“Certainly I will,” she promised, as if he had asked her to help kill a rattlesnake.
Wolfe was