The most important result from the standpoint of the People of the State of New York came a couple of months later, in June, when Oliver Buff was tried and convicted of the first degree murder of Vernon Assa, Cramer and the DA's office having collected a batch of evidence which did, after all, include one good fingerprint from the KCN bottle. But from our standpoint the most important result came much earlier, in fact the very next day, when Rudolph Hansen phoned after lunch and made a date for him and O'Garro and Heery to see Wolfe at six o'clock. They came right on the dot, just as Wolfe got down from the plant rooms. When I took them to the office I saw that O'Garro got the red leather chair, thinking he rated it as the surviving partner. Probably his name would now go into the firm's title. They sure needed some new ones.
They still looked as if they could use some sleep, say about a week, but at least they had their hair combed. They were gloomy but polite. After some recent developments had been mentioned, such as a statement by Buff's secretary that on Monday afternoon she had seen Assa in Buff's room, talking with him, with a brown wallet in his hand, Hansen opened up. He said that in spite of everything it would be a great relief to proceed with the contest in a manner that would leave no loopholes for contention or litigation, and in connection with that process they wanted Wolfe's help. Wolfe asked him how.
'We want you to handle it,' Hansen said. 'We want you to write the verses, give them to the contestants, and set the conditions and deadline, and, when the answers are received, check them and award the prizes. We want to leave the whole thing to you. Heery refuses to let LBA handle it, and in the circumstances we can't blame him, and it's his money. You'll have full authority. There'll be no interference from anybody. For this service LBA will agree to pay you fifty thousand dollars, plus expenses.'
'I won't do it,' Wolfe said flatly.
'Damn it, you must!' Heery rapped out.
'No, sir. I must not. I have stretched my dignity pretty thin on occasion to keep myself going, but I will not write verses for a perfume contest. That is not to impugn the dignity of any other man who may undertake it. Dignities are like faces; no two are the same. I beg you not to insist; I won't consider it. I confess that my refusal might give me a sharper twinge but for the fact that I am about to send the firm of Lippert, Buff and Assa a bill for precisely that amount-fifty thousand dollars. Plus expenses.'
'What for?' Hansen was cold.
'For the job I was hired for and have completed.'
'We've discussed that,' O'Garro said. 'We don't see it.'
'You didn't do the job,' Hansen said, settling it.
'No? Who did?'
'Nobody. Circumstances beyond our control and out of your control. If anybody did it, it was Buff himself, when he sent the answers to the contestants. Also Assa learning that Buff had the wallet, but the main thing was the contestants getting the answers. That was what saved the contest.'
'You acknowledge that?'
'Certainly we acknowledge it. It's obvious.'
'Very well. I suppose this was unavoidable.' Wolfe turned. 'Archie, give Mr. Hansen a dollar.'
I got one out and went and proffered it, but Hansen didn't take it. 'What's this?' he demanded.
'I am retaining you as my attorney, as before. I wish what I am going to tell you to have the protection of a confidential relationship between you and me. Since the interest of Mr. O'Garro and Mr. Heery runs with mine I'll trust their discretion. You may end the relationship at any moment. That's what you told me. You and I began with a privileged communication; we'll end with one.'
Hansen took the dollar, not enthusiastically, and I returned to my desk. 'Go ahead,' he said.
'You're gouging this out of me.' Wolfe was frowning. 'I would have preferred to keep it to myself, but rather this than a prolonged wrangle. When you get the list of expenses accompanying my bill there will be an item on it, 'One second-hand Underwood typewriter, eighty-two dollars.' It is now at the bottom of the river, because I wanted to exclude all possibility of a slip, but I have several pages that were typed on it--or rather, I know where they are and can easily get them--and if you will secure from Inspector Cramer one of the sheets of answers that were received by the contestants, or a good facsimile, I'll arrange an opportunity for you to make a comparison. You'll find that the answers sent to the contestants were typed on the machine charged for in my expense list.'
Heery burst out laughing. In the pressure of events I had forgotten what a good laugher he was, and that time he really meant it. After a few healthy roars he stopped to blurt, 'You amazing sonofabitch!' and then roared some more. Hansen and O'Garro were staring, O'Garro with a deep frown, chewing at it.
When Heery had subsided enough for a normal voice to be heard Hansen spoke. 'You're saying that you sent the answers to the contestants?'
'They were sent by a man in my employ. I can produce him if you insist, but I would prefer not to name him.'
'I think we won't insist. Pat?'
'No.' O'Garro's frown was going. 'I will be damned.'
'No wonder,' Hansen told Wolfe, 'you wanted it a privileged communication. This changes things.'
'It should,' Wolfe said drily. 'Since you have just declared that sending the answers to the contestants saved the contest. It was to them-- advantage too, most of them. That was one of my objects, and the other, of course, was to spur somebody into doing something. I didn't know who or what, but I thought that would stimulate action, and it did.'
'It certainly did,' O'Garro agreed. 'Too much action, but you couldn't help it.'
