“Yes, sir?”
“Give Fritz a revolver and send him in. I don’t know how some of these minds might work. Then get Mr. Dickson and bring him here. Eight-one-six East—”
“Yeah, I heard it.”
“Don’t alarm him any more than you have to. Don’t tell him we know who got killed last night. I don’t want you killed, and I don’t want a suicide.”
“Don’t worry,” Demarest volunteered, “about him committing suicide. What I’m wondering is how you expect to prove anything about a murder. You’ve admitted that half an hour ago you didn’t even know he existed. He’s tough and he’s anything but a fool.”
I was at a drawer of my desk, getting out two guns and loading them — one for Fritz and one for me. So I was still there to hear Ward Roper’s contribution.
“That explains it,” Roper said, the bitterness all gone, replaced by a tone of pleased discovery. “If Paul was alive up to last night, he designed those things himself and got them to us through Cynthia! Certainly! That explains it!”
I didn’t stay for the slapping, if any.
“There’s no hurry,” Wolfe told me as I was leaving. “I have things to do before you get back.”