ideal spot to trip anyone headed for her. Talento and Aland had pulled Meegan down onto a chair between them, and he sat staring at her.
“With that hubbub over,” Wolfe said, “I want to be sure I have the names right.” His eyes went from left to right. “Talento, Meegan, Aland, Chaffee. Is that correct?
I told him yes.
“Then I’ll proceed.” He glanced up at the wall clock. “Twenty hours ago Philip Kampf was killed in the house where you gentlemen live. The circumstances indicate that one of you killed him. But I won’t rehash the multifarious details which you have already discussed at length with the police; you are familiar with them. I have not been hired to work on this case; the only client I have is a dog, and he came to my office by inadvertence. However, it is-”
The doorbell rang. I asked myself if I had put the chain bolt on, and decided I had. Through the open door to the hall I saw Fritz passing to answer it. Wolfe started to go on, but was annoyed by the sound of voices, Fritz’s and another’s, coming through, and stopped. The voices continued. Wolfe shut his eyes and compressed his lips. The audience sat and looked at him.
Then Fritz appeared in the doorway and announced, “Inspector Cramer, sir.”
Wolfe’s eyes opened. “What does he want?”
“I told him you are engaged. He says he knows you are, that the four men were followed to your house and he was notified. He says he expected you to be trying some trick with the dog, and he knows that’s what you are doing, and he intends to come in and see what it is. Sergeant Stebbins is with him.”
Wolfe grunted. “Archie, tell-No. You’d better stay where you are. Fritz, tell him he may see and hear what I’m doing, provided he gives me thirty minutes without interruptions or demands. If he agrees to that, bring them in.”
“Wait!” Ross Chaffee was on his feet. “You said you would discuss it with us before you communicated with the police.”
“I haven’t communicated with them, they’re here.”
“You told them to come!”
“No. I would have preferred to deal with you men first and then call them, but here they are and they might as well join us. Bring them, Fritz, on that condition.”
“Yes, sir.”
Fritz went. Chaffee thought he had something more to say, decided he hadn’t, and sat down. Talento said something to him, and he shook his head. Jerry Aland, much more presentable now that he was combed and dressed, kept his eyes fastened on Wolfe. For Meegan, apparently, there was no one in the room but him and his wife.
Cramer and Stebbins marched in, halted three paces from the door, and took a survey.
“Be seated,” Wolfe invited them. “Luckily, Mr. Cramer, your usual chair is unoccupied.”
“Where’s the dog?” Cramer barked.
“In the kitchen. You had better suspend that prepossession. It’s understood that you will be merely a spectator for thirty minutes?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Then sit down. But you should have one piece of information. You know the gentlemen, of course, but not the lady. Her current name is Miss Jewel Jones. Her legal name is Mrs. Richard Meegan.”
“Meegan?” Cramer stared. “The one in the picture Chaffee painted? Meegan’s wife?”
“That’s right. Please be seated.”
“Where did you get her?”
“That can wait. No interruptions and no demands. Confound it, sit down!”
Cramer went and lowered himself onto the red leather chair. Purley Stebbins got one of the yellow ones and planted it behind the row, between Chaffee and Aland.
Wolfe regarded the quartet. “I was about to say, gentlemen, that it was something the dog did that pointed to the murderer for me. But before-”
“What did it do?” Cramer barked.
“You know all about it,” Wolfe told him coldly. “Mr. Goodwin related it to you exactly as it happened. If you interrupt again, by heaven, you can take them all down to your quarters, not including the dog, and stew it out yourself.”
He went back to the four. “But before I come to that, another thing or two. I offer no comment on your guile with Mr. Meegan. You were all friends of Miss Jones’s, having, I suppose, enjoyed various degrees of intimacy with her, and you refused to disclose her to a husband whom she had abandoned and professed to fear. I will even concede that there was a flavor of gallantry in your conduct. But when Mr. Kampf was murdered and the police swarmed in, it was idiotic to try to keep her out of it. They were sure to get to her. I got to her first only because of Mr. Goodwin’s admirable enterprise and characteristic luck.”
He shook his head at them. “It was also idiotic of you to assume that Mr. Goodwin was a police officer, and admit him and answer his questions, merely because he had been present during the abortive experiment with the dog. You should have asked to see his credentials. None of you had any idea who he was. Even Mr. Meegan, who had seen him in this office in the morning, was bamboozled. I mention this to anticipate any possible official complaint that Mr. Goodwin impersonated an officer. You know he didn’t. He merely took advantage of your unwarranted assumption.”
He shifted in his chair. “Another thing. Yesterday morning Mr. Meegan called here by appointment to
