'Clyde is dead. Come, Miss Osgood. Well leam it any- how, I assure you we will. You know that.'
'I suppose… you will.' She sat down abruptly, buried her face in her hands, and was rigid. Her muffled voice came:
'Clyde! Clyde!'
'Come.' Wolfe was sharp. 'Who is Bronson?'
She uncovered her face slowly, and lifted it. 'He's a crook.'
'A professional? What's his specialty?'
'I don't know. I don't know him. I only met him a few days ago. I only know what Clyde-'
She stopped, and gazed at Wolfe's face as if she was hoping that something would blot it out but knew that nothing would. 'All right,' she said. 'I thought I had enough guts, but apparently I haven't. What good will it do? What good will it do you or Dad or anyone to know that Bronson killed him?'
'Do you know it?'
'Yes.'
'Bronson murdered your brother?'
'Yes.'
'Indeed. Did you see it done?'
'No.'
'What was his motive?'
'I don't know. It couldn't have been to get the money, because Clyde didn't have it.'
Wolfe leaned back and heaved a sigh. 'Well,' he murmured. 'I guess we must have it out. What money would Mr. Bron- son have wanted to get, and why?'
'Money that Clyde owed him.'
'The amount being, I presume, $10,000. Don't ask me how I know that, please. And Bronson was insisting on pay- ment?'
'Yes. That was why he came up here. It was why Clyde came, too, to try to get the money from Father. He had to pay it this week or-' She stopped, and stretched out a hand, and let it fall again. 'Please,' she said, pleading. 'Please. That's what I promised Clyde I wouldn't tell.'
'The promise died with him,' Wolfe told her. 'Believe me. Miss Osgood, if you weren't bewildered by shock and grief you wouldn't get values confused like this. Was it money that Clyde had borrowed from Mr. Bronson?'
'No. It was money that Bronson had paid him.'
'What had he paid it for?'
He pulled it out of her, patiently, in pieces. The gist of the story was short and not very sweet. Clyde had shot his wad on Lily Rowan, and had followed it with various other wads, pried loose from his father, requisitioned from his sister, borrowed from friends. Then he had invited luck to contribute to the good cause, by sundry methods from crackaloo to 10-cent bridge, and learned too late that luck's clock was slow. At a time when he was in up to his nose, a Mr. Howard Bronson permitted him to inspect a fistful of real money and expressed a desire to be introduced into certain circles, including the two most exclusive bridge clubs in New York;
Clyde, with his family connections, having the entree to about everything from the aquarium up. But Clyde had needed the dough not some time tomorrow, but now, and Bronson had given it to him; whereupon Clyde had mollified a few debts and slid the rest down his favorite chute, before dawn. Following a lifelong habit, he had confided in his sister, and her horror added to his own belated reflections had shown him that in his desperation he had taken an order which no Osgood could possibly fill. He had so notified Bronson, with regret and the expressed intention of repaying the ten grand at the earliest opportunity, but Bronson had revealed a nasty streak. He wanted the order filled, or the cash returned, forthwith; and a complication was that Clyde had rashly signed a receipt for the money which included specifications of what Bronson was to get for it. Bronson threatened to show the receipt to the family connections. Bad all around. When Clyde decided, as a last resort, on a trip to Crowfield for an appeal to his father, Bronson's dis- trust of him had got so deplorable that he insisted on going along and he couldn't be ditched; and Nancy had accom- panied them for the purpose of helping out with father. But father had been obdurate, and Monday it was beginning to look as if Clyde would have to confess all in order to get the money, which would be worse than bad, when on Pratt's terrace luck reared its pretty head again and Clyde made a bet.
Wolfe got all that out of her, patiently, with various de- tails and dates, and then observed, having finished the second bottle of beer, that while it seemed to establish Bronson as a man of disreputable motives it didn't seem to include one for murder.
'I know it,' Nancy said. 'I told you he couldn't have done it to get the money, because Clyde didn't have it, and any- way if he had had it he would have given it to him.'
'Still you say he did it?'
'Yes.'
'Why?'
'Because I saw Bronson follow Clyde over to Pratt's place.'
'Indeed. Last night?'
'Yes.'
