in that. I am not Aubry’s attorney. I beg you to understand.”
I kept after him. He stood pat. Finally, following instructions from Wolfe, I put a question to him.
“I suppose,” I said, “you won’t mind helping to clear up a detail. At a conference in this room last Friday afternoon Aubry left one of his business cards on your desk. It was there when he left. What happened to it?”
He cocked his head and frowned. “Here on my desk?”
“Right.”
The frown deepened. “I’m trying to remember- yes, I do remember. He suggested I might phone him later, and he put it there.”
“What happened to it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you phone him?”
“No. As it turned out, there was no occasion to.”
“Would you mind seeing if the card is around? It’s fairly important.”
“Why is it important?”
“That’s a long story. But I would like very much to see that card. Will you take a look?”
He wasn’t enthusiastic about it, but he obliged. He looked among and under things on top of his desk, including the blotter, in the desk drawers, and around the room some-as, for instance, on top of a filing cabinet. I got down on my knees to see under the desk. No card.
I scrambled to my feet. “May I ask your secretary?”
“What’s this all about?” he demanded.
“Nothing you would care to participate in. But the easiest way to get rid of me is to humor me on this one little detail.”
He lifted the phone and spoke to it, and in a moment the door opened and the employee entered. He told her I wanted to ask her something, and I did so. She said she knew nothing about any card of Paul Aubry’s. She had never seen one, on Beebe’s desk or anywhere else, last Friday or any other day. That settled, she backed out, pulling the door with her.
“It’s a little discouraging,” I told Beebe. “I was counting on collecting that card. Are you sure you don’t remember seeing one of the others pick it up?”
“I’ve told you all I remember-that Aubry put a card on my desk.”
“Was there an opportunity for one of them to pick it up without your noticing?”
“There might have been. I don’t know what you’re trying to establish, Mr. Goodwin, but I will not be led by you to a commitment, even here privately. Probably during the meeting here on Friday I had occasion to leave this chair to get something from my files. I won’t say that gave someone an opportunity to remove something from my desk, but I can’t prohibit you from saying so.” He got to his feet. “I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful.”
“So am I,” I said emphatically.
I arose and turned to go, but halfway to the door his voice came. “Mr. Goodwin.”
I turned. He had left his chair and was standing at the end of the desk, stiff and straight. “I’m a lawyer,” he said in a different tone, “but I am also a man. Speaking as a man, I ask you to consider my position. My friend and client has been murdered, and the police are apparently convinced that they have the murderer in custody. Nero Wolfe, acting for Mrs. Karnow, wants to prove them wrong. His only hope of success is to fasten the guilt elsewhere. Isn’t that the situation?”
“Roughly, yes.”
“And you ask me to cooperate. You mentioned a conference in this office last Friday. Besides myself, there were five people here-you know who they were. None of them was, or is, my client. They were all dismayed by the return of Sidney Karnow alive. They were all in dread of personal financial calamity. They all asked me, one way or another, to intercede for them. I have of course given this information to the police, and I see no impropriety in my giving it also to Nero Wolfe. Beyond that I have absolutely no information or evidence that could possibly help him. I tell you frankly, if Paul Aubry is guilty I hope he is convicted and punished; but if one of the others is guilty I hope he-or she-is punished, and if I knew anything operant to that end I certainly would not withhold it.”
He lifted a hand and dropped it. “All I’m trying to say-as a lawyer I’m not supposed to be vindictive, but as a man perhaps I am a little. Whoever killed Sidney Karnow should be punished.” He turned and went back to his chair.
“A damn fine sentiment,” I agreed, and left him.
On the way to the next customer I found a booth and phoned Wolfe a report. All I got in return was a series of grunts.
The house Mrs. Savage had bought was in the Sixties, over east of Lexington Avenue. I am not an expert on Manhattan real estate, but after a look at the narrow gray brick three-layer item my guess was that it had set her back not more than a tenth of her three hundred thousand, not counting the mortgage. When there was no answer to my rings I felt cheated. I hadn’t expected anything as lavish as a dolled-up butler, but not even a maid to receive detectives?
It was only a ten-minute walk to the Park Avenue address of Mr. and Mrs. Norman Horne. My luck stayed stubborn. The hallman said they were both out, phoned up at my request, and got no answer.
