“Well — I need somebody, don’t I? After the way the police acted with me? When they know I came here last night and apparently no one else did?”
“But that’s absolutely idiotic! Why shouldn’t you come here?”
“All right, I should. But I think they came within an inch of arresting me.”
“Then you need a lawyer. Where’s Demarest? Did he send you to Nero Wolfe?”
Cynthia shook her head. “I haven’t seen him, but I’m going to as soon as—”
“Damn it, you should have seen him first!”
“I’m not taking your time,” Cynthia declared, “to ask you what I should have done. I’ll tend to that, thank you. I want to ask you to do something.”
I thought she was making a bad start and needed help. “May I join in?” I inquired pleasantly.
Bernard scowled at me. “This thing is absolutely crazy,” he complained. “What we ought to do is ignore it! Simply ignore it!”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “that would be innocent and brave, but it might get complicated. If one of you gets charged with murder and locked up it would take a master ignorer—”