“Permit me to say,” Frank Broadyke offered in a cultivated baritone, “that Mr. Pohl has put it badly. The situation is this, Mr. Wolfe, that Mr. Pohl got us together and we found that each of us feels that he is being harassed unreasonably. Not only that he is unjustly suspected of a crime he did not commit, but that in a full week the police have accomplished nothing and aren’t likely to, and we will be left with this unjust suspicion permanently upon us.”
Broadyke gestured with a hand. More than his baritone was cultivated; he was cultivated all over. He was somewhat younger than Pohl, and ten times as elegant. His manner gave the impression that he was finding it difficult just to be himself because (a) he was in the office of a private detective, which was vulgar, (b) he had come there with persons with whom one doesn’t ordinarily associate, which was embarrassing, and (c) the subject for discussion was his connection with a murder, which was preposterous.
He was going on. “Mr. Pohl suggested that we consult you and engage your services. As one who will gladly pay my share of the bill, permit me to say that what I want is the removal of that unjust suspicion. If you can achieve that only by finding the criminal and evidence against him, very well. If the guilty man proves to be Victor Talbott, again very well.”
“There’s no if about it!” Pohl blurted. “Talbott did it, and the job is to pin it on him!”
“With me helping, Ferdy, don’t forget,” Dorothy Keyes told him softly.
“Aw, can it!”
Eyes turned to the speaker, whose only contribution up to that point had been the remark, “They’re off again.” Heads had to turn too because he was seated to the rear of the swing of the arc. The high pitch of his voice was a good match for his name, Wayne Safford, but not for his broad husky build and the strong big bones of his face. According to the papers he was twenty-eight, but he looked a little older, about my age.
Wolfe nodded at him. “I quite agree, Mr. Safford.” Wolfe’s eyes swept the arc. “Mr. Pohl wants too much for his money. You can hire me to catch a fish, ladies and gentlemen, but you can’t tell me which fish. You can tell me what it is I’m after — a murderer — but you can’t tell me who it is unless you have evidence, and in that case why pay me? Have you got evidence?”
No one said anything.
“Have you got evidence, Mr. Pohl?”
“No.”
“How do you know it was Mr. Talbott?”
“I know it, that’s all. We all know it! Even Miss Keyes here knows it, but she’s too damn contrary to admit it.”
Wolfe swept the arc again. “Is that true? Do you all know it?”
No word. No “yes” and no “no.” No nods and no shakes.
“Then the identity of the fish is left to me. Is that understood? Mr. Broadyke?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Safford?”
“Yes.”
“Miss Rooney?”
“Yes. Only I think it was Vic Talbott.”
“Nothing can stop you. Miss Keyes?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Pohl?”
No answer.
“I must have a commitment on this, Mr. Pohl. If it proves to be Mr. Talbott you can pay extra. But in any case, I am hired to get facts?”
“Sure, the real facts.”
“There is no other kind. I guarantee not to deliver any unreal facts.” Wolfe leaned forward to press a button on his desk. “That is, indeed, the only guaranty I can give you. I should make it plain that you are responsible both collectively and individually for this engagement with me. Now if—”
The door to the hall had opened, and Fritz Brenner entered and approached.
“Fritz,” Wolfe told him, “there will be five guests at dinner.”
“Yes, sir,” Fritz told him without a blink and turned to go. That’s how good Fritz is, and he is not the kind to ring in omelets or canned soup. As he was opening the door a protest came from Frank Broadyke.
“Better make it four. I’ll have to leave soon and I have a dinner engagement.”
“Cancel it,” Wolfe snapped.
“I’m afraid I can’t, really.”
“Then I can’t take this job.” Wolfe was curt. “What do you expect, with this thing already a week old?” He glanced at the clock on the wall. “I’ll need you, all of you, certainly all evening, and probably most of the night. I must know all that you know about Mr. Keyes and Mr. Talbott. Also, if I am to remove this unjust suspicion of you from the minds of the police and the public, I must begin by removing it from my own mind. That will take many hours of hard work.”
“Oh,” Dorothy Keyes put in, her brows going up, “you suspect us, do you?”
Wolfe, ignoring her, asked Broadyke, “Well, sir?”
“I’ll have to phone,” Broadyke muttered.
“You may,” Wolfe conceded, as if he were yielding a point. His eyes moved, left and right and left again, and settled on Audrey Rooney, whose chair was a little in the rear, to one side of Wayne Safford’s. “Miss Rooney,” he shot at her, “you seem to be the most vulnerable, since you were on the scene. When did Mr. Keyes dismiss you from his employ, and what for?”
Audrey had been sitting straight and still, with her lips tight. “Well, it was—” she began, but stopped to clear her throat and then didn’t continue because of an interruption.
The doorbell had rung, and I had left it to Fritz to answer it, which was the custom when I was engaged with Wolfe and visitors, unless superseding orders had been given. Now the door to the hall opened, and Fritz entered, closed the door behind him, and announced. “A gentleman to see you, sir. Mr. Victor Talbott.”
The name plopped in the middle of us like a paratrooper at a picnic.
“By God!” Wayne Safford exclaimed.
“How the devil—” Frank Broadyke started, and stopped.
“So you told him!” Pohl spat at Dorothy Keyes.
Dorothy merely raised her brows. I was getting fed up with that routine and wished she would try something else.
Audrey Rooney’s mouth was hanging open.
“Show him in,” Wolfe told Fritz.