I shook my head. “I’ll save it.”
“No, we’re through saving. What is it?”
“Nothing much, only that I suddenly realized that I actually saw the murderer in the act of transporting the corpse. I stood and looked straight at him while he was moving it, and we exchanged words. I don’t like to brag, but don’t you agree?”
“Yes, I think it likely—”
“This is one hell of a time to realize it,” Sergeant Stebbins blurted at me.
“I suggest,” Wolfe told him, “that you post yourself near Mr. Huck. He could have almost anything hidden around that chair, especially under that quilt, and I don’t—”
“Just a minute, Wolfe.” Mandelbaum had left the couch and was marching. “If you have any evidence against anyone, including Mr. Huck, we want to hear it or see it first.”
“This is the man,” Huck said in a voice not very steady, “who tried to extort one hundred thousand dollars from me!”
“And succeeded,” Wolfe declared. “I’m by no means sure I couldn’t collect, though—”
He stopped, startled. So was I, and the others. Purley Stebbins, who knew Wolfe from away back, had quietly moved to Huck’s chair, at his right elbow, and all of a sudden Huck had jerked his head around and snarled at him in a spasm of fury, “Get away!” It was such a nasty snarl that Mandelbaum, also startled, forgot about Wolfe to stare at Huck. Purley, who had been snarled at by experts in his day, was unmoved.