'I suggest,' Wolfe put in, 'that you confine this to the essentials.'
'I am. I want you to know just how it was. I don’t like to feel that I owe anyone anything, especially a woman, and I phoned her twice to get her to meet me and have a talk, but she wouldn’t. So I dropped it. I also stopped buying flowers at Cordoni’s, but some months later, one rainy day in April, I went there because it was convenient, and she wasn’t there. I didn’t ask about her. I include these details because you ought to know what the chances are that the police are going to dig this up.'
'First the essentials,' Wolfe muttered.
'All right, but you ought to know how I found out that she was at Grantham House. Grantham House is an institution started by-'
'I know what it is.'
'Then I don’t have to explain it. A few days after I had noticed that she wasn’t at Cordoni’s a friend of mine told me-his name is Austin Byne, and he is Mrs Robilotti’s nephew-he told me that he had been at Grantham House the day before on an errand for Mrs Robilotti and had seen a girl there that he recognized. He said I might recognize her too-the girl with the little oval face and green eyes who used to work at Cordoni’s. I told him I doubted it, that I didn’t remember her. But I-'
'Was Mr Byne’s tone or manner suggestive?'
'No. I didn’t think-I’m sure it wasn’t. But I wondered. Naturally. It had been eight months since the trip to Canada, and I did not believe that she had been promiscuous. I decided that I must see her and talk with her. I prefer to think that my chief reason was my feeling of obligation, but I don’t deny that I also wanted to know if she had found out who I was, and if so whether she had told anyone or was going to. In arranging to see her I took every possible precaution. Shall I tell you exactly how I managed it?'
'Later, perhaps.'
'All right, I saw her. She said that she had agreed to meet me only because she wanted to tell rne that she never wanted to see me or hear from me again. She said she didn’t hate me-I don’t think she was capable of hate-but that I meant only one thing to her, a mistake that she would never forgive herself for, and that she only wanted to blot me out. Those were her words: ‘blot you out’. She said her baby would be given for adoption and would never know who its parents were. I had money with me, a lot of it, but she wouldn’t take a cent. I didn’t raise the question whether there could be any doubt that I was the father. You wouldn’t either, if it had been you, with her, the way she was.'
He stopped and set his jaw. After a moment he released it. 'That was when I decided to quit playing around. I made an anonymous contribution to Grantham House. I never saw her again until last night. I didn’t kill her. I am convinced she killed herself, and I hope to God my being there, seeing me again, wasn’t what made her do it.'
He stopped again. Then he went on, 'I didn’t kill her, but you can see where I’ll be if the police go on investigating and dig this up somehow-though I don’t know how. They would have me. I was standing at the bar when Cecil Grantham came and got the champagne and took it to her. Even if I wasn’t convicted of murder, even if I was never put on trial, this would all come out and that would be nearly as bad. And evidently, if it weren’t for Goodwin, for what he has told them, they would almost certainly call it suicide and close it. Can you wonder that I want to know what he told them? At any price?'
'No,' Wolfe conceded. 'Accepting your account as candid, no. But you have shifted your ground. You wanted to hire me to tell you what Mr Goodwin has told the police, though you didn’t put it that way, and I declined. What do you want to hire me to do now?'
'To manage this for me. You said you manage things. To manage that this is not dug up, that my connection with Faith Usher does not become known, that I am not suspected of killing her.'
'You’re already suspected. You were there.'
'That’s nonsense. You’re quibbling. I wouldn’t be suspected if it weren’t for Goodwin. Nobody would be.'
I permitted myself an inside grin. 'Quibble' was one of Wolfe’s pet words. Dozens of people, sitting in the red leather chair, had been told by him that they were quibbling, and now he was getting it back, and he didn’t like it.
He said testily, 'But you are suspected, and you’d be a ninny to hire me to prevent something that has already happened. You have admitted you’re desperate, and desperate men can’t think straight, so I should make allowances, and I do. That the police will not discover your connection with Faith Usher is a forlorn hope. Surely she knew your real name. Weren’t you known at Cordoni’s? Didn’t you have a charge account?'
'No. I have charge accounts, of course, but not at any florist’s. I always paid cash for flowers-in those days. Now it doesn’t matter, but then it was more-uh-it was wiser. I don’t think she ever knew my name, and even if she did I’m almost certain she never told anyone about me-about the trip to Canada.'
Wolfe was sceptical. 'Even so,' he grumbled. 'You appeared with her in public places. On the street. You took her to dinner. If the police persist it’s highly probable that they’ll turn it up; at that sort of thing they’re extremely proficient. The only way to ward that off with any assurance would be to arrange that they do not persist, and that rests with Mr Goodwin.' His head turned. 'Archie. Has anything that Mr Laidlaw has said persuaded you that you might have been mistaken?'
'No,' I said. 'Now that we can name the figure I admit it’s a temptation, but I’m committed. No.'
'Committed to what?' Laidlaw demanded.
'To my statement that Faith Usher didn’t kill herself.'
'Why? For God’s sake, why?'
Wolfe took over. 'No, sir. That is still reserved, even if I accept your retainer. If I do, I’ll proceed on the hypothesis that your account of your relations with Faith Usher is bona fide, but only as a hypothesis. Over the years I have found many hypotheses untenable. It is quite possible that you did kill Faith Usher and your coming to me is a step in some devious and crafty stratagem. Then-'
'I didn’t.'
