The Rodeo Murder

III

Even when I get my full ration of sleep, eight hours, I don’t break through my personal morning fog until I have emptied my coffee cup, and when the eight is cut to five by events beyond my control, as it was that night, I have to grope my way to the bathroom. After getting home at five in the morning, and leaving a note for Fritz saying I would be down for breakfast at 10:45, I had set the alarm for ten o’clock. That had seemed sensible, but the trouble with an alarm clock is that what seems sensible when you set it seems absurd when it goes off. Before prying my eyes open I stayed flat a while, trying to find an alternative, and had to give up when I was conscious enough to realize that Wolfe would come down from the plant rooms at eleven. Forty minutes later I descended the two flights to the ground floor, entered the kitchen, told Fritz good morning, got my orange juice from the refrigerator, and sat at the table where my copy of the Times was on the rack. Fritz, who is as well acquainted with my morning fog as I am and never tries to talk through it, uncovered the sausage and lit the fire under the griddle for cakes.

The murder of Wade Eisler with a lasso at the penthouse of Lily Rowan rated the front page even in the Times. There was no news in it for me, nothing that I didn’t already know, after the five hours I had spent at the scene of the crime with Homicide personnel, three hours at the District Attorney’s office, and three hours back at the penthouse with Lily, at her request. Cal Barrow was in custody as a material witness. The District Attorney couldn’t say if he would be released in time for the Tuesday-evening rodeo performance. Archie Goodwin had told a Times reporter that he had not been at the penthouse in his professional capacity; he and Nero Wolfe had merely been guests. The police didn’t know what the motive had been, or weren’t telling. Wade Eisler, a bachelor, had been a well-known figure in sporting and theatrical circles. The Times didn’t say that he had had a chronic and broad-minded taste for young women, but the tabloids certainly would. And so forth.

I was spreading honey on the third griddle cake when the sounds came of the elevator jolting to a stop and then Wolfe’s footsteps in the hall crossing to the office. He wouldn’t expect to find me there, since Fritz would have told him of my note when he took his breakfast tray up, so I took my time with the cake and honey and poured more coffee. As I was taking a sip the doorbell rang and I got up and went to the hall for a look. Through the one-way glass in the front door I saw a big broad frame and a big pink face that were all too familiar. The hall on the ground floor of the old brownstone is long and wide, with the walnut clothes rack, the elevator, the stairs, and the door to the dining room on one side, the doors to the front room and the office on the other, and the kitchen in the rear. I stepped to the office door, which was standing open, and said, “Good morning. Cramer.”

Wolfe, in his oversized chair behind his desk, turned his head to scowl at me. “Good morning, I told him on the phone last evening that I have no information for him.”

I had had two cups of coffee and the fog was gone. “Then I’ll tell him to try next door.”

“No.” His lips tightened. “Confound him. That will only convince him that I’m hiding something. Let him in.”

I went to the front, opened the door, and inquired, “Good lord, don’t you ever sleep?”

I will never get to see Inspector Cramer at the top of his form, the form that has kept him in charge of Homicide for twenty years, because when I see him I am there and that throws him off. It’s only partly me; it’s chiefly that I make him think of Wolfe, and thinking of Wolfe is too much for him. When he has us together his face gets pinker and his voice gets gruffer, as it did that morning. He sat in the red leather chair near the end of Wolfe’s desk, leaning forward, his elbows planted on the chair arms. He spoke. “I came to ask one question, why were you there yesterday? You told me on the phone last night that you went there to eat grouse, and Goodwin said the same. It’s in his signed statement. Nuts. You could have had him bring the grouse here and had Fritz cook it.”

Wolfe grunted. “When you are invited to someone’s table to taste a rare bird you accept or decline. You don’t ask that the bird be sent to you — unless you’re a king.”

“Which you think you are. You’re named after one.”

“I am not. Nero Claudius Caesar was an emperor, not a king, and I wasn’t named after him. I was named after a mountain.”

“Which you are. I still want to know why you were there with that bunch. You never leave your house on business, so it wasn’t for a client. You went with Goodwin because he asked you to. Why did he ask you to? Why did you sit next to Wade Eisler at lunch? Why did Goodwin have a private talk with one of them, Cal Barrow, just before he drove you home? Why did Barrow go to him when he found the body? Why did Goodwin wait twenty minutes before he had Miss Rowan report it?”

