“Sure, I suppose so, like lots of other people, but this girl trouble is apparently nothing desperate, only enough of a mess so they could drag it in. About people urgently needing money, who knows? Maybe they all do. Jerome owns part of a real estate business, but he’s a big spender. Mortimer could owe a million. Eve and her husband might be betting on horse races, if you want to be trite. Phoebe may want to finance a big deal in narcotics, though that would be pretty precocious at twenty-four. There are plenty—”
“Archie. Quit talking. Report.”
I did so. It filled an hour and went on into the second, my display of all the little scraps I had collected, while Wolfe leaned back with his eyes closed and Marko obviously got more and more irritated. When the question period was finished too Marko exploded.
“Sacred Father above! If I prepared a meal like this my patrons would all starve to death! Pompa will die not of fear but of old age!”
Wolfe made allowances. “My friend,” he said patiently, “when you are preparing a meal the cutlet or loin does not use all possible resource, cunning, resolution, and malice to evade your grasp. But a murderer does. Assuming that Mr. Pompa is innocent, as I do on your assurance, manifestly one of those six people is behind a shield that cannot be removed by a finger’s flick. They may even be in concert, if one of them went upstairs and dealt with Mr. Whitten while Mrs. Whitten and Mr, Pompa were in the living room. But before I can move I must start.” Wolfe looked at the clock on the wall, which said ten past ten, and then at me. “Archie.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get them down here. As many of them as possible.”
“Yeah. During the week?”
“Tonight. Now.”
I gawked at him. “You don’t mean it.”