Sure, that’s what I thought of the first moment as I looked down at her-fleetingly and without forming conscious thoughts on the subject. At the same time, I was saying jokingly, “That must have been quite a job… with Dell bringing out the old reprints right along with the new ones.” I nodded to a hovering waiter and as he stepped closer she said, “Can I have a drink of cognac? It would be silly to drink anything else with Brett Halliday, wouldn’t it?”
I let out a deep, satisfied breath as the waiter brought her glass. Everything had righted itself suddenly, and the evening was no longer a total loss. Avery Birk was still bellied up to the bar at the other side of Elsie, but even the smirk on his fat face as he looked at her didn’t bother me. I even forgot all about Lew Recker on my left as Elsie looked at me gravely.
“That’s when I got started collecting your books so I could go through them in order,” she told me. “When it reached the point where one book I’d buy on the newsstand had Michael Shayne married to Phyllis and so very happy; and in the next one I’d find him flirting with a secretary named Lucy Hamilton; and then in the next he’d just be meeting Phyllis Brighton for the first time when she was afraid she’d murder her own mother.” She shook her head in dismay. “It was terribly confusing.”
She had violet eyes, I guess. If there is any such thing as violet eyes. Maybe a deep, deep blue with lavender shadings. Her eyebrows were heavy and straight and unplucked. I guessed she was in her mid-twenties. She didn’t look virginal, but she looked-How do you say it? Virtuous? No, that’s too stern. Chaste? Too prim. Perhaps the word I want is fastidious. She didn’t look untouched or untouchable, but a man would take it slow with her and let her lead the way. You had a feeling she wouldn’t be coy about leading if she once decided that was what she wanted to do.