“Call him your client.”
“I prefer not to, in this context. I’ve had other clients. With regard to the man who called on me last April and told me he was Otis Ross, and hired me to do a job as described in my statement to the secretary of state, I have never seen him or had any communication with him, or known anything of his whereabouts, since April thirteenth, nineteen-fifty-five. My next knowledge of him was when, after leaving the room with Mr. Hyatt this morning, Mr. Goodwin returned almost immediately to tell me that he was lying dead in a nearby room. My next sight of him was a few minutes ago, when I was taken to that room and saw him dead. I had not known that he was on the premises. It is inane to pile up negatives. I have no knowledge whatever of his death or of his movements prior to his death. Beyond the facts given in my statement to the secretary of state, I have no knowledge of any nature that might be of help in the investigation of this murder.”
Wolfe considered a moment. “There, Mr. Groom. I don’t see what good can come of questions, but certainly you can try.”
“Yeah, I can always try.” Groom looked at me, and I thought it was my turn, but he went back to Wolfe. “You say you entered this building this morning shortly before ten o’clock. How much before?”
“Of my own knowledge, I don’t know. I don’t carry a watch. But as we entered Mr. Goodwin remarked that it was five minutes to ten. He claims that he never allows his watch to be more than thirty seconds off.”
“What time was it when you got to room forty-two?”
“I don’t know. I can only estimate. I would say that it took us four minutes, to the elevator, up to the third floor, and down the hall to the room. That would make it one minute to ten.”
“What if one or more of the others say that you arrived in the room about a quarter past ten?”
Wolfe eyed him. “Mr. Groom. That question is pointless and you know it. As a menace it is puerile. As a mere hypothesis it is flippant. And if one of them does say that you know how many issues it will raise, including his candor. Or more than one – even all of them. If you want your question answered as you put it, either his timepiece was wrong or his memory is at fault or he lies.”
“Yeah.” Apparently Groom was hard to rile. He shifted to me. “Naturally you corroborate everything Wolfe has said. Do you?”
“Naturally,” I told him.
“Yes or no. Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Including the time of your arrival at this building?”
“Yes. Nine-fifty-five.”
He got up and stepped to me. “Let’s see your watch.”
I twisted my arm around and pushed the shirt cuff back, and he took a look, then looked at his own, then back at mine. He told the man at the table, “Put it that I found Goodwin’s watch twenty seconds slow,” and returned to his chair.
“You may wonder,” he said, “why I didn’t take you two separately. Because it would have been a waste of time. From what I know of your reputations and records and how you work, I figured that if you had fixed up a story the chance of my getting you to cross was so slim that it wasn’t worth the trouble. Also Mr. Hyatt wanted to go to lunch, and I wanted him with us, and you might as well know why.” He turned. “Will you tell them what you told me, Mr. Hyatt?”
Hyatt’s strand of hair was back in place again. He was leaning forward with his elbows on the desk. “You mean about this morning?” he asked Groom.
“Yes. Just that.”
“Well, I got here early, a little before nine o’clock. One of my staff, Tom Frazer, was already here. We were here at this desk together, going over papers, getting ready for those who were to appear today, when the girl phoned me that a man wanted to see me about something that he said was urgent and confidential, he wouldn’t say what. He gave the name of Donahue, which meant nothing to me. I didn’t want him interrupting in here, so I went out front to get rid of him and found him on a bench in the hall. He wouldn’t talk in the hall, so I took him to the nearest empty room, room thirty-eight. He was a middle-aged man, about my height, brown hair and eyes -”
“They’ve seen him,” Groom put in.
“Oh.” Hyatt was fussed. “So they have. He said his name was William A. Donahue and he wanted to make a deal. He said he knew who was due to appear before me today, and that Nero Wolfe was one of them, and that he had got cold feet and wanted to get from under. His terms. Must I give the whole conversation, Captain? We talked for some twenty minutes.”
“The substance will do. The main points.”
“There was only one main point, actually. He floundered around a good deal, but this was the gist of it. In connection with a venture he was engaged in, he didn’t say what, he had procured some wiretapping operations, one of them through Nero Wolfe, for which he had paid Wolfe two thousand dollars. When the scandal started – he called it the big stink – and Broady was arrested and indicted, he had decided New York was too hot for him and had left the state. When he learned recently that this inquiry was to be held by the secretary of state, and that all private detectives were to be questioned, he had become alarmed, particularly on account of Nero Wolfe. Wolfe had abruptly called off the tap he had handled for him, and they had had a row, and Wolfe had it in for him. He knew how tricky Wolfe was, and now that he had been summoned – am I confusing you with my pronouns?”
He was looking at Wolfe, so Wolfe replied. “Not at all. Go on.”
“ – And now that Wolfe had been summoned, he knew he would try to wriggle out of it somehow or other, and that he – Donahue – would get hooked for something worse than procurement of illegal wiretapping. So he wanted to make a deal with me. If I would use my influence with the district attorney to go easy with him on the wiretapping charges, he would give me a full account of the operation, under oath, and would testify in court
