He uncrossed his legs, and his face changed completely. He was working. 'It was in a room across the hall from an office used by members of the faculty. There's a phone in the office, extension seven-nine-three, and I had arranged to use it from four-thirty on and pay for the calls. I'm disposing of that factor. Twelve local calls were made on that phone between four-thirty and six-thirty, and I made three of them. Two of my calls were to the ROCC, but neither of them was anywhere near a quarter past five. No record was kept at the switchboard of the numbers called or the exact times. Is that covered?'
'Trick answer. Yes.'
'I expected about forty people, and at five o'clock about forty were there, students and three or four faculty members. Only a few were seated. It's a big room, and we were moving around, groups here and there. I didn't call the meeting to order until Susan came, and she was late. I don't know exactly what time she arrived, and apparently no one does. I was over by a window, talking with four or five students, and she came and said, 'Here I am, late as usual.' I looked at my watch. Twenty minutes past five. So there it is. To my knowledge, it's possible that she had used the phone across the hall, but did she? I don't know. I have asked around, and I haven't found anyone who does know. Questions.'
'I wouldn't dream of asking a question. If I did, it wouldn't be about the phone call; you've wrapped that up. It would be about how long the meeting lasted and when did Susan leave and so on.'
He grinned. 'You know how to handle me. If you go into politics, you can be senator and I'll be governor. The meeting adjourned at six-thirty, but a few of us stuck around a little while. Susan and I left at six- forty. My car was in a nearby garage, and I drove her home. By 'home' I mean the address on Park Avenue where she lives with her mother. I didn't know about the apartment in Harlem. Of course I do now. Everybody does. To finish, we arrived a little after seven, say ten after. That, as they put it in questions, was the last time I saw her alive. Alive or dead. Why did Nero Wolfe decide that Whipple didn't kill her?'
I grinned. 'You're inviting it.'
'Sure. Let's hear it.'
'Because he knows
He shook his head. 'That's not very good. Try another. What was my motive?'
'You thought she was pregnant, thanks to you, and it would louse up your political career.'
'That's a little better. Why wasn't I seen? My superb physique, my noble countenance, why wasn't I noticed there in the middle of Harlem?'
'Burnt cork.'
He threw his head back and laughed. 'Wonderful! You're all right. You be governor and I'll be senator. Does Nero Wolfe think he knows who killed her?'
Wolfe wouldn't be down from the plant rooms for nearly an hour, so I permitted him to stay and enjoy himself a while longer. Also he was now a candidate, though at the bottom of the list, since he had called Susan a lovely dame and implied that he might have married her if he hadn't had other ideas. Since he was deliberately planning to go into the roughest game on earth, politics, nothing was beyond or beneath him, even clubbing a lovely dame, if he had a good enough reason.
When he had gone I got busy at the typewriter. Wolfe had told Dolly Brooke that it was possible that the police would never know about her trip to Harlem, but it looked to me like very long odds, and it wouldn't hurt to have a record, made while it was fresh, of what had been said, both at her apartment and in the office. If withholding evidence got to be an issue, I would be in it as deep as he was. In the Bastille I would have plenty of time to write my memoirs, and it would be helpful to have notes if I could smuggle them in. I was banging away and had got to where Wolfe said, 'I made it as brief as possible,' by six o'clock, when he came. He went to his desk and sat, and didn't pick up his book, so I swiveled to face him.
'Mr. Magnus?' he asked.
I nodded. 'It's too bad you missed him. I don't know what he would be worth stripped, but fully dressed he presents an outlay of about a grand. He's big and beaming and very chatty, but he can report almost as well as I can. Like this.'
I told it, omitting all the mere chatter except the questions to which I had given trick answers. Wolfe's frown got deeper as I went along.
'So,' I finished, 'in a week of plugging you might find that she made the phone call, but probably you could never prove that she didn't. Oster was right when he said you wouldn't get anything conclusive. It could be that Magnus was in the office across the hall when she came, and heard her make the call, and knew that Whipple wouldn't be there until nine o'clock, and drove her there and killed her, but I doubt it, his skull is not empty. It would be a cinch to check on where he was at a quarter past five.'
'She didn't make the call.'
'Yeah, I know. You have two ways of deciding things. One, on the strength of evidence and deduction. Two, on the strength of genius and to hell with deduction. Which in this case means to hell with Maud Jordan.'
'She was committed. She had signed a statement. Hadn't she?'
'Sure. To get away from the DA's office without signing a statement you have to thumb your nose. She would sign.'
'It would be convenient to know if Mrs. Brooke has shown talent as a mimic. Mr. Vaughn could have told you this morning.'
'I knew that would be mentioned sooner or later. He could barely walk. Right now he's pounding his ear. Is it urgent?'
'No.' His eyes were narrowed at me. 'I presume you're aware of the situation.'
'I am. First, if Dolly Brooke killed her we had better prove it quick or turn that document over to Cramer. That document is hot. But we can't possibly prove it. We've got her at the door, but we can't get her inside unless we dig up a motive with legs. Do we put Saul and Fred and Orrie on that for a month or so?'
