“It’s blunt and simple. I need to know whether you want the truth enough to pay for it, and if so how much.”
Rackell looked at his wife. “What’s he talking about?”
“We haven’t discussed it,” Wolfe told him. “We’ve been considering a point your wife raised, which I regard as frivolous. This question of mine — perhaps I should call it a suggestion. I have one to offer.”
“What?”
“First I’ll give you the basis for it.” Wolfe leaned back and half closed his eyes. “You heard me tell those five people yesterday why it is assumed that one of them substituted the capsules. On that assumption, after further talk with them, I stack another: that it is highly improbable that the substitution could have been made, under the circumstances as established, entirely unobserved. It would have required a coincidence of remarkable dexterity and uncommon luck, and I will not accept such a coincidence except on weighty evidence. So, assuming that the substitution was made in the restaurant, I also assume, for a test at least, that one of the others saw it and knows who did it. In short, that there was an eyewitness to the murder.”
Rackell’s mournful face did not light up with interest. His lips were puckered, making the droop at the corners more pronounced. “That may be,” he conceded, “but what good does it do if he won’t talk?”
“I propose to make him talk. Or her.”
“How?”
Wolfe rubbed his chin with a thumb and forefinger. His eyes moved to Mrs. Rackell and back to the husband. “This sort of thing,” he said, “requires delicacy, discretion, and reticence. I’ll put it this way. I will not conspire to get a man punished for a crime he did not commit. It is true that all five of those people may be Communists and therefore enemies of this country, but that does not justify framing one of them for murder. My purpose is clear and innocent — to expose the real murderer and bring him to account; and I suggest a devious method only because no other seems likely to succeed. Evidently the police, after five days on it, are up a tree, and so is the FBI — if it is engaged, and you think it is. I want to earn my fee, and I wouldn’t mind the kudos.”
Rackell was frowning. “I still don’t know exactly what you’re suggesting.”