same room with anybody on earth, man or woman, was too much. “Then,” he asked, “you had only that one brief talk with Mr. Keems? You didn’t see him again?”
“No. How could we?”
“Did you see him again, Mr. Irwin?”
“No.”
“Can you add anything to your wife’s account of your talk with him?”
“No. That was all there was to it. I might add that our maid sleeps in, and she was there that night.”
“Thank you. That should be helpful. I’ll include it in my report to the police.” Wolfe went back to the wife. “One Little point, Mrs. Irwin. If you decided earlier in the day that you wouldn’t be able to go to the theater that evening, you might have mentioned it to someone, for instance to some friend on the phone, and you might also have mentioned, partly as a joke, that you would suggest that Mrs. Molloy be asked in your place. Did anything like that happen?”
She shook her head. “No, it couldn’t have, because I didn’t decide not to go until just before my husband came home.”
“Then your headache was a sudden attack?”
“I don’t know what you would call sudden. I was lying down with it most of the afternoon, and taking emagrin, and I was hoping it would go away. But I had to give up.”
“Do you have frequent headaches?”
Irwin burst out, “What the hell has that got to do with it?”
“Probably nothing,” Wolfe conceded. “I’m fishing white water, Mr. Irwin, and am casting at random.”
“It seems to me,” Arkoff put in, “that you’re fishing in dead water. Asking Mrs. Molloy didn’t have to be designed at all. If Peter Hays didn’t kill Molloy, if someone else did, of course it was somebody who knew him. He could have phoned Molloy and said he wanted to see him alone, and Molloy told him to come to the apartment, they would be alone there because Mrs. Molloy had gone to the theater. Why couldn’t it have happened like that?”
“It could,” Wolfe agreed. “Quite possible. The invitation to Mrs. Molloy was merely one of the aspects that deserved inquiry, and it might have been quickly eliminated. But not now. Now there is a question that must be answered: who killed Johnny Keems, and why?”
“Some damned fool. Some hit-and-run maniac.”
“Possibly, but I don’t believe it. I must be satisfied now, and so must the police, and even if you people are innocent of any complicity you can’t escape harassment. I’ll want to know more than I do now about the evening of January third, about what happened at the theater. I understand-Yes, Archie?”
“Before you leave last night,” I said, “I have a question to ask them.”
“Go ahead.”
I leaned forward to have all their faces as they turned to me. “About Johnny Keems,” I said. “Did he ask any of you anything about Bill Lesser?”
They had never heard the name before. You can’t always go by the reaction to a sudden unexpected question, since some people are extremely good at handling their faces, but if that name meant anything to one or more of them they were better than good. They all looked blank and wanted to know who Bill Lesser was. Of course Wolfe would also have liked to know who he was but didn’t say so. I told him that was all, and he resumed.
“I understand that Mrs. Molloy and Mrs. Arkoff went in to their seats before curtain time, and that Mr. Arkoff and Mr. Irwin joined them about an hour later, saying they had been in a bar across the street. Is that correct, Mr. Arkoff?”
Arkoff didn’t care for that at all, and neither did Irwin. Their position was that their movements on the evening of January 3 had no significance unless it was assumed that one or both of them might have killed Molloy and framed Peter Hays, and that was absurd. Wolfe’s position was that the police would ask him if he had questioned them about January 3, and if he said he had and they had balked, the police would want to know why.
Rita told her husband to quit arguing and get it over with, and that only made it worse, until she snapped at him, “What’s so touchy about it? Weren’t you just dosing up?”
He gave her a dirty look and then transferred it to Wolfe. “My wife and I,” he said, “met Mrs. Molloy in the theater lobby at half-past eight. The ladies went on in and I waited in the lobby for Irwin. He came a few minutes later and said he wanted a drink, and he also said he didn’t care much for plays about Joan of Arc. We went across the street and had a couple of drinks, and by the time we got in to our seats the first act was about over.”
Wolfe’s head turned. “You corroborate that, Mr. Irwin?”
“I do.”
Wolfe turned a hand over. “So simple, gentlemen. Why all the pother? And with a new and quite persuasive detail, that Mr. Irwin doesn’t care for plays about Joan of Arc-an inspired hoyden. To show you to what lengths an investigation can be carried, and sometimes has to be, a dozen men could make a tour of Mr. Irwin’s friends and acquaintances and ask if they have ever heard him express an attitude toward Joan of Arc and plays about her. I doubt if I’ll be driven to that extremity. Have you any questions?”
They hadn’t, for him. Rita Arkoff got up and went to Selma, and Fanny Irwin joined them. The men did too, for a moment, and then headed for the hall, and I followed them. They got their coats on and stood and waited, and finally their women came, and I opened the door. As they moved out Rita was telling the men that she had asked Selma to come and eat with them, but she had said she wasn’t up to it. “And no wonder,” Rita was saying as I swung the door to.