Wolfe was leaning back, his eyes half closed, being patient. “You had Mr. Goodwin at your disposal all night. Weren’t those points covered?”

Cramer snorted. “They were covered, all right. He knows how to cover. I’m not saying he knew or you knew Eisler’s number was up. I don’t say you know who did it or why. I do say there was some kind of trouble and Miss Rowan was involved in it, or at least she knew about it, and that’s why Goodwin got you to go. You told me last night that you know nothing whatever about any of those people except Miss Rowan, and that your knowledge of her is superficial. I don’t believe it.”

“Mr. Cramer.” Wolfe’s eyes opened. “I lie only for advantage, never merely for convenience.”

I cut in. “Excuse me.” I was at my desk, at right angles to Wolfe’s. Cramer turned to me. “I’d like to help if I can,” I told him, “on account of Miss Rowan. I was backstage at the rodeo twice last week, and it’s barely possible I heard or saw something that would open a crack. It would depend on how it stands. I know you’re holding Cal Barrow. Has he been charged?”

“No. Material witness. It was his rope and he found the body.”

“I am not concerned,” Wolfe growled, “but I remark that that would rather justify holding the others.”

“We haven’t got your brains,” Cramer growled back. To me: “What did you hear and see backstage at the rodeo?”

“I might remember something if I knew more about it. I know Eisler wasn’t there when I returned at four o’clock, but I don’t know who saw him last or when. Is everybody out except the ones who were there for lunch?”

“Yes. He was there when Miss Rowan left to go to the kitchen for coffee. That was at three-twenty, eight minutes after you left, as close as we can get it. No one remembers seeing him after that, so they say. No one noticed him leave the terrace, so they say. He got up from the lunch table at five minutes to three. He emptied his coffee cup at three-twenty. The stomach contents say that he died within twenty minutes of that. None of the other guests came until a quarter to four. So there’s three cowboys: Harvey Greve, Cal Barrow, and Mel Fox. There’s three cowgirls: Anna Casado, Nan Karlin, and Laura Jay. There’s Roger Dunning and his wife. You and Wolfe weren’t there. Miss Rowan was, but if you saw or heard anything that points at her you wouldn’t remember it. Was she at the rodeo with you?”

“I don’t remember. Skip it. You’ve got it down to twenty minutes, from three-twenty to three-forty. Wasn’t anyone else missed during that period?”

“Not by anybody who says so. That’s the hell of it. Nobody liked Eisler. Not a single one of them would give a bent nickel to see the murderer caught. Some of them might give a good nickel to see him get away with it. This might make you remember something you saw or heard: Sunday night he took a woman to his apartment, and it could have been one of the cowgirls. We haven’t got a good description of her, but the fingerprint men are there now. Were you at the Garden Sunday night?”

I shook my head. “Wednesday and Saturday. What about prints in the shack?”

“None that are any good.”

“Last night I mentioned that a steel rod in a rack was crosswise.”

“Yeah. We might have noticed it ourselves in time. It had been wiped. He had been hit in the back of the head with it. You can read about it in the evening paper. Do you want to come down and look at it?”

“You don’t have to take that tone.” I was hurt. “I said I’d like to help and I meant it. You need help, you’re up a stump, or you wouldn’t be here. As for what I heard and saw at the rodeo, I didn’t know there was going to be a murder. I’ll have to sort it out. I’ll see if I can dig up anything and let you know. I thought you might—”

“Why, goddam you!” He was on his feet. “String me along? I know damn well you know something! I’ll see that you choke on it!” He took a step. “For the record, Goodwin. Have you knowledge of any facts that would help identify the murderer of Wade Eisler?”

“No.”

To Wolfe: “Have you?”

“No, sir.”

“Have you any involvement of any kind with any of those people?”

“No, sir.”

“Wait a minute,” I put in. “To avoid a possible future misunderstanding.” I got my case from my pocket, took out a slip of paper, and displayed it to Wolfe. “This is a check for five thousand dollars, payable to you, signed by Lily Rowan.”

“What’s it for?” he demanded. “She owes me nothing.”

