“No.”
“Then will you please tell me why, when Mr. Good win told you I wanted to speak with you on behalf of Mrs. Whitten, you left your work immediately and came here with him?”
Julie looked at him, and then at me as if it was up to me to answer that one. Seeing that I was no nearer ready with something adequate than she was, she went back to Wolfe.
“Why wouldn’t I?” she demanded. “After what has happened, wouldn’t I want to know what she wanted?”
Wolfe nodded approvingly. “That was much the best you could do, and you did it. But it’s not good enough. If you maintain this attitude, Miss Alving, I’m afraid I’m out of it, and you’ll have others to deal with. I would advise you to reconsider. I think you’re wrong to assume that they will believe you, and not Mrs. Whitten, when she tells them that you attacked her with a knife and your target was her heart.”
“I didn’t!” Julie cried. That was only so-so too.
“Nonsense. Of course you did. I can understand your reluctance, since nothing has been published about it, and for all you know Mrs. Whitten may be at the point of death. But she isn’t. Your blade didn’t get beyond the rib, and twelve stitches were all that was necessary to make her capable of riding here to my office. Except for a little loss of blood she’s as good as ever. She hasn’t even reported it to the police, not wishing to give the public another mouthful to chew on — a mortal assault on her by the former friend of her murdered husband. So the limit of a charge against you would be assault with intent to kill.”
Wolfe waved that aside as if it were a mere peccadillo. “And if you’ll be frank with me and answer some questions, I undertake to arrange that Mrs. Whitten will not prosecute. If you had achieved your purpose, if she were dead, that would be different and I wouldn’t be so foolish as to expect frankness from you. I wouldn’t ask you to confess a murder, Miss Alving.”
She was doing her best and I admired her for it. But the trouble was that she had to decide on her line right there facing us, and having to make up your mind with Nero Wolfe’s eyes, open an eighth of an inch, on you, is no situation for an amateur.
However, she wasn’t made of jelly. “When did this — when and where was Mrs. Whitten attacked?”