“I don’t have to drag anybody in. I’m of sound mind and body and over twenty-one.”

“I know you are, and of a decisive and aggressive temperament, and that’s why I’m making progress.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “One last question. Yesterday Miss Nieder suggested, frivolously I thought, that you might find counsel in the stars or a crystal ball. Do you?”

Bernard croaked at Cynthia, “Where the hell did you get that idea?”

“I said she was being frivolous,” Wolfe told him. “Do you? Or tea leaves or a fortune-teller?”

“No!”

Wolfe nodded. “That’s all, Mr. Daumery. Thank you again. That satisfies me.”

He took them all in, “You have a right to know, I think, who it was that was killed in the Daumery and Nieder office last evening. It was Mr. Paul Nieder, the former partner in the business.”

XI

Everybody stared at him. If I had had a pin handy I would have tried dropping it.

“What did you say?” Demarest demanded.