And be a Villian

He looked up at the clock, which said twenty to twelve, and remarked to the audience: “It's late, isn't it?” He regarded the Starlite president: “Let's not start bickering, Mr Anderson. You weren't dragged here by force, were you? You were impelled either by concern or curiosity. In either case you won't leave until you hear what I have to say, so why not sit down and listen? If you want to be contentious wait until you learn what you have to contend with. It works better that way.”

He took in the others. “Perhaps, though, I should answer Mr Andersen's question, though it was obviously rhetorical. I am not ru

The Inspector, seated on the corner of the couch, nodded.

“They understand that.”

“Good. Then Mr Anderson's question was not only rhetorical, it was gibberish. I shall-”

“I have a question!” a voice said, harsh and strained.

“Yes, Mr Meadows, what is it?”

“If this isn't official, what happens to the notes Goodwin is making?”

“That depends on what we accomplish. They may never leave this house, and end up by being added to the stack in the cellar. Or a transcription of them may be accepted as evidence in a courtroom. I wish you'd sit down, Mr Savarese. It's more tranquil if everyone is seated.”

Wolfe shifted his centre of gravity. During his first ten minutes in a chair minor adjustments were always required.

“I should begin,” he said with just a trace of peevishness, “by admitting that I am in a highly vulnerable position. I have told Mr Cramer that when he leaves here he will take a murderer with him; but though I know who the murderer is, I haven't a morsel of evidence against him, and neither has anyone else. Still-”

“Wait a minute,” Cramer growled.

Wolfe shook his head. “It's important, Mr Cramer, to keep this unofficial-until I reach a certain point, if I ever do-so it would be best for you to say nothing whatever.” His eyes moved. “I think the best approach is to explain how I learned the identity of the murderer-and by the way, here's an interesting point; though I was already close to certitude, it was clinched for me only two hours ago, when Mr Goodwin told me that there were sixteen eager candidates for the sponsorship just abandoned by Starlite. That removed my shred of doubt.”

“For God's sake,” Nat Traub blurted, “let the fine points go! Let's have it!”

“You'll have to be patient, sir,” Wolfe reproved him. “I'm not merely reporting, I'm doing a job. Whether a murderer gets arrested, and tried, and convicted, depends entirely on how I handle this. There is no evidence and if I don't squeeze it out of you people now, tonight, there may never be any. The trouble all along, both for the police and for me, has been that no finger pointed without wavering. In going for a murderer as well concealed as this one it is always necessary to trample down improbabilities to get a path started, but it is foolhardy to do so until a direction is plainly indicated. This time there was no such plain indication, and, frankly, I had begun to doubt if there would be one-until yesterday morning, when Mr Anderson and Mr Owen visited this office. They gave it to me.”

“You're a liar!” Anderson stated.

“You see?” Wolfe upturned a palm. “Some day, sir, you're going to get on the wrong train by trying to board before it arrives. How do you know whether I'm a liar or not until you know what I'm saying? You did come here. You gave me a cheque for the full amount of my fee, told me that I was no longer in your hire, and said that you had withdrawn as a sponsor of Miss Fraser's programme. You gave as your reason for withdrawal that the practice of blackmail had been injected into the case, and you didn't want your product co

“Yes. But-”

“I'll do the butting. After you left I sat in this chair twelve straight hours, with intermissions only for meals, using my brain on you. If I had known then that before the day was out sixteen other products were scrambling to take your Starlite place, I would have reached my conclusion in much less than twelve hours, but I didn't. What I was exploring was the question, what had happened to you? You had been so greedy for publicity that you had even made a trip down here to get into a photograph with me. Now, suddenly, you were fleeing like a comely maiden from a smallpox scare. Why?”

“I told you-”

“I know. But that wasn't good enough. Examined with care, it was actually flimsy. I don't propose to recite all my twistings and windings for those twelve hours, but first of all I rejected the reason you gave. What, then? I considered every possible circum- stance and all conceivable combinations. That you were yourself the murderer and feared I might sniff you out; that you were not the murderer, but the blackmailer; that, yourself i

“No,” Anderson said coldly, “and you won't either before you hear the last of it. You through?”

“Good heavens, no. I've barely started. As I say, I reached that conclusion, but it was nothing to crow about. What was I to do with it? I had a screw I could put on you, but it seemed unwise to be hasty about it, and I considered a trial of other expedients. I confess that the one I chose to begin with was feeble and even sleazy, but it was at breakfast this morning, before I had finished my coffee and got dressed, and Mr Goodwin was fidgety and I wanted to give him something to do. Also, I had already made a suggestion to Mr Cramer which was designed to give everyone the impression that there was evidence that Miss Vance had been blackmailed, that she was under acute suspicion, and that she might be charged with murder at any moment. There was a chance, I thought, that an imminent threat to Miss Vance, who is a personable young woman, might impel somebody to talk.”

“So you started that,” Elinor Vance said dully.

Wolfe nodded. “I'm not boasting about it. I've confessed it was worse than second-rate, but I thought Mr Cramer might as well try it; and this morning, before I was dressed, I could devise nothing better than for Mr Goodwin to type an anonymous letter about you and take it up there-a letter which implied that you had committed murder at least twice.”

“Goddam pretty,” Bill Meadows said.

“He didn't do it,” Elinor said.

“Yes, he did,” Wolfe disillusioned her. “He had it with him, but didn't get to use it. The death of Miss Koppel was responsible not only for that, but for other things as well-for instance, for this gathering. If I had acted swiftly and energetically on the conclusion I reached twenty-four hours ago, Miss Koppel might be alive now. I owe her an apology but I can't get it to her. What I can do is what I'm doing.”