“I think he might have been keeping the paper because there was something in it he wanted to read. I know I often do that, say it’s in an evening paper and I don’t have time—”
“Yes. We’ll consider that. Jimmie?”
“I don’t know a thing like that in the shop, Mr. Wolfe. Not a thing.”
“Pfui.” Wolfe was disgusted. “Either you have no brains at all, or they’re temporarily paralyzed, or you’re all in a conspiracy. I’m looking straight at such an object right now.”
From behind I couldn’t see where his gaze was directed, but I didn’t have to. The others could, and I saw them. Eleven pairs of eyes, including Purley’s — he had finished at the phone and rejoined us — were aimed at the magazine table next to Janet’s chair from eleven different angles. Up to that moment my brain may have been as paralyzed as the others’, but it could still react to a stimulus. I left the stool and stood right behind Wolfe, ready if and when needed.
“You mean the magazines?” Cramer demanded.
“Yes. You subscribe to them, Mr. Fickler? They come through the mail? Then the name and address is on them.”
“Not on this one,” said the dick on the other side of the magazine table, picking up the New Yorker on top.
“Drop it!” Cramer barked. “Don’t touch it!”
“No,” Wolfe conceded, “that comes in a wrapper. But others don’t. For instance that Time, there on the shelf below — the addressee is on the cover. Surely it deserves examination, and others too. What if he took it from here and had it in his pocket when he stole the car and drove up Broadway? And in the excitement of his misadventure he failed to notice that it had dropped from his pocket and was on the seat of the car? And Wallen found it there, took it, and saw the name and address on it? You have sent for the equipment and Wallen’s prints, Mr. Stebbins? Then we—”