“She wants to. It’s a retainer. She asked me to go back to her place after they finished with me at the DA’s office last night, and I did so. She didn’t like Wade Eisler any better than the next one, but two things were biting her. First, he was killed at her house by someone she had invited there. She calls that an abuse of hospitality and she thought you would. Don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“No argument there. Second, the daughter of District Attorney Bowen is a friend of hers. They were at school together. She has known Bowen for years. He has been a guest both at her apartment and her place in the country. And at midnight last night an assistant DA phoned her and told her to be at his office in the Criminal Courts Building at ten o’clock this morning, and she phoned Bowen, and he said he couldn’t allow his personal friendships to interfere with the functions of his staff. She then phoned the assistant DA and told him she would call him today and tell him what time it would be convenient for her to see him at her apartment.”

“There’s too many like her,” Cramer muttered.

“But she has a point,” I objected. “She had told you all she knew and answered your questions and signed a statement, and why ten o’clock?” To Wolfe: “Anyway, here’s her check. She wants you to get the murderer before the police do, and let her phone the DA and tell him to come for him — or she and I will deliver him to the DA’s office, either way. Of course I told her you wouldn’t take the job on those terms, but you might possibly consider investigating the abuse of hospitality by one of her guests. I also told her you charge high fees, but she already knew that. I bring this up now because you just told Cramer you’re not involved, and if you take this retainer you will be involved. I told Miss Rowan you probably wouldn’t take it because you’re already in the ninety-percent bracket for the year and you hate to work.”

He was glowering at me. He knew that I knew he wouldn’t turn it down with Cramer there. “It will be costly gratification of a pique,” he said.

“I told her so. She can afford it.”

“Her reason for hiring me is the most capricious in my experience. But I have not only eaten her bread and salt, I have eaten her grouse. I am in her debt. Mr. Cramer. I change my answer to your last question. I do have an involvement. My other answer holds. I have no information for you.”

Cramer’s jaw was clamped. “You know the law,” he said, and wheeled and headed for the door.

When a visitor leaves the office it is my custom to precede him to the hall and the front door to let him out; but when it’s Cramer and he’s striding out in a huff I would have to hop on it to get ahead of him, which would be undignified, so I just follow to see that he doesn’t take our hats from the shelf and tramp on them. When I emerged from the office Cramer was halfway down the hall, and after one glance I did hop on it. Out on the stoop, reaching a finger to the bell button, was Laura Jay.

I can outhop Cramer any day, but he was too far ahead and was opening the door when I reached it. Not wanting to give him an excuse to take me downtown, I didn’t bump him. I braked. He said, “Good morning, Miss Jay. Come in.”

I got Laura’s eye and said, “Inspector Cramer is just leaving.”

“I’m in no hurry,” Cramer said, and backed up a step to give her room. “Come in, Miss Jay.”

I saw it coming in her eyes — that is, I saw something was coming. They were at Cramer, not at me, but I saw the sudden sharp gleam of an idea, and then she acted on it. She came in all right, on the jump, through the air straight at Cramer, hands first reaching for his face. By instinct he should have jerked back, but experience is better than instinct. He ducked below her hands and came up against her with his arms around her, clamping her to him, leaving her nothing to paw but air. I got her wrists from the rear, pulled them to me, and crossed her arms behind her back.

“Okay,” I said, “you can unwrap.”

Cramer slipped his arms from under hers and backed away. “All right, Miss Jay,” he said. “What’s the idea?”

She tried to twist her head around. “Let me go,” she demanded. “You’re breaking my arm.”

“Will you behave yourself?”

“Yes.”

As I let go she started to tremble, but then she stiffened, pulling her shoulders back. “I guess I lost my head,” she told Cramer. “I didn’t expect to see you here. I do that sometimes, I just lose my head.”

“It’s a bad habit, Miss Jay. What time is your appointment with Nero Wolfe?”

“I haven’t got an appointment.”

“What do you want to see him about?”

“I don’t want to see him. I came to see Archie Goodwin.”

“What about?”

Before she could answer a voice came from behind Cramer. “Now what?” Wolfe was there, at the door to the office.

Cramer ignored him. “To see Goodwin about what?” he demanded.

“I think I know,” I said. “It’s a personal matter. Strictly personal.”

“That’s it,” Laura said. “It’s personal.”

Cramer looked at me, and back at her. Of course the question was, if he took us downtown and turned us over to a couple of experts could they pry it out of us? He voted no. He spoke to me. “You heard me tell Wolfe he knows the law. So do you,” and marched to the door, opened it, and was gone.

“Well?” Wolfe demanded.

I tried the door to make sure it was shut, and turned. “Miss Jay came to see me. I’ll take her in the front room.”

“No. The office.” He turned and headed for the kitchen.

