“Yes, Archie?”
“I am phoning as instructed. Officer Hefferan is a Goodwin-hater, but I swallowed my pride. On the stand he would swear up and down that he saw Keyes at the place and time as given, and I guess he did, but a good lawyer could shoot it full of ifs and buts.”
“Why? Is Mr. Hefferan a shuttlecock?”
“By no means. He knows it all. But it wasn’t a closeup.”
“You’d better let me have it verbatim.”
I did so. By years of practice I had reached the point where I could relay a two-hour conversation, without any notes but practically word for word, and the brief session I had just come from gave me no trouble at all. When I had finished Wolfe said, “Indeed.”
Silence.
I waited a full two minutes and then said politely, “Please tell Orrie not to put his feet on my desk.”
In another minute Wolfe’s voice came. “Mr. Pohl has telephoned again, twice, from the Keyes office. He’s a jackass. Go there and see him. The address—”
“I know the address. What part of him do I look at?”