I went and got them, put them in the safe, and closed the door. As I returned to my desk Wolfe was resuming. “So much for the threats. Now for the offer. One: I will not advise Ellen Sturdevant to bring an action against you. It’s possible she will do so of her own accord, but I won’t instigate it. Two: I will prevail upon Miss Wynn and Mr Imhof to bring no action against you, either civil or criminal. I’m sure I can. Those are the two items of my part of the bargain. Your part also has two items. One: you will renounce your claim against Amy Wynn and the Victory Press, in writing. Not a confession of wrong-doing; merely a renunciation of the claim because it was made in error. It will be drawn by a lawyer. Two: you will tell me X’s name. That’s all I ask; you need not-”
“I don’t know any X.”
“Pfui. You need not furnish any evidence or particulars; I’ll get them myself. Nothing in writing; merely tell me his name and where to find him. I am not supposing that you know anything of his conspiracies with Simon Jacobs and Jane Ogilvy and Kenneth Rennert, or of his killing them; I am willing to assume your total ignorance of those events. Just tell me the name of the man or woman who wrote ‘There Is Only Love.’ ”
“I wrote it.”
“Nonsense. That won’t do. Miss Porter.”
“It will have to do.” Her hands were in her lap, tightly clasped, and there was sweat on her forehead. “The other part, about the Victory Press and Amy Wynn, all right. I’ll do that. If they’ll sign a paper not to sue me or have me prosecuted or anything, I’ll sign one giving up my claim because I made it in error. I still don’t think you could prove what you said you could. Maybe you’re not bluffing, but you can’t prove anything just by showing there’s something similar about the way those stories were written. If you want to think there’s an X somewhere, I can’t help that, but I can’t tell you his name if I don’t know anything about him.”
I was focused on her. I wouldn’t have supposed she was such a good liar. I was thinking that no matter how good you think you are at sizing people up, you can never be sure how well a certain specimen can do a certain thing until you see him try. Or her. I was also thinking that the screw we had thought would squeeze it out of her apparently wasn’t going to work without more pressure, and how would Wolfe give it another turn? Evidently, since he wasn’t speaking, he was asking the same question, and I moved my eyes to him.
And got a surprise. He not only wasn’t speaking; he wasn’t looking. He was leaning back with his eyes closed and his lips moving. He was pushing out his lips, puckered, and drawing them in-out and in, out and in. He only does that, and always does it, when he has found the crack he has been looking for, or thinks he has found it, and is trying to see through; and as I say, I was surprised. It shouldn’t have been such a strain on his brain to figure out how to bear down on Alice Porter; he simply had to show her what she was in for if he made good on his threats. I looked back at her. She had got a handkerchief from her bag and was wiping her brow.
Wolfe opened his eyes, straightened up, and cocked his head. “Very well. Miss Porter,” he said. “You can’t tell me what you don’t know, assuming that you really don’t. I’ll have to re-examine my conjectures and my conclusions. You’ll hear from me again when I have conferred with Miss Wynn and Mr Imhof. They will surely agree to the proposed arrangement. Mr Goodwin will drive you home. Archie?”
So the strain on his brain had been something else, I had no idea what. Whenever that happens, when he goes off somewhere out of sight, I am not supposed to yodel at him, especially with company present, so I got to my feet and asked if there were any errands on the way, and he said no. Alice Porter was going to say something and decided not to. When I held her jacket she missed the armhole twice, and I admit it could have been partly my fault. My mind was occupied. It was starting back over the conversation, her part of it, trying to spot what had opened up a crack for Wolfe.
It was still trying three hours and twenty minutes later, at half past two in the morning, when I mounted the stoop of the old brownstone and let myself in. At one point on the way back, as I was rolling along on the parkway, I had thought I had it. Alice Porter was X. When she had written the first one, “There Is Only Love,” she had used another style, as different as she could make it from her own style in her book. But there were three things wrong with that. First, if she had been slick enough to make up a style for the first one, why hadn’t she made up other styles for the other two instead of copying that one? Second, why had she used her own style for “Opportunity Knocks,” the one she had used on Amy Wynn? Third, what had she said that gave Wolfe so strong a suspicion that she was X that he called a halt and started on his lip routine? I had to try again, and was still at it when I got home.
There was a note on my desk for me:
AG:
Saul, Fred, Orrie, Miss Bonner, and Miss Corbett will come at eight in the morning and come to my room. I have taken one thousand dollars from the safe to give them for expenses. You will not be needed. You will of course sleep late. NW
Wolfe has his rules and I have mine. I absolutely refuse to permit any wear and tear on my brain after my head hits the pillow. Usually it works automatically, but that night a little discipline was needed. It took me a full three minutes to fade out.
Chapter 17
In bed at three and out of it at ten Wednesday morning, I was an hour short of my regular requirement of eight hours’ sleep, but with Wolfe working his lips and giving up on Alice Porter and arranging a before-breakfast session with the hired hands, all five of them, it looked as if we were getting set for a showdown, and in that case I should be willing to make a major personal sacrifice, so I rolled out at ten. Also I made it snappy showering and dressing and eating breakfast, and got to the office at eleven-fifteen, only a quarter of an hour after Wolfe got down from the plant rooms. He was at his desk with the morning mail. I went and sat and watched him slit envelopes. His hands are quick and accurate, and he would be good at manual labour provided he could do it sitting down. I asked if he wanted help and he said no. I asked if there were any instructions.
“Perhaps.” He quit slitting and looked up. “After we discuss a matter.”
“Good. I guess I’m awake enough to discuss if it’s not too complicated. First I’ll report my conversation with Alice Porter during our drive to Carmel. At one point she said, ‘I never drive at night on account of my eyes. It gives me a headache.’ That’s the crop. Not another word. I made no advances because after the way you suddenly quit on her I had no idea where to poke. Next, it wouldn’t hurt if I had some notion of what Saul and Fred and Orrie and Dol Bonner and Sally Corbett are up to. So that when they call in I’ll know what they’re talking about.”