I allowed myself an inside grin. Thanks to my having produced the check with Lily’s offer of a job in Cramer’s presence, he was actually working. When Laura and I had entered the office he would emerge from the kitchen and station himself at the hole. On the office side the hole was covered by a picture of a waterfall, on the wall at eye level to the right of Wolfe’s desk. On the other side, in a little alcove at the end of the hall, it was covered by a sliding panel, and with the panel pushed aside you could not only hear but also see through the waterfall. I had once stood there for three hours with a notebook, recording a conversation Wolfe was having with an embezzler.

Laura retrieved her handbag, a big gray leather one, from the floor where it had dropped when she went for Cramer, and I escorted her to the office, took her jacket and put it on the couch, moved a chair for her to face my desk, swiveled my chair around, and sat. I looked at her. She was a wreck. I wouldn’t have known her, especially since I had previously seen her all rigged out, and now she was in a plain gray dress with a black belt. Her cheeks sagged, her hair straggled, and her eyes were red and puffed. You wouldn’t suppose a dashing cowgirl could get into such a state.

“First,” I said, “why? Why did you go for him?”

She swallowed. “I just lost my head.” She swallowed again. “I ought to thank you for helping me, when he asked what I came to see you for. I didn’t know what to say.”

“You’re welcome. What do you say if I ask you?”

“I came to find out something. To find out if you told them what Cal told you yesterday. I know you must have because they’ve arrested him.”

I shook my head. “They’re holding him as a material witness because it was his rope and he found the body. I promised Cal I wouldn’t repeat what he told me, and I haven’t. If I did they’d have a motive for him, they couldn’t ask for better, and they’d charge him with murder.”

“You haven’t told them? You swear you haven’t?”

“I only swear on the witness stand and I’m not there yet. I have told no one, but I am now faced with a problem. Miss Rowan has hired Nero Wolfe to investigate the murder, and he will ask me for a full report of what happened there yesterday. I can’t tell him what Cal told me because of my promise to Cal, and I’ll have to tell him I am leaving something out, which he won’t like. If Cal were available I would get his permission to tell Mr. Wolfe, but he isn’t.”

“Then you haven’t even told Nero Wolfe?”

“No.”

“Will you promise me you won’t tell the police? That you’ll never tell them no matter what happens?”

“Certainly not.” I eyed her. “Use your head if you’ve found it again. Their charging Cal with murder doesn’t depend only on me. They have found out that Eisler took a woman to his apartment Sunday night and they’re going over it for fingerprints. If they find some of yours, and if they learn that you and Cal are good friends, as they will, he’s in for it, and I would be a damn fool to wait till they get me on the stand under oath.”

I turned a palm up. “You see, one trouble is, you and me talking, that you think Cal killed him and I know he didn’t. You should be ashamed of yourself. You have known him two years and I only met him last week, but I know him better than you do. I can be fooled and have been, but when he got me aside yesterday and asked me how to go about taking some hide off a toad he was not getting set to commit a murder, and the murder of Wade Eisler was premeditated by whoever took Cal’s rope. Not to mention how he looked and talked when he showed me the body. If I thought there was a chance that Cal killed him I wouldn’t leave anything out when I report to Mr. Wolfe. But I can’t promise to hang on to it no matter what happens.”

“You can if you will,” she said. “I don’t think Cal killed him. I know he didn’t. I did.”

My eyes widened. “You did what? Killed Eisler?”

“Yes.” She swallowed. “Don’t you see how it is? Of course I’ve got to tell them I killed him, but when they arrest me Cal will say he killed him because I told him about Sunday night. But I’ll say I didn’t tell him about Sunday night, and it will be my word against his, and they’ll think he’s just trying to protect me. So it does depend on you. You’ve got to promise you won’t tell them what Cal told you yesterday. Because I killed him, and why should you protect me? Why should you care what happens to me if I killed a man?”

I regarded her. “You know,” I said, “at least you’ve answered my question, why you went for Cramer. You wanted to plant the idea that you’re a holy terror. That wasn’t so dumb, in fact it was half bright, but now listen to you. You might possibly sell it to the cops that you killed him, at least you could ball them up a while, but not me. When I went to the shack yesterday and found you there with Cal, the first thing he said was that you thought he had killed him. And now you—”

“Cal was wrong. How could I think he had killed him when I knew I had?”

