Well. Wolfe took in air, in and clear down to his middle, and let it out again. I thank you again, ladies, for coming. He pushed his chair back and rose. We seem to have made little progress, but at least I have seen and talked with you, and I know where to reach you if the occasion arises.
One thing I dont see, Rose Turtle said as she left her chair. Mr Goodwin said he wasnt there as a detective, but he is a detective, and I had told him about Faith having the poison, and I should think he ought to know exactly what happened. I didnt think anyone could commit a murder with a detective right there.
A very superficial and half-baked way to look at it, I thought, as I got up to escort the ladies out.
Chapter 9
Wolfe moved his head to take the others inCecil Grantham, Beverly Kent, and Edwin Laidlaw, lined up on yellow chairsand to include them. I am not aware, he said dryly, of having inflicted an injury on anyone.
Of course that wasnt true. What he meant was that he hadnt inflicted the injury he was trying to inflict. Forty-eight hours had passed since Laidlaw had written his cheque for twenty thousand dollars and put it on Wolfes desk, and we hadnt earned a dime of it, and the prospect of ever earning it didnt look a bit brighter. Dinky Bynes cover, if he had anything to cover, was intact. The three unmarried mothers had supplied no crack to start a wedge. Orrie Gather, having delivered them at the office for consultation, had been given another assignment, and had come Thursday evening after dinner, with Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin, to report; and all it had added up to was an assortment of blanks. If anyone had had any kind of connection with Faith Usher, it had been buried good and deep, and the trio had been told to keep digging.
When, a little after ten Friday morning, Paul Schuster had phoned to say that he and Grantham and Laidlaw and Kent wanted to see Wolfe, and the sooner the better, I had broken two of the standing rules: that I make no appointments without checking with Wolfe, and that I disturb him in the plant rooms only for emergencies. I had told Schuster to be there at eleven, and I had buzzed the plant rooms on the house phone to tell Wolfe that company was coming. When he growled I told him that I had looked up emergency in the dictionary, and it meant an unforeseen combination of circumstances which calls for immediate action, and if he wanted to argue either with the dictionary or with me I was willing to go upstairs and have it out. He had hung up on me.
And was now telling Schuster that he was not aware of having inflicted an injury on anyone.
Oh, for Gods sake, Cecil Grantham said.
Facts are facts, Beverly Kent muttered. Unquestionably a diplomatic way of putting it, suitable for a diplomat. When he got a little higher up the ladder he might refine it by making it A fact is a fact is a fact.
Do you deny, Schuster demanded, that we owe it to Goodwin that we are being embarrassed and harassed by a homicide investigation? And he is your agent, employed by you. No doubt you know the legal axiom, respondent superior . Isnt that an injury?
Not only that, Cecil charged, but he goes up to Grantham House, sticking his nose in. And yesterday a man tried to pump my mothers butler, and he had no credentials, and I want to know if you sent him. And another man with no credentials is asking questions about me among my friends, and I want to know if you sent him .
To me, Beverly Kent stated, the most serious aspect is the scope of the police inquiry. My work on our Mission to the United Nations is in a sensitive field, very sensitive, and already I have been definitely injured. Merely to have been present when a sensational event occurred, the suicide of that young woman, would have been unfortunate. To be involved in an extended police inquiry, a murder investigation, could be disastrous for me. If in addition to that you are sending your private agents among my friends and associates to inquire about me, that is adding insult to injury. I have no information of that, as yet. But you have, Cece?
Cecil nodded. I sure have.
So have I, Schuster said.
Have you, Ed?
Laidlaw cleared his throat. No direct information, no. Nothing explicit. But I have reason to suspect it.
He handled it pretty well, I thought. Naturally he had to be with them, since if he had refused to join in the attack they would have wondered why, but he wanted Wolfe to understand that he was still his client.
You havent answered my question, Schuster told Wolfe. Do you deny that we owe this harassment to Goodwin, and therefore to you, since he is your agent?
No, Wolfe said. But you owe it to me, through Mr Goodwin, only secondarily. Primarily you owe it to the man or woman who
murdered Faith Usher. So its quite possible that one of you owes it to himself.
I knew it, Cecil declared. I told you, Paul.
Schuster ignored him. As I said, he told Wolfe, this may become a question of law.
I expect it to, Mr Schuster. A murder trial is commonly regarded as a matter of law. Wolfe leaned forward, flattened his palms on the desk, and sharpened his tone. Gentlemen. Lets get to the point, if there is one. What are you here for? Not, I suppose, merely to grumble at me. To buy me off? To bully me? To dispute my ground? What are you after?