“How much did you hurt him?”
“Not much,” I told her. “He’ll be a little sore for a day or two.”
Donald lifted his face to speak. “I’m all right. Mom. But did you hear what-”
“Yes, I heard everything.”
“You come back upstairs,” Joseph G. commanded her.
She paid no attention to him. She was no great treat to look at—short and fairly plump, with a plain round face, standing with her shoulders pulled back, probably on account of her injured back—but there was something to her, especially to her voice, which seemed to come from deeper than her throat.
“I’ve been standing too long,” she said.
Sybil started to guide her to the divan, but she said no, she preferred a chair, and let herself be helped to one and to sit, after it had been moved so that she would be facing Wolfe.
Donald, who had managed to get himself back on his feet, went and patted her on the shoulder and told her, “I’m all right. Mom.”
She paid no attention to him either. She was gazing straight at Wolfe.
“You’re Nero Wolfe,” she told him.
Tes,” he acknowledged. “And you’re Mrs. Pitcairn?”
“Yes. Of course I’ve heard of you, Mr. Wolfe, since you are extremely famous. Under different circumstances I would be quite excited about meeting you. I was behind those curtains, listening, and heard all that you said. I quite agree with you, though certainly you know a great deal more about murder investigations than I do. I can see what we have ahead of us, all of us, if a ruthless and thorough inquiry is started, and naturally I’d like to
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prevent it if I possibly can. I have money of my own, aside from my husband’s fortune, and I think we should have someone to protect us from the sort of thing you described, and certainly no one is better qualified than you. I would like to pay you fifty thousand dollars to do that for us. Half would be paid—”
“Belle, I warn you—” Joseph G. blurted, and stopped.
“Well?” she asked him calmly, and when she had waited for him a moment and he was silent, she went on to Wolfe.
“Certainly it would be foolish to pretend that it wouldn’t be well worth it to us. As you say, everyone has a past, and it is our misfortune that this terrible crime in our house has made us, again as you say, legitimate objects of inquiry. Half of the fifty thousand will be paid immediately, and the other half when—well, that can be agreed upon.”
This, I thought, is more like it. We now have our pick of going to jail or taking fifty grand.
Wolfe was frowning at her. “But,” he objected, “I thought you said that you heard all I said.”
“I did.”
“Then you missed the point. The only reason I’m here is that I’m convinced that Mr. Krasicki did not kill Miss Lauer, and how the devil can I protect him and you people too? No; I’m sorry, madam; it’s true that I came here to blackmail you, but not for money. I’ve stated my price; permission to remain here, with Mr. Goodwin, and so make my inquiry privately instead of returning to my office and starting the hullabaloo you heard me describe. For as brief a period as possible; I don’t want to stay away from home longer than I have to. I shall expect nothing unreasonable of any of you, but I can’t very well inquire unless I am to get answers—as I say, within
reason.
“A dirty incorruptible blackmailer,” Sybil said bitterly. “You said a brief period,” Donald told Wolfe. “Until tomorrow noon.” “No.” Wolfe was firm. “I can’t set an hour. But I don’t want to prolong it any more than you do.”
“If necessary,” Mrs. Pitcaim persisted, “I think I could make it more than I said. Much more. I can say definitely that it will be double that.” She was as stubborn as a woman, and she sure was willing to dig into her capital.
“No, madam. I told Mr. Goodwin this evening that my mind was dominated by a single purpose, and it is. I did not go home to dinner. I fought my way through a snowstorm, at night, over strange and difficult terrain. I entered by force, supported by Mr. Goodwin’s gun. Now I’m going to stay until I’m through, or—you know the alternative.”
Mrs. Pitcairn looked at her husband and son and daughter. “I tried,” she said quietly.
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Joseph G. sat down for the first time and fastened his eyes on Wolfe’s face. “Inquire,” he said harshly.
“Good.” Wolfe heaved a deep sigh. “Please get Mr. and Mrs. Imbrie. I’ll need all of you.”
DC
FOR the last several minutes, since it had become evident that we were going to be invited to spend the night, I had had a new worry. The plan was that as soon as possible after we had got the halter on them Wolfe would get them all into the kitchen, to show him where Mrs. Imbrie had kept her box of morphine pills, and it seemed to me that the appearance of Mrs. Pitcaim had turned that from a chore into a real problem. How could he expect a woman with a bum back to get up from a chair and go to the kitchen with him just to point to a spot on a shelf, when three other people were available, all perfectly capable of pointing?
Or rather, five other people, when Mr. and Mrs. Imbrie had come. She was in a kind of dressing gown instead of her uniform, but he had got into his butler’s outfit, and I decided I liked him better in his greasy coveralls. They both looked scared and sleepy, and not a bit enthusiastic. As soon as they were with us Wolfe said he wanted to see where Mrs. Imbrie had kept the box of morphine, and that he would like all of them to come along. His tone indicated that he fully expected to be able to tell from the expressions on their faces which one had snitched the morphine to dope Dini Lauer.
The way they responded showed that my psychology needed overhauling and I shouldn’t have worried. Guilty or innocent, granted that the guilty one was present, obviously they thought this was a cinch and what a relief it wasn’t starting any tougher. There wasn’t even any protest about Mrs. Pitcaim exerting herself, except a question from Sybil.
As they started off, Wolfe in his bare feet, he paused to speak to me.
“Archie, will you put my socks near a radiator to dry? You can wring them out in the greenhouse.”
So I was left behind. I picked up the socks, and as soon as they were out of the room I darted into the greenhouse, leaving the door open, wrung out the socks with one quick twist over the soil of the bench, stooped to lift the canvas, and muttered, “You awake, Saul?”
“Nuts,” he hissed.
“Okay, come on. Mrs. Pitcairn is with us. Don’t stop to shut the door after you.”
I returned to the living room, crossed to the open door by which the
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others had left^ stood with my back to the voices I could hear in the distance, and watched Saul enter, cross to another door at the far end, which led to the reception hall, and disappear. Then I went and hung the socks on the frame of a magazine rack near a radiator grille, and beat it to the kitchen.
They were gathered around an open cupboard door. After exchanging glances with me Wolfe brought that phase of the investigation to a speedy end and suggested a return to the living room. On the way there Sybil insisted that her mother should go back upstairs, but didn’t get far. Mrs. Pitcaim was sticking, and I privately approved. Not only did it leave Saul an open field, but it guaranteed him what he needed most—time. Even if they had wanted to adjourn until morning Wolfe could probably have held
them, but it was better this way.
“Now,” Wolfe said, when he had got settled in the chair of his choice again with the rug around his feet, “look at it like this. If the police were not completely satisfied with Mr. Krasicki they would be here asking you questions, and you wouldn’t like it but you couldn’t help it. You are compelled to suffer my inquisition for quite a different reason from the one that would operate in the case of the police, but the result is the same. I ask you questions you don’t like, and you answer them as you think best. The police always expect a large percentage of the answers to be lies and evasions, and so do I, but that’s my lookout. Any fool could solve the most difficult of cases if everyone told the truth. Mr. Imbrie, did you ever hold Miss Lauer in