“Nuts. I not only heard what he said, I saw his face, and I saw yours. You still think Cal killed him and you’re acting like a half-wit.”

Her head went down, her hands went up to cover her face, and she squeezed her breasts with her elbows. Her shoulders shook.

I sharpened my voice. “The very worst thing you could do would be to try telling the cops that you killed him. It would take them about ten minutes to trip you up, and then where would Cal be? But maybe you should tell them about Sunday night, but of course not that you told Cal about it. If they find your fingerprints in Eisler’s apartment you’ll have to account for them, and it will be better to give them the account before they ask for it. That won’t be difficult; just tell them what happened.”

“They won’t find my fingerprints,” she said, or I thought she did. Her voice was muffled by her hands, still over her face.

“Did you say they won’t find your fingerprints?” I asked.

“Yes. I’m sure they won’t.”

I gawked at her. It wasn’t so much the words as the tone — or not the tone, muffled as it was, but something. Call it a crazy hunch, and you never know exactly what starts a hunch. It was so wild that I almost skipped it, but it never pays to pass a hunch. “You can’t be sure,” I said. “You must have touched something. I’ve been to a party in that apartment. When you entered did you stop in the hall with the marble statues?”

“No. He... we went on through.”

“To the living room. You stopped there?”

“Yes.”

“Did he take you across to look at the birds in the cages? He always does. The cages are stainless steel, perfect for prints. Did you touch any of them?”

“No, I’m sure I didn’t.” She had dropped her hands and lifted her head.

“How close did you go to them?”

“Why... not very close. I’m sure I didn’t touch them.”

“So am I. I am also sure that you’re a damn liar. There are no marble statues or bird cages in Eisler’s apartment. You have never been there. What kind of a double-breasted fool are you, anyway? Do you go around telling lies just for the hell of it?”

Naturally I expected an effect, but not the one I got. She straightened up in her chair and gave me a straight look, direct and steady.

“I’m not a liar,” she said. “I’m not a fool either, except about Cal Barrow. The kind of a life I’ve had a girl gets an attitude about men, or anyway I did. No monkey business. Keep your fences up and your cinch tight. Then I met Cal and I took another look, and after a while I guess you would say I was in love with him, but whatever you call it I know how I felt. I thought I knew how he felt too, but he never mentioned it, and of course I didn’t. I only saw him now and then, he was mostly up north, and when I came to New York for this rodeo here he was. I thought he was glad to see me, and I let him know I was glad to see him, but still he didn’t mention it, and when two weeks went by and pretty soon we would scatter I was trying to decide to mention it myself, and then Sunday night Nan told me about Wade Eisler, how he had—”

“Nan Karlin?”

“Yes. He had told her he was having a party at his apartment, and she went with him, and when they got there there wasn’t any party, and he got rough, and she got rough too, and she got away.”

“She told you this Sunday night?”

“Yes, when she got back to the hotel she came to my room. It’s next to hers. Then there was this ear.” She lifted a hand to push her hair back over her left ear. “I’m telling you the whole thing. I got careless with a bronc Sunday night and got bruised by a buckle, and I didn’t want to admit to Cal that I didn’t know how to keep clear around a horse. So when we met for breakfast yesterday morning I told him — you know what I told him. I guess I thought when he heard that, how a man had tried to bulldog me, he would see that it was time to mention something. I know I was a damn fool, I said I’m a fool when it comes to Cal Barrow, but I guess I don’t know him as well as I thought I did. He never goes looking for trouble. I thought he would just ride herd on me, and that would be all right, I wanted him to. I never dreamt he would kill him.”

“He didn’t. How many times do I have to tell you he didn’t? Who else did Nan tell about it?”

“She was going to tell Roger, Roger Dunning. She asked me if I thought she should tell Roger, and I said yes, because he had asked us to go easy with Eisler, not to sweat him unless we had to, so I thought he ought to know. Nan said she would tell him right away.”

“Who else did she tell?”

“I guess not anybody. She made me promise not to tell Mel.”

“Mel Fox?”

“Yes. She and Mel are going to tie up, and she was afraid he might do something. I’m sure she didn’t tell him.”

“Did you tell him?”

“Of course not. I promised Nan I wouldn’t.”

“Well.” I lifted my hands and dropped them. “You’re about the rarest specimen I’ve ever come across. I know something about geniuses. I work for one, but you’re something new, an anti-genius. It wouldn’t do any good to try to tell you—”

The phone rang, and I swiveled my chair around to get it. It was Lon Cohen of the Gazette. He wanted to know how much I would take for an exclusive on who roped Wade Eisler and why, and I told him I did and when I typed my confession I would make an extra carbon for him but at the moment I was busy.

As I reached to cradle the receiver Wolfe’s voice sounded behind me, not loud but clear enough though it was coming through the waterfall that covered the hole. “Archie, don’t move. Don’t turn around. She has taken a gun from her bag and is pointing it at you. Miss Jay. Your purpose is clear. With Mr. Goodwin dead there will be no one to disclose what you told Mr. Barrow at breakfast yesterday but Mr. Barrow himself, and you will deny it. You will of course be doomed since you can’t hope to escape the due penalty for killing Mr. Goodwin, but you accept it in order to save Mr. Barrow from the doom you think you have contrived for him. A desperate expedient but a passable one; but it’s no good now because I have heard you. You can’t kill me too; you don’t know where I am. Drop the gun. I will add that Mr. Goodwin has worked with me many years; I know him well; and I accept his conclusion that Mr. Barrow did not kill Wade Eisler. He is not easily gulled. Drop the gun.”

I had stayed put, but it wasn’t easy. Of course tingles were chasing up and down my spine, but worse than that I felt so damned silly, sitting there with my back to her while Wolfe made his speech. When he stopped it was too much. I swiveled. Her hand with the gun was resting on her knee, and she was staring at it, apparently wondering how it got there. I got up and took it, an old snub-nosed Graber, and flipped the cylinder. Fully loaded.

As I jiggled the cartridges out Wolfe entered from the hall. As he approached he spoke. “Archie. Does Mr. Barrow cherish this woman?”

“Sure he does. This could even key him up to mentioning it.”

“Heaven help him.” He glared down at her. “Madam, you are the most dangerous of living creatures. However, here you are, and I may need you.” He turned his head and roared, “Fritz!” Fritz must have been in the hall; he appeared immediately. “This is Miss Laura Jay,” Wolfe told him. “Show her to the south room, and when lunch is ready take her a tray.”

“I’m going,” Laura said. “I’m going to — I’m going.”

“No. You’d be up to some mischief within the hour. I am going to expose a murderer, and I have accepted Mr. Goodwin’s conclusion that it will not be Mr. Barrow, and you will probably be needed. This is Mr. Fritz Brenner. Go with him.”

“But I must—”

“Confound it, will you go? Mr. Cramer would like to know why you came to see Mr. Goodwin. Do you want me to ring him and tell him?”

She went. I got her jacket from the couch and handed it to Fritz, and he convoyed her out and to the elevator. Wolfe commanded me, “Get Mr. Dunning,” and went to his desk and sat. I put the Graber and the cartridges in a drawer, looked in the book for the number of the Paragon Hotel, got at the phone, and dialed. The girl said Dunning’s room didn’t answer, and I asked her to have him paged. When he couldn’t be found I left a message, and tried Madison Square Garden, and finally got him.

Wolfe took his phone. I stayed on mine. “Mr. Dunning? This is Nero Wolfe. We met yesterday at the home of Miss Lily Rowan. Miss Rowan has hired me to investigate what she calls an abuse of her hospitality — the death by violence of one of her guests — and I would like to see you. If you will please come to my office, say at a quarter past two?”

“I can’t,” Dunning said. “Impossible. Anyway, I’ve told the police everything I know. I suppose Miss Rowan has a right to hire you if she wants to, but I don’t see why... anyhow, I can’t. It’s a nightmare, this is, a nightmare, but we’re going to have a performance tonight if I live that long.”

“Murder hatches nightmares. Did you tell the police about Miss Karlin’s visit to Mr. Eisler’s apartment Sunday night?”

Silence. Five seconds.

“Did you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That won’t do, Mr. Dunning. I can ask the police that question if I must, but I would rather not. I would prefer to discuss it with you, and with Miss Karlin and Mr. Fox. If you will please be here with them at a quarter past two? A yes or no will be sufficient. It might be unwise to discuss it on the phone.”

Another silence. Six seconds.

“I’ll be there.”

“With Miss Karlin and Mr. Fox?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ll expect you.” He hung up and looked at me. “Archie. Will that woman try climbing out a window?”

“No. She’s hooked.”

“Very well.” He looked up at the wall clock. “Lunch in forty minutes. Report.”