They didn’t jerk to attention. While none of them had had as much of him as I had, they knew how he hated to work during the hour or so after dinner, and what was eating him wasn’t that they weren’t alert but that he didn’t want to be.
“We can go downstairs,” I suggested, “and play some pool while you digest.”
He snorted. “My stomach,” he asserted, “is quite capable of handling its affairs without pampering. Has any of you gentlemen a pressing question before I go on?”
“Maybe later,” Saul suggested.
“Very well. It is, as you see, hopeless. It is excessively complex, but no sources of information are available to us. Archie can try with others as he did with Miss Estey, but he has no lever. The police will tell me nothing. On occasion, in the past, I have had tools wherewith to pry things out of them, but not this time. Since they know everything I know, I have nothing to bargain with. Of course we know presumptively what they’re doing. They’re finding out, or trying to, whether any woman known to Mrs. Fromm had a scratch on her cheek Tuesday evening or Wednesday. If they find her that could settle it; but they may not find her, since what that boy called a scratch, staring at her as he did, might have been a slight mark that she could have rendered practically unnoticeable as soon as she got a chance. Also the police are trying to find a woman known to Mrs. Fromm who wore spider earrings, and again, if they succeed, that could settle it.”
Wolfe upturned a palm. “And they’re trying to trace the car that killed the boy and Matthew Birch. They’re examining every inch of Mrs. Fromm’s car. They’re rechecking Birch’s movements and connections and associates. They’re piecing together, minute by minute, everything Mrs. Fromm did and said after she left this office yesterday. They’re badgering not only those who were with Mrs. Fromm last evening, but everyone who can be remotely suspected of knowledge of a pertinent fact. They’re checking on the whereabouts of all possible culprits — for Tuesday evening when a woman told Peter Drossos to get a cop, for later that evening when Birch was killed, for Wednesday evening when the boy was killed, and for yesterday evening when Mrs. Fromm was killed. They’re asking who had reason to fear or hate Mrs. Fromm or will profit in any way by her death. In those activities they are using a hundred men, or a thousand — all of them trained, and some of them competent.”
He compressed his lips and shook his head. “They can’t afford to fail on this one, and they won’t dally. As we sit here they may have marked their prey and are ready to seize him. But until they do, I propose to use Mrs. Fromm’s money, or part of it, for a purpose that she would surely have sanctioned. With all their advantages, the police will certainly forestall us, but I intend to persuade myself that I am justified in keeping that money; and besides, I resent the assumption that people who come to me for help can be murdered with impunity. That’s the personal reason.”
“We’ll get the bastard!” Fred Durkin blurted.
“I doubt it, Fred. You understand now why I called you to this conference and told you all about it instead of simply assigning you to errands as usual. I wanted you to know how hopeless it is, and also I wanted to consult you. There are dozens of possible approaches to the problem, and there are only three of you. Saul, where do you think you might start?”
Saul hesitated. He scratched his nose. “I’d like to start two places at once. Assadip and earrings.”