad luck and my good luck."

She ate the oyster, and another one-she ate cheerfully too-and turned again. "I was telling this friend of mine that if all society men are like the ones that were here the other time, we weren’t missing anything, but I guess they’re not. Anyway, you’re not. I noticed the way you made Helen laugh-Helen Yarmis. I don’t think I ever did see her laugh before. I’m going to tell my friend about you if you don’t mind."

"Not at all." Time out for an oyster. "But I don’t want to mix you up. I’m not society. I’m a working man."

"Oh!" She nodded. "That explains it. What kind of work?"

Remember the discretion, I warned myself. Miss Tuttle should not be led to suspect that Mrs Robilotti had got a detective there to keep an eye on the guests of honour. "You might," I said, "call it trouble-shooting. I work for a man named Nero Wolfe. You may have heard of him."

"I think I have." The oysters gone, she put her fork down. "I’m pretty sure… Oh, I remember, that murder, that woman, Susan somebody. He’s a detective."

"That’s right. I work for him. But I-"