But Mrs. Whitten delayed the question period another ten minutes by entering a demurrer. She had a point all right, but it seemed foolish for her to press it then. Of course it was obvious that one of two things was true: either Pompa had made a sucker of Marko, or Wolfe had boiled it down to the plain question of how to break through the family interference and get the one with the ball. If Mrs. Whitten saw him coming, as she certainly did, and if she was determined to protect the flock even if one of them had killed her Floyd and taken a whack at her, her best bet was just to sit on it and not budge. But she wanted to do it her way, so she called Wolfe on the detail of lying to the cops.
Her point was that he couldn’t possibly have learned anything about what happened Monday evening except from Pompa, and what would he expect from a man under arrest for murder? Jerome also had a point. Even if they had lied about the object of the meeting, which wasn’t so, that was no proof, not even an indication, that one of them had killed Whitten. Would any group of people, having found Whitten dead upstairs, have admitted that they had met secretly to find ways and means of keeping him from getting what belonged to them? Though completely innocent, they would be fools so to complicate a simple situation — simple, because Pompa was obviously guilty, not only to them but to the police.
Wolfe let them make their points.
The questions and answers went on for two hours. It seemed to me like an awful waste of time and breath, since no matter what was fact and what was fancy, they were certainly all glued together on it and the glue had had two days to dry. The first interruption in the dining room Monday evening had been when Pompa had rung the doorbell. They hadn’t known who it was, and had merely sat tight, supposing the bell ringer would depart. But in a few minutes had come the sound of the front door opening, and through the closed door of the dining room they could recognize voices in the reception hall and hear feet mounting the stairs. From there on they had talked in whispers and more about their immediate predicament than the object of the meeting. There were fierce arguments. Bahr had advocated ascending to the second floor in a body and going to the mat on it, but no one had supported him. Mortimer and Eve had wanted them to sneak out and go to the Bahr apartment, but were voted down on account of the risk of being seen from the upstairs windows. They spent the last hour sitting in the dark, hissing at one another, and Jerome had joined the Mortimer-and-Eve faction, making it a majority, when steps were heard descending the stairs, then, soon, other steps coming down fast, and Mrs. Whitten calling to Pompa. The voices were loud enough for them to hear words. After a door had closed and the voices were gone, a cautious reconnoiter by Phoebe had informed them that Pompa and Mrs. Whitten were in the living room. That had settled the argument about sneaking out, and the next event on the program, some half an hour later, had been the upsetting of a floor lamp by a careless movement in the dark by Bahr.
On the crucial question the glue held everywhere. Who had left the room after Pompa and Mrs. Whitten had entered the living room? Only Phoebe, for reconnaissance, and never for more than half a minute at a time. It didn’t leave much elbow room for genius, not even Wolfe’s. It was all well enough to remind them that it had been pitch dark, and to keep digging at where this one or that one had been, and what was Bahr doing when he upset the lamp, but if they were unanimous that they knew beyond doubt that no one had left the room except Phoebe for her brief excursions, what were you going to do, even if you knew in your bones that what they were really unanimous on was a resolution not to let one of them get tagged for murder? If what they had to be solid on had been some intricate series of events with a tricky time table, it might have been cracked open, but all they had to do was keep repeating that no one left the room during that half an hour except Phoebe, and that she wasn’t out for more than thirty seconds at a time.
It was exactly the same for that evening, Wednesday, as it was for Monday. No fancy getup was required. They simply stated that they had all been in the house together for nearly an hour when the bell had rung and the butler had answered it, and Mrs. Whitten had staggered in with blood all over her. Again there was no place to start a wedge. Jerome, in his quiet subdued manner, offered to help by going to bring the butler, but Wolfe declined without thanks.
Wolfe glanced at the clock on the wall; it was a quarter to three. He tightened his lips and moved his eyes along the arc.
“Well. I am merely flattening my nose, to no purpose. We can’t go on all night, ladies and gentlemen. You’d better go home and go to bed.” He looked at Mrs. Whitten. “Except you, madam. You will of course sleep here. We have a spare room with a comfortable—”
There were protests in five voices, of various tones and tenors. Mortimer was of course the loudest, with Eve a close second. Wolfe shut his eyes while the storm blew, and then opened them.
“What do you think?” he demanded peevishly. “Am I a dunce? In a murder case it sometimes happens that a detective, stopped at a dead end, simply withdraws to wait upon a further event that may start a new path. That may be allowable, but not when the expected event is another murder. Not for me. A desire or intention to harm Mrs. Whitten may be in none of your minds, but I’m not going to risk it. She would be dead now if that blade had gone five inches in instead of across. I am willing, for the time being, to pursue this inquiry myself without recourse to the police or the District Attorney, but only with that condition: Mrs. Whitten stays under my roof until I am satisfied on certain points. She can leave at any moment if she regards the police as less obnoxious than me.”
“If you ask me, they are,” Eve snapped.
“This is blackmail and actionable,” Bahr declared.
“Okay, she goes home and you call the goddam cops,” was Mort’s contribution.
“If she stays,” Phoebe said firmly, “I stay.”
Mrs. Whitten found use for a long deep sigh for about the thousandth time. Twice during the session I had been sure she was going to faint. But there was plenty of life in her eyes as she met Wolfe’s gaze. “You said you would speak to me privately about Miss Alving.”
“Yes, madam, I did.”
“Then you could do that in the morning. I’m afraid I couldn’t listen now — I’m pretty tired.” Her hands, on her lap, tightened into fists and then relaxed. She turned to her younger daughter. “Phoebe, you’ll have to go home and get things for us.” She went back to Wolfe. “Your spare room — will it do for two?”
“Admirably. There are twin beds.”
“Then my daughter Phoebe will be with me. I don’t think you need to fear for my safety — I’m sure she won’t kill me in my sleep. Tomorrow afternoon, if I’m still here, you will have to excuse me. My husband’s funeral will be at four o’clock.”
“Mother,” Jerome said quietly, “let me take you home.”
She didn’t use breath to answer him, but asked Wolfe, “Will I have to walk upstairs?”
“No indeed,” Wolfe said, as if that made everything fine and dandy. “You may use my elevator.”