“Who is he?” Korby wanted to know. “Where is he?”
“It’s a woman, and she is available. Mr. Goodwin, who has spoken with her, is completely satisfied of her competence and bona fides, and he is hard to satisfy. It is highly unlikely that she can be impeached. That’s all I-”
“I don’t get it,” Vetter blurted. “If they’ve got a witness like that why haven’t they come for us?”
“Because they haven’t got her. They know nothing about her. But they may find her at any moment, or she may go to them. If so you will soon be discussing the matter not with me but with officers of the law-and so will I. Unless you do discuss it with me, and unless the discussion is productive, I shall of course be constrained to tell Mr. Delaney about her. I wouldn’t like that and neither would you. After hearing her story his manner with you, and with me, would be quite different from yesterday. I want to ask you some questions.”
“Who is she?” Korby demanded. “Where is she?”
Wolfe shook his head. “I’m not going to identify her or place her for you. I note your expressions- especially yours, Mr. Korby, and yours, Mr. Griffin. You are skeptical. But what conceivable reason could there be for my getting you here to point this weapon at you except the coercion of events? Why would I invent or contrive such a dilemma? I, like you, would vastly prefer to have it as it was, that the murderer came from without, but that’s no good now. I concede that you may suspect me too, and Mr. Goodwin, and you may question us as I may question you. But one of us killed Philip Holt, and getting answers to questions is clearly in the interest of all the rest of us.”
They exchanged glances. But they were not the kind of glances they would have exchanged five minutes earlier. They were glances of doubt, suspicion, and surmise, and they weren’t friendly.
“I don’t see,” Griffin objected, “what good questions will do. We were all there together and we all know what happened. We all know what everybody said.”
Wolfe nodded. “But we were all supporting the theory that excluded us. Now we’re not. We can’t. One of us has something in his background which, if known, would account for his determination to kill that man. I suggest beginning with autobiographical sketches from each of us, and here is mine. I was born in Montenegro and spent my early boyhood there. At the age of sixteen I decided to move around, and in fourteen years I became acquainted with most of Europe, a little of Africa, and much of Asia, in a variety of roles and activities. Coming to this country in nineteen-thirty, not penniless, I bought this house and entered into practice as a private detective. I am a naturalized American citizen. I first heard of Philip Holt about two years ago when Fritz Brenner, who works for me, came to me with a complaint about him. My only reason for wishing him harm, but not the extremity of death, was removed, as you know, when he agreed to stop annoying Mr. Brenner about joining your union if I would make a speech at your blasted picnic. Mr. Goodwin?”
I turned my face to the audience. “Born in Ohio. Public high school, pretty good at geometry and football, graduated with honor but no honors. Went to college two weeks, decided it was childish, came to New York and got a job guarding a pier, shot and killed two men and was fired, was recommended to Nero Wolfe for a chore he wanted done, did it, was offered a full-time job by Mr. Wolfe, took it, still have it. Personally, was more entertained than bothered by Holt’s trying to get union dues out of Fritz Brenner. Otherwise no connection with him or about him.”
“You may,” Wolfe told them, “question us later if you wish. Miss Korby?”
“Well-” Flora said. She glanced at her father, and, when he nodded, she aimed at Wolfe and went on, “My autobiography doesn’t amount to much. I was born in New York and have always lived here. I’m twenty years old. I didn’t kill Phil Holt and had no reason to kill him.” She turned her palms up. “What else?”
“If I may suggest,” H. L. Griffin offered, “if there’s a witness as Wolfe says, if there
She gave him an eye. “What about us, Mr. Griffin?”
“I don’t know. I’ve only heard talk, that’s all, and they’ll dig up the talk.”
“To hell with the talk,” Dick Vetter blurted, the whipped cream sounding sour.
Flora looked at Wolfe. “I can’t help talk,” she said. “It certainly is no secret that Phil Holt was-well, he liked women. And it’s no secret that I’m a woman, and I guess it’s not a secret that I didn’t like Phil. For me he was what you called him, a nuisance. When he wanted something.”
Wolfe grunted. “And he wanted you?”
“He thought he did. That’s all there was to it. He was a pest, that’s all there is to say about it.”
“You said you had no reason to kill him.”
“Good heavens, I didn’t! A girl doesn’t kill a man just because he won’t believe her when she says no!”
“No to what? A marriage proposal?”
Her father cut in. “Look here,” he told Wolfe, “you’re barking up the wrong tree. Everybody knows how Phil Holt was about women. He never asked one to marry him and probably he never would. My daughter is old enough and smart enough to take care of herself, and she does, but not by sticking a knife in a man’s back.” He turned to Griffin. “Much obliged, Harry.”
The importer wasn’t fazed. “It was bound to come out, Jim, and I thought it ought to be mentioned now.”
Wolfe was regarding Korby. “Naturally it raises the question how far a father might go to relieve his daughter of a pest.”
Korby snorted. “If you’re asking it, the answer is no. My daughter can take care of herself. If you want a reason why I might have killed Phil Holt you’ll have to do better than that.”
“Then I’ll try, Mr. Korby. You are the president of your union, and Mr. Holt was an important figure in it, and at the moment the affairs of unions, especially their financial affairs, are front-page news. Have you any reason to fear an investigation, or had Mr. Holt?”
