“By my mother’s milk,” Polly Zarella cried, springing to her feet, “it was! It was Paul! When they made me look at him I saw he had Paul’s hands, Paul’s wonderful artist hands, only I knew it couldn’t be!” At Wolfe’s desk, glaring at him ferociously, she drummed on the desk with her fists. “How?” she demanded. “Tell me how!”
I had to get up and help out or she might have climbed over the desk and drummed on Wolfe’s belly, which would have stopped the party. The others were reacting too, but not as spectacularly as Polly. My firmness in getting her back in her chair had a quieting effect on them too, and Wolfe’s words could come through.
“You’ll want to know all about it, of course, and eventually you will, but right now I have a job to do. Since, as I say, Mr. Nieder was killed last night, it follows that he didn’t kill himself over a year ago. He only pretended to. A week ago today Miss Nieder saw him in your showroom, disguised with a beard and glasses and slick parted hair. She recognized him, but he departed before she could speak to him. When she entered that office last evening the body was there on the floor, and she confirmed the identification by recognizing scars on his leg. Further particulars must wait. The point is that this time he was killed indeed, and I think I know who killed him.”
His eyes went straight at Bernard.
“Where is he, Mr. Daumery?”
Bernard was not himself. He was trying hard to be but couldn’t make it. He was meeting Wolfe’s hard gaze with a fascinated stare, as if he were entering the last stage of being hypnotized.
“Where is he?” Wolfe insisted.
The best Bernard could do was a “Who?” that didn’t sound like him at all.
Wolfe slowly shook his head. “I’m not putting anything on,” he said dryly. “When Mr. Goodwin told me what happened this afternoon this possibility occurred to me, along with many others, but up to half an hour ago, when I got my head battered in by being told that you four people spent last evening together, I had no idea of where my target was. Then, after a little consideration, I decided to explore, and now I know. Your face tells me. Don’t reproach yourself. The attack was unexpected and swift and everything was against you.”
Wolfe extended a hand with the palm up. “Even if I didn’t know, but still only guessed, that would be enough. I would merely give it to the police as a suspicion deserving inquiry, and with their trained noses and their ten thousand men how long do you think it would take them to find him? Another fact that may weigh with you: he is a murderer. Even so, you are a free agent in every respect but one; you will not be permitted to leave this room until either you have told me where he is or I have given the police time to start on his trail and cover my door.”