'3
Five of the yellow chairs were in place facing Wolfe's desk, three in front and two behind, and Mira was in the one nearest to Cramer. I had intended the one at my end for her, but Cramer had vetoed it, and since she was his prisoner I hadn't insisted. Of course he was in the red leather chair, and the uninvited guest he had brought along, Sergeant Purley Stebbins, was seated at his right, with his broad, burly shoulders touching the wall.
Mira looked fine, considering. Her eyes were a little heavy and the lids were swollen, and her jacket could have stood washing and ironing, and the corners of her mouth pointed down, but I thought she looked fine. Wolfe, seated behind his desk, was glowering at her, but the glower wasn't meant for her. It was merely that he had had to tell Fritz to advance the lunch hour fifteen minutes, and then had had to hurry through the corn fritters and sausage cakes and wild-thyme honey from Greece and cheese and blackberry pie with not enough time to enjoy it properly.
'Was it bad?' he asked her.
'Not too bad,' she said. 'I didn't get too much sleep. The worst was when the morning passed and I didn't hear from you.' Her head turned. 'Or you, Mr. Goodwin.'
I nodded. 'I was busy earning my fee. I wasn't worried about you because you had promised you wouldn't forget method three.'
'I kept my promise.'
'I know you did. I'll buy you a drink any time you're thirsty.'
'Get on,' Cramer growled.
'Have you been told,' Wolfe asked her, 'that others will join us shortly?'
'No,' she said. 'Here? Who?'
'Miss Bram, Mr. Kearns, and Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Irving.'
Her eyes widened. 'Why Mr. and Mrs. Irving?'
'That will appear after they arrive. I thought you should know that they're coming. They'll soon be here, and we have two points
ii4 3 at Wolfe's Door
to cover. First I need a question answered. When you drove away from Pencil Street last evening, and meandered in search of a place to dispose of the corpse--don't interrupt me--and finally drove here, did you at any time suspect that you were being followed by another car?'
Her mouth was hanging open. 'But you--' she stammered. Her head jerked to me. 'Did you know he was--what good did it do to keep my promise?'
'A lot,' I told her. 'Yes, I knew he was. Everything is under control. Believe me, I would rather lose an arm than lose the right to ask you to promise me something. We know what we're doing. Shall I repeat the question?'
'But-'
'No buts. Leave it to us. Shall I repeat the question?'
'Yes.'
I did so, omitting the 'don't interrupt me.'
'No,' she said.
'Proceed,' Wolfe told me.
I knew it would have been better to have her closer. She was six yards away. 'This one is more complicated and more important During that drive, from Ferrell Street to here, are you certain that another car was not following you? There are various ways of making sure of that. Did you use any of them?'
'No. I never thought of that. I was looking for a place--'
'I know you were. All we want is this: if I told you that a car was following you, all the way, what would you say?'
'I would want to know who it was.'
I wanted to go and pat her on the head, but it might have been misconstrued. 'Okay,' I said. 'That's one point. The other one is simple. Tell Inspector Cramer what you told us last night, including the phone call to Gilbert Irving to tell him that you were going to drive Judy's cab.' I looked at my wrist. 'You only have fifteen minutes, so reel it off.'
'I won't,' she said. 'Not until you tell me why you're doing this.'
'Then I'll tell him. You'll know why after the others get here. I'll tell you this: someone tried to frame you for murder and this
Method Three for Murder 115
is payday. Anyway there's not much left, now that the inspector knows you drove the cab here with the corpse in it. Would we have spilled that if we didn't have a good hold? Go ahead.'
Wolfe put in, 'Don't interrupt with questions, Mr. Cramer. They can wait. Yes, Miss Holt?'
She still didn't like it, not a bit, but she delivered, starting with Sunday evening. She left gaps. She didn't say that Judy had given her permission to take the cab, merely that she had taken it, and she didn't mention the phone call to Irving; but since I had already mentioned it that didn't matter. The main thing was what had happened after she got to Ferrell Street with the cab, and she covered that completely; and when she got to where she and I had sat on the stoop and talked, Cramer began cutting in with questions. I will not say that he was more interested in tagging me for obstructing justice than he was in solving a murder case, since I don't like to brag, but it sounded like it. He was firing away at her, and Sergeant Stebbins was scrawling in his notebook, when the doorbell rang and
