'Yes, ma'am,' he said calmly. 'And your place of business. Anybody that stages the kind of performance you did last night can expect some unwelcome attention. You're lucky you're not down at headquarters right now phoning for your kind friend to furnish bail for you, and that's exactly where you'll be when we're through here, maybe.' He resumed to Wolfe, 'There's not a thing, not a scratch of anything, at her home or office either, that takes you back further than a year ago, the time she came to New York. That's why I say we already knew she wasn't normal.'
'Did you find a passport?'
'No. That's another thing-'
'Where is your passport, madame?'
She looked at him. She wet her lips twice. 'I am in zees country legally,' she declared.
'Then you must have a passport. Where is it?'
For the first time her eyes had a cornered look. 'I weel explain… to zee propaire officaire…'
'There's nothing improper about me,' Cramer said grimly.
Zorka spread out her hands. 'I lost eet.'
'I'm afraid the water's getting hot,' said Wolfe. 'Now about last night. Why did you phone here and say that you saw Miss Tormic putting something in Mr Goodwin's pocket?'
'Because I did see eet.'
'Then why hadn't you told the police about it?'
'Because I thought not to make trouble.' She edged forward in her chair. 'Now look. Zat happen precisely zee way I say. I thought not to make trouble. Zen I sink, murder ees so horrible, I have no right. Zen I phone you and say I weel tell zee police. Zen I sink, Mr Barrett ees friend of Mees Tormic, so to be fair I should tell heem what I do, and I phone heem. Of course, he know how I am refugee, how I escape, how I must not put people in danger-'
'By the way where did you first meet Mr Barrett?'
'I meet heem in Paris.'
'Go ahead.'
'So he say, good God, zee police kestion me so much, zey must know everysing about me, so dangerous to me and to so many people so why do I not go to veesit Mees Reade, so I pack my bags-'
There was a knock at the door and Fritz entered. He advanced and spoke over a dick's shoulder:
'Mr Panzer, sir.'
'Tell him I'm engaged with Madame Zorka and Mr Cramer.'
'I did so, sir. He said he would like to see you.'
'Send him in.'
Cramer bellowed, 'So it was Donald Barrett that got you to take a powder-'
'Just a moment,' Wolfe begged him. 'I think we're getting a reinforcement.'
Nobody seeing Saul Panzer for the first time would have regarded him as a valuable reinforcement for anything whatever, but they would have been wrong. A lot of people had underrated him, and a lot of people had paid for it. He had left his old brown cap and coat in the hall and, as he stood there absorbing a couple of million details of the little group with one quick glance, everything about him looked insignificant but his big nose.
Wolfe asked him, 'Results, Saul?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Definite?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Indeed. Let us have them.'
'I was going to bring her birth certificate along, but I thought that might make trouble, so I took a copy-'
He retreated a step, because Zorka had leaped to her feet, confronted him, and practically shrieked at him, 'You didn't! You couldn't-'
A dick reached for her elbow and Cramer bawled, 'Sit down!'
'But he-if he-'
'I said sit down!'
She backed up, stumbled on the other dick's foot, recovered her balance, and dropped into her chair. Her shoulders sagged, and she sat that way.
Saul said, 'I didn't have to make any expenditure of the kind you contemplated, but I spent three dollars and ninety cents on a phone call. I thought it was justified.'
'No doubt. Go ahead.'
