Wolfe told him to sit down and was ignored. I got up and headed for him, as Irby, his lawyer, called something to him. I suppose I was more on edge than I realized, with the long session dragging out and obviously getting nowhere, and it must have shown on my face that I was ready to plug someone and why not Eric Hagh, for Wolfe called my name sharply.
“Archie!”
It brought me to. I stopped short of Hagh and told him, “Back up. You were to take part only if and when invited.”
“I’ve been accused of murder!”
“Why not? So has everyone else. If you don’t like it here, go back where you came from. Sit down and listen and start cooking up a defense.”
Irby was there with a hand on his arm, and the big handsome chiseling ex-husband let himself be urged back to his seat in the rear.
Wolfe resumed to Brucker: “Regarding Mr. Hagh, you said that he wouldn’t even have had to come to New York, that he could have hired someone to kill his former wife. What was the significance of your suggestion that the deed had been done by a hired assassin?”
“I don’t know.” Brucker was frowning. “Was it significant?”
“I think it may have been. In any case, I am impressed by your enterprise in hustling off to Venezuela for a candidate when there was no lack of eligibles near at hand. But the question arises, what was in it for Mr. Hagh? Why did he want her dead?”
“I don’t know.”