protect you. Blah. He’s here to see that you don’t skip. We’ll be followed when we drive to New York, see if we’re not. I don’t-”
“I’m not going to New York.”
“You’re a damn fool if you don’t. I don’t know what Stebbins has on you for the murders, but he must have something, or thinks he has, or he wouldn’t have come up here and sicked Putnam County on you. I’m telling the truth when I say that Nero Wolfe didn’t tell me exactly why he wants to see you, and see you quick, but I know this, he doesn’t suspect you of murder.”
“You said he wants to make me an offer.”
“Maybe he does. He said to tell you that. All I know is this, if I were in any way connected with a murder, let alone three murders, and if Nero Wolfe was investigating them, and if he wanted to see me and said it was urgent, and if I was innocent, I wouldn’t sit around arguing about it.”
“I’m not connected with any murder.” She was hooked; I could see it her eyes.
“Good. Tell Sergeant Stebbins that.” I left the chair. “He’ll be glad to know it. I apologize for butting in on your talk with your protector.” I turned and was going, and was halfway to the door when her voice came.
“Wait a minute.”
I stood. She was biting her lip. She wasn’t looking at me, but here and there. Finally she focused on me. “If I go with you, how will I get home? I could take my car, but I don’t like to drive at night.”
“I’ll bring you home.”
She arose. “I’ll put on a dress. Go out and tell that damn deputy sheriff to go soak his head.”
I went out, but I didn’t deliver the message. The officer of the law wasn’t in sight at first glance, but then I saw him, across the meadow by the stone fence, and there were two of him. Apparently it was an around- the-clock cover, and his relief had come. To show there was no hard feeling I waved at them, but they didn’t wave back. I got the car turned around, looked in the trunk to see that my emergency kit was still there, and checked the contents of the dash compartment, and pretty soon Alice Porter emerged, locked the door, patted the dog, and came and got in. The dog escorted us through the gap to the dirt road and then let us go.
I stayed under thirty on the blacktop to give anyone who might be interested time to see that she was in the car with me, and to get out to the road and fall in, and when I stopped at the junction with Route 301 I picked him up in the mirror, but I didn’t call Alice Porter’s attention to him until we were the other side of Carmel and I was sure it was a tail. It’s fun to drop a tail, but it would help to put her in a proper mood for conversation with Wolfe if he stuck all the way, so I made no difficulties. She twisted around in the seat about every four minutes for a look back, and by the time we rolled into the garage on Tenth Avenue her neck must have needed a rest. I don’t know if he got his car parked, and out of it, in time to stalk us a block to 35th Street and around the corner to the old brownstone.
I put her in the front room and showed her the door to the bathroom, and then, instead of using the connecting door to the office, went around by the hall. Wolfe, at his desk with a French magazine, looked up. “You got her?”
I nodded. “I thought I’d better report first. Her reaction seemed a little peculiar.”
“How peculiar?”
I gave it to him verbatim. He took ten seconds to digest it and said, “Bring her.” I went and opened the connecting door and said, “In here. Miss Porter.” She had taken off her jacket, and either she didn’t wear a bra or she needed a new one. Wolfe was on his feet; I have never understood why, considering how he feels about women, he bothers to stand when one enters the room. He waited until she was in the red leather chair, with her jacket draped over the arm, to resume his seat.
He eyed her. “Mr Goodwin tells me,” he said civilly, “that you and your home are well guarded.”
She was forward in the chair, her elbows resting on the arms. “I don’t need any guard,” she said. “He got me to come here by trying to scare me about being suspected of murder. I don’t scare easy. I’m not scared.”
“But you came.”
She nodded. “I’m here. I wanted to see what kind of a game this is. He talked about an offer, but I don’t believe you’ve got an offer. What have you got?”
“You’re wrong, Miss Porter.” Wolfe leaned back, comfortable. “I do have an offer. I’m prepared to offer you easement from the threat of prosecution for an offense you have committeed. Naturally I want something in return.”
“Nobody’s going to prosecute me. I haven’t committed any offense.”
“But you have.” Wolfe stayed affable, not accusing, just stating a fact. “A serious one. A felony. Before I describe the offense I’m referring to, the one for which you will pay no penalty if you accept my offer, I must fill in some background. Four years ago, in 1955, you entered into a conspiracy with some person, to me unknown, to extort money from Ellen Sturdevant by making a false claim of plagiarism. It-”
“That’s a lie.”
“If so it’s defamatory and you have me. The next year, 1956, that same person, call him X, entered into a similar conspiracy with a man named Simon Jacobs to defraud Richard Echols; and in 1957 he repeated the performance with a woman named Jane Ogilvy, to defraud Marjorie Lippin. All three of the conspiracies were successful; large sums were paid. Last year, 1958, X tried it again, with a man named Kenneth Rennert; that time the target was a playwright, Mortimer Oshin. No settlement had been made at the time Rennert died, five days ago.”
“It’s probably all lies. The one about me is.”
Wolfe ignored it. “I’m making this as brief as possible, including only what is essential for you to understand my offer. I learned of the existence of X by a textual study of the three stories that were the basis of the claims made by you, Simon Jacobs, and Jane Ogilvy. They were all written by the same person. That is
