“You gentlemen don’t look very comfortable,” he muttered.
They said they were all right. He sat. There was a tingle in my spine. I knew his look and manner as well as I did his voice, and there was no doubt about it, he was going to pull one, or try to.
He addressed the District Attorney. “I assume, Mr. Bowen, that these people know why you have brought them here?”
Bowen nodded. “Yes, it’s been thoroughly explained to them, and they have all agreed to cooperate. Mr. Helmar, Mr. Parker, and Mr. Irby have made certain reservations about the use of the recording, and they have been covered in a memo. Do you want to see it?”
“Not if Mr. Parker has approved it. Then we may proceed?”
“Please do.”
Wolfe turned. “Miss Duday and gentlemen. You understand that the purpose of this gathering is for us to iterate our words and movements of last Thursday evening. The first thing that happened after I entered the room was Mr. Goodwin’s identification for me of Miss Duday and Messrs. Brucker, Quest, and Pitkin. Then I sat down. Then Mr. Helmar said he had a statement he would like to read, and that, I suppose, is where we should start, but before we do so I wish to make some remarks.”
A sound came from one person, not one of the cast. It was Inspector Cramer, and the sound was a cross between a growl and a snort. Cramer knew Wolfe better than anyone there except me.
Wolfe leaned back and got comfortable. “I told you Thursday evening that my sole interest was investigation of the murder of Priscilla Eads, and that is still true, except that now the murder of Sarah Jaffee is joined to it. After you people left that evening I told Mr. Goodwin that I thought I knew who killed Miss Eads and Mrs. Fomos. That surmise, for that is all it was then, was based on two things: first, the impression I had got of you five people that evening; and second, the fact that Mrs. Fomos had been killed.
“The supposition that the attack on Mrs. Fomos was solely for the purpose of getting the keys to Miss Eads’s apartment was clearly not acceptable if any alternative could be had. If that was all that was wanted it would only have been necessary to snatch her bag. A dozen women’s bags are snatched every day in this city. Killing Mrs. Fomos greatly increased the hazard of killing Miss Eads. If her body had been discovered sooner, as it might easily have been, and if that city detective — Auerbach, was it, Mr. Cramer?”