I held the pass. Wolfe’s voice came. “If you’re going for Mr. Lewent, madam, I beg you to consider. He came to me and paid me money because he lacked the spunk to tackle this himself. You can drag him in here, and the three of you can screech and scratch, but what good will it do? I’m willing to try to work this out, but not in pandemonium.”
She turned and took a step.
“You should all realize,” Wolfe told them, “what the situation is. You may think that this notion of Mr. Lewent’s is preposterous, that he is in effect deranged, but that doesn’t dispose of it or him. If he clings to it and speaks of it, it can become extremely ugly for all of you. Suing him for slander might settle him, but it wouldn’t settle the stench. From the fact that he chose me to investigate for him, and from his paying me in advance what was for him a substantial sum, I assume that he has high regard for my sagacity, judgment, and integrity. If I am convinced that his suspicions are baseless and unmerited, I think I can persuade him to abandon them; and it may be that you can convince me here and now. Do you want to try?”
Paul Thayer threw his head back and haw-hawed. It didn’t go over as well as it had when he and I were together in his room. They all looked at him, not admiringly, and when he subsided they transferred the looks to Theodore Huck. He was regarding Wolfe thoughtfully.
“I am wondering,” he said, “if it would help for me to have a talk with my brother-in-law.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” Sylvia Marcy said so positively that everyone glanced at her in surprise. Immediately she cooed. “I just mean,” she cooed, “that he’s a case. He is definitely a case.”
Huck looked at Dorothy Riff. “What do you think?”
She didn’t hesitate. The gray-green eyes were alert and determined. “I would like to know what it would take to convince Mr. Wolfe.” She looked at him.
“That depends,” Wolfe told her. “If, for instance, the source of the poison that killed Mrs. Huck has been satisfactorily established, and if none of you was connected with in in any way, I would be well on the road to conviction. According to Mr. Lewent, it was ptomaine, and all of you were on the premises at the time. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”