It looked as if he might try to prove it, so I went and grabbed him, and Saul came to help.
“Oh, my son,” Mrs. Pitcairn moaned.
Wolfe looked at her and growled, “Mr. Krasicki is a woman’s son too, madam.” I didn’t think he had it in him.
X
At six o’clock the next afternoon but one I was at my desk in the office, catching up on neglected details, when I heard the sound of Wolfe’s elevator descending from the plant rooms, and a moment later he entered, got himself comfortable in his chair back of his desk, rang for beer, leaned back, and sighed with deep satisfaction.
“How’s Andy making out?” I asked.
“Considering the blow he got, marvelously.”
I put papers in a drawer and swiveled to face him.
“I was just thinking,” I said, not offensively, “that if it hadn’t been for you Dini Lauer might still be alive and giving males ideas. Ben Dykes told me an hour ago on the phone that Donald has admitted, along with other things, that her telling him she was leaving and going to get married was what put him into a mood to murder. If you hadn’t offered Andy a job he wanted to take he might not have got keyed up enough to talk her into marrying him — or anyhow saying she would. So in a way you might say you killed her.”
“You might,” Wolfe conceded, taking the cap from one of the bottles of beer Fritz had brought.