I grinned at him. “I wouldn’t dream of putting it that way.”
“No, but we are.” He chuckled again. “We who have keys. I offer a comment. You said that Wolfe’s primary function, as Miss Nieder sees it, is to prevent her arrest. Obviously he intends to perform it by getting someone else arrested — and tried and convicted. That may prove to be a difficult and expensive undertaking, and possibly quite unnecessary. I would engage, with the situation as it is now, to get the same result with one-tenth the effort and at one-tenth the expense. It’s only fair to her, isn’t it, to give her that alternative?”
He turned. “It’s your money, Cynthia. What about it? Do you want to pay Wolfe to do it his way?”
For a second I thought she was weakening. But she was only deciding how to put it.
“Yes, I do,” she declared firmly. “I never had a detective working for me before, and if you can’t hire a detective when you’re suspected of murder when can you hire one?”
Demarest nodded. “I thought so,” he said in a satisfied tone. “Just what I thought. Did you say eight-thirty, Goodwin?”
“That would be best. Mr. Wolfe works better when he isn’t looking forward to a meal. You’ll come?”
“Certainly I’ll come. To save energy. I like to economize on energy, and it will take less to attend that meeting than it would to argue Miss Nieder out of it.” He smiled at her. “My dear child! I want a private talk with you.”
“Maybe it can wait a few minutes?” I suggested. “Until I finish arranging this? How about it, Mr. Daumery? You’ll be with us?”
Bernard was sunk in gloom or something — anyhow, he was sunk. He was hunched in his chair, his eyes going from Cynthia to Demarest to me to Cynthia.