them move chairs up to a line fronting his desk.
That trio was no great treat to look at. Saul Panzer, with his big nose lording it over his narrow face, in his brown suit that should have been pressed after he got caught in the rain, could have been a hackie or a street sweeper, but he wasn’t. He was the smartest operative in the metropolitan area, and his talent for tailing, which Wolfe had praised to Pete Drossos, was only one little part of him. Any agency in town would pay him three times the market.
In bulk Fred Durkin would have made nearly two Sauls, but not in ability. He could tail all right, and you could count on him for any ordinary chore, but if he ran into something fancy he was apt to get twisted. You could trust him to hell and back.
As for Orrie Cather, when he confronted you with his confident dark brown eyes and a satisfied smile on his wavy lips, you had no doubt that his main concern was whether you realized how handsome he was. Of course that irritated any customer he tackled, but it also gave the impression that it wasn’t necessary to watch your step, which might be dangerous, since his real concern was his reputation as a working detective.
Wolfe leaned back, rested his forearms on the arms of the chair, drew in a bushel of air, and audibly let it out. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I am up to my thighs in a quagmire. Customarily, when I enlist your services, it is enough to define your specific tasks, but this time that won’t do. You must be informed of the total situation in all its intricacy, but first a word about money. Less than twelve hours after the client gave me a check for ten thousand dollars, she was murdered. Since no successor to the cliency is in view, that’s all I’ll get. If it is unavoidable I am prepared, for a personal reason, to spend the major portion, even the entire sum, on the expense of the investigation, but not more. I don’t ask you to be niggardly in your expenditures, but I must forbid any prodigality. Now here it is.”
Beginning with my ushering Pete Drossos into the dining room Tuesday evening, and ending with my report of my talk with Jean Estey, which Fred had not heard, he went right through it, omitting nothing. They sat absorbing it, each in his manner-Saul slumped and relaxed, Fred stiff and straight, with his eyes fastened on Wolfe as if he had to listen with them too, and Orrie with his temple propped against his fingertips for a studio portrait. As for me, I was trying to catch Wolfe skipping some detail so I would have the pleasure of supplying it when he was through, but nothing doing. I couldn’t have done a better job myself.
He glanced up at the clock. “It’s twenty past seven, and dinner’s ready. We’re having fried chicken with cream gravy and mush. We won’t discuss this at the table, but I wanted you to have it in your minds.”
It was going on nine by the time we were back in the office, having discussed all of five chickens, with accessories, so fully that they were settled for good. Wolfe, after getting arranged in his chair, scowled at me and then at them.
“You don’t look very alert,” he said peevishly.
They didn’t jerk to attention. While none of them had had as much of him as I had, they knew how he hated to work during the hour or so after dinner, and what was eating him wasn’t that they weren’t alert but that he didn’t want to be.
“We can go downstairs,” I suggested, “and play some pool while you digest.”
He snorted. “My stomach,” he asserted, “is quite capable of handling its affairs without pampering. Has any of you gentlemen a pressing question before I go on?”
“Maybe later,” Saul suggested.
“Very well. It is, as you see, hopeless. It is excessively complex, but no sources of information are available to us. Archie can try with others as he did with Miss Estey, but he has no lever. The police will tell me nothing. On occasion, in the past, I have had tools wherewith to pry things out of them, but not this time. Since they know everything I know, I have nothing to bargain with. Of course we know presumptively what they’re doing. They’re finding out, or trying to, whether any woman known to Mrs. Fromm had a scratch on her cheek Tuesday evening or Wednesday. If they find her that could settle it; but they may not find her, since what that boy called a scratch, staring at her as he did, might have been a slight mark that she could have rendered practically unnoticeable as soon as she got a chance. Also the police are trying to find a woman known to Mrs. Fromm who wore spider earrings, and again, if they succeed, that could settle it.”
Wolfe upturned a palm. “And they’re trying to trace the car that killed the boy and Matthew Birch. They’re examining every inch of Mrs. Fromm’s car. They’re rechecking Birch’s movements and connections and associates. They’re piecing together, minute by minute, everything Mrs. Fromm did and said after she left this office yesterday. They’re badgering not only those who were with Mrs. Fromm last evening, but everyone who can be remotely suspected of knowledge of a pertinent fact. They’re checking on the whereabouts of all possible culprits-for Tuesday evening when a woman told Peter Drossos to get a cop, for later that evening when Birch was killed, for Wednesday evening when the boy was killed, and for yesterday evening when Mrs. Fromm was killed. They’re asking who had reason to fear or hate Mrs. Fromm or will profit in any way by her death. In those activities they are using a hundred men, or a thousand-all of them trained, and some of them competent.”
He compressed his lips and shook his head. “They can’t afford to fail on this one, and they won’t dally. As we sit here they may have marked their prey and are ready to seize him. But until they do, I propose to use Mrs. Fromm’s money, or part of it, for a purpose that she would surely have sanctioned. With all their advantages, the police will certainly forestall us, but I intend to persuade myself that I am justified in keeping that money; and besides, I resent the assumption that people who come to me for help can be murdered with impunity. That’s the personal reason.”
“We’ll get the bastard!” Fred Durkin blurted.
“I doubt it, Fred. You understand now why I called you to this conference and told you all about it instead of simply assigning you to errands as usual. I wanted you to know how hopeless it is, and also I wanted to consult you. There are dozens of possible approaches to the problem, and there are only three of you. Saul, where do you think you might start?”
Saul hesitated. He scratched his nose. “I’d like to start two places at once. Assadip and earrings.”
“Why Assadip?”
“Because they’re interested in displaced persons, and Birch was with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. That’s the one chance I see for any connection between Birch and Mrs. Fromm. Of course the cops are on it, but on that kind of prying around anyone might get a lucky break.”
