every day – at an hour when I was busy upstairs, so I didn’t see him. On the fifth day Mr. Goodwin asked him for another thousand dollars, and got it, in cash. That left very little for me after paying the cost of the outside tap and maintaining surveillance. You know what an outside tap is?”
“Certainly. Practically all illegal taps are outside jobs.”
“That may be.” Wolfe upturned a palm. “But I didn’t know this was illegal until the eighth day of the operation. On April thirteenth Mr. Goodwin spent two hours at the place where the tap was being monitored, and heard Mr. Ross himself on the wire in a long conversation. Whether it was actually Mr. Ross or was his secretary impersonating him, it sounded sufficiently unlike our client to arouse Mr. Goodwin’s interest. From reports he had read and passed on to our client he had gathered a good deal of information about Mr. Ross’s interests and activities – for example, that he had recently been appointed chairman of the Charity Funds Investigating Committee by the governor. He left and went to a phone booth, called Mr. Ross, got the same voice, told him he was a newspaper reporter, from the
Wolfe swallowed bile. “Utterly flummoxed,” he said bitterly. “Mr. Goodwin came home and reported to me, and we considered the situation. We decided to wait until the client came that afternoon, at five-thirty as usual, for the daily report – though of course we canceled the tap at once. It seemed likely that there would be no alternative to turning him over to the police, with a full account of my fatuity, but I couldn’t do that until I got my hands on him.”
Wolfe swallowed again. “And he didn’t come. I don’t know why. Whether he had learned somehow either that we had canceled the tap, or that Mr. Goodwin had called on Mr. Ross – but speculation is bootless. He didn’t come. He never did come. For a month most of Mr. Goodwin’s time, for which I pay, was spent in trying to find him, without success, and Mr. Goodwin is a highly competent and ingenious man. Nor could he find the maid who had admitted him to the apartment. After a week had passed with no result I made an appointment to call on Mr. Ross at his home, and did so, and told him all about it. He was ruffled, naturally, but after some discussion he agreed that there was no point in informing the authorities until and unless I found the culprit. Mr. Goodwin was with me, and together we gave him an exhaustive description of our client, but he was unable to identify him. As for the maid, she had been with him only a short time, had left without notice, and he knew nothing about her.”
Wolfe stopped, sighed deep, and let it out. “There it is. After a month Mr. Goodwin could no longer spend all his time on it, since he had other duties, but he has by no means forgotten that client and neither have I. We never will.”
“I suppose not.” Hyatt was smiling. “I may as well tell you, Mr. Wolfe, that personally I credit your story.”
“Yes, sir. You may.”
“I hope so. But of course you realize its weakness. No one but you and Mr. Goodwin ever saw this client of yours. No one else has any knowledge of what passed between you, and you can’t find him and can’t identify him. Frankly, if you should be charged with illegal interception of communications, and if the district attorney proceeded against you and you came to trial, it’s quite possible you would be convicted.”
Wolfe’s brows went up a sixteenth of an inch. “If that’s a threat, what do you suggest? If it’s merely a reproach, I have earned it and much more. Lecture me as you will.”
“You deserve it,” Hyatt agreed. He smiled again. “I would enjoy it, too, but I won’t indulge myself. The fact is, I think I have a surprise for you, and I only wanted to get acquainted with you before I confronted you with it.” His eyes went to the man seated against the wall. “Corwin, there’s a man in room thirty-eight across the hall. Bring him in here.”
Corwin got up and opened the door and went, leaving the door open. The sound came of his heavy footsteps in the hall, then of a door opening, then footsteps again, much fainter, then a brief silence, and then his voice calling, “Mr. Hyatt! Come here!”
It was more of a yelp than a call. It sounded as if somebody had him by the throat. So when Hyatt jumped up and headed for the door I moved too and followed him out and across the hall to an open door down a few steps, and into the room. I was at his elbow when he stopped beside Corwin at the far end of a table to look down at a man on the floor. The man was in no condition to return the look. He was on his back, with his legs nearly straight making a V, and was dressed all right, including a necktie, only the necktie wasn’t under his shirt collar. It was knotted tight around the skin of his neck. Although his face was purple, his eyes popping, and his tongue sticking out, I recognized him at once. Corwin and Hyatt, staring down at him, probably didn’t know I was there, and in a second I wasn’t. Stepping out and back to the other room, where Wolfe sat at the table glowering, I told him, “It’s a surprise all right. Our client’s in there on the floor. Someone tied his necktie too tight and he’s dead.”
II
I HAD KNOWN, of course, that that bozo had sunk a blade right in the center of Wolfe’s self-esteem, but I didn’t realize how deep it had gone until that moment. Evidently when he heard me say our client was in there his ears stopped working. He came up out of his chair and took a step toward the door, then stopped, turned, and glared at me.
“Oh,” he said, coming to. “Dead?”
“Right. Strangled.”
“It would be no satisfaction to see him dead.” He looked at the door, at me, sat down, flattened his palms on the table top, and closed his eyes. After a little he opened them. “Confound that wretch,” he muttered. “Alive he gulled me, and now dead he gets me into heaven knows what. Perhaps if we went… but no. I am merely frantic.” He stood up. “Come.” He started for the door.
I got in front of him. “Hold it. I want to go home too, but you know damn well we can’t scoot.”
“I do indeed. But I want a look at our confreres. Come.”
