As I glanced at my watch at five to three Wolfe pronounced my name.
“Archie. Are my socks dry?”
I went and felt them and told him just about, and he asked me to bring them to him. As he was pulling the first one on Mrs. Pitcairn spoke.
“Don’t bother with the wet shoes, since you’re going to sleep here. Vera, there’s a pair of slippers—”
“No, thank you,” Wolfe said energetically. He got the other sock on and picked up a shoe. “Thank heaven I get them big enough.” He got his toes in, tugged and pushed, finally got the shoe on and tied the lace, and straightened up to rest. In a moment he tackled the second shoe. By the time he got it on the silence was as heavy as if the ceiling had come down to rest on our heads.
Pitcairn undertook to lift it. “It’s nearly morning,” he rasped. “We’re going to bed. This has become a ridiculous farce.”
Wolfe sighed from all the exertion. “It has been a farce from the beginning,” he declared. He looked around at them. “But I didn’t make it a farce, you did. My position is clear, logical, and invulnerable. The circumstances of Miss Lauer’s death — the use of Mrs. Imbrie’s morphine, the preknowledge of the fumigation, and others — made it unarguable that she was killed by a familiar of these premises. Convinced with good reason, as I was and am, that Mr. Krasicki didn’t do it, it followed that one of you did. There we were and there we are. I had no notion who it was; I forced my way in here to find out; and I’m going to stay until I do — or until you expel me and face the alternative I have described. I am your dangerous and implacable enemy. I have had you together; now I’ll take you one by one; and I’ll start with Mrs. Pitcairn. It will soon be dawn. Do you want to take a nap first, madam?”
Mrs. Pitcairn was actually trying to smile. “I’m afraid,” she said in a firm full voice, “that I made a mistake when I offered to pay you to protect us from publicity. I’m afraid it made a bad impression on you. If you misunderstood — who is that? ”
It was Saul Panzer, entering from behind the drapes where she had previously concealed herself for eavesdropping. He was right on the dot, since the arrangement had been for him to walk on at three o’clock unless he got a signal.
Most of us could get our eyes on him without turning, but Wolfe, in his chair with a high wide back, had to lean over and screw his head around. While he was doing that Donald was rising to his feet, and Joseph G. and Imbrie were both moving. I moved faster. When I had passed them I whirled and snapped, “Take it easy. He came with us and he don’t bite.”