Degan looked at Parker. “You expected this?”
“No. I had no expectations whatever.”
He looked at me. “Did you?”
I shook my head. “Same here.”
“I wonder. I wonder what Wolfe expected.”
“You’d have to ask him.”
“I would like to. Is he in his office?”
I looked at my wrist. “He will be for another fifteen minutes. Lunch at one-thirty on Friday.”
“We might make it.” He returned the bundles to the box, locked it, picked it up, and headed for the door, with the New York State Tax Commission practically stepping on his heels. Parker and I followed, and waited outside while he went with an attendant and the tax man to have the box slid into its niche and locked in, and when he rejoined us we mounted together to the street floor. There the tax man parted from us. Except for interested glances from a couple of guards we drew no attention inside, but the press was on the job. As we emerged to the sidewalk a journalist blocked our path and said the public wanted to know what had been found in Molloy’s box, and when we refused to spill it he stayed right with us until we were in the taxi with the door shut.
The midtown traffic kept us from getting to the old brownstone before one-thirty, but since as far as I knew Patrick A. Degan was still a suspect I took him in along with Parker. Herding them into the office, I crossed the hall to the dining room and shut the door. Wolfe, in the big chair with arms, at the far end of the table, had just started operating on an eight-inch ring of ham and sweetbreads mousse.
“You brought visitors,” he accused me.
“Yes, sir. Parker and Degan. I know you won’t work with the feedbag on, but we found a third of a million dollars in used currency in the safe-deposit box, and Degan wants to ask you if you knew it was there. Shall they wait?”
“Have they eaten?”
“No.”
Of course that wouldn’t do. The thought of a hungry human, even a hungry murder suspect, even a hungry woman, in his house, is intolerable. So we had luncheon guests. They and I split the mousse that was waiting for me and while we finished it Fritz manufactured a celery and mushroom omelet. Wolfe tells me there was a man in Marseilles who made a better omelet than Fritz, but I don’t believe it. The guests protested that the mousse was all they wanted, but I noticed that the omelet was cleaned up, though I admit Wolfe took a portion just to taste.
Leaving the dining room, I gave Wolfe a sign, and, letting Parker conduct Degan to the office, he and I went to the kitchen, and I reported on the ceremony of opening the box. He listened with a scowl, but not for me. He hates to stand up right after a meal, and he hates to sit down in the kitchen because the stools and chairs aren’t fit to sit on-for him.
When I was through he demanded, “How sure are you that the box contained nothing but the money?”
“Dead sure. My eyes were glued to him, and they’re good eyes. Not a chance.”
“Confound it,” he muttered.
“My God,” I complained, “you’re hard to satisfy. Three hundred and twenty-seven thou-”
“But only that. It’s suggestive, of course, but that’s all. When a man is involved in a circumstance pressing enough to cause his murder he must leave a relic of it somewhere, and I had hoped it was in that box. Very well. I want to sit down.”
He marched to the office, and I followed.
Parker had let Degan have the red leather chair, and Degan had lit a cigar, so Wolfe’s nose twitched as he got his bulk adjusted in his chair.
“You gentlemen doubtless have your engagements,” he said, “so I apologize for keeping you so long, but I never discuss business at the table. Mr. Goodwin has told me what you found in that box. A substantial nest egg. You have a question for me, Mr. Degan?”
“A couple,” Degan said, “but first I must thank you for the lunch. The best omelet I ever ate!”
“I’ll tell Mr. Brenner. It will please him. And the question?”
“Well.” He blew smoke, straight at his host. “Partly it’s just plain curiosity. Were you expecting to find a large sum of money in the box?”
“No. I had no specific expectation. I was hoping to find something that would forward the job I’m on, as I told you yesterday, but I had no idea what it might be.”
“Okay.” Degan gestured with the cigar. “I’m not a suspicious man, Mr. Wolfe, anyone who knows me will tell you that, but now I’ve got this responsibility. The thought would have occurred to anybody, finding that fortune in that box, what if you knew it was there or thought it was? And now that it’s been found, what if you are figuring that a sizable share of it will be used to pay you for this job you’re doing?”
Wolfe grunted. “Surely that’s a question for me to ask, not answer. What if I am?”
“Then you are.”
“I haven’t said so. But what if I am?”
