“Discuss it with him.”
I steered her up the one flight and through to the potting room. I had left the door to the fumigating room nearly closed so she couldn’t see the assemblage until she was on the threshold, and as I opened it and ushered her in I took a better hold on her arm as a precaution in case she decided to go for Wolfe’s eyes as souvenirs. But the reaction was the opposite of what I expected. She saw Cramer and went stiff. She stood stiff three seconds and then turned her head to me and said between her teeth:
“You lousy bastard.”
They all stared at her.
Especially Cramer. Finally he spoke not to her but to Wolfe, “This is quite a favor. Where did you get her?”
“Sit down, Miss Lasher,” Wolfe said.
“You might as well,” I told her. “It’s a party.”
Her face white and her lips tight, she went and dropped onto a bench. The others were all sitting on benches or packing boxes.
“I told you this morning,” Wolfe said, “that unless you told me what you saw in that corridor I would have to turn you over to the police.”
She didn’t say anything and didn’t look as if she intended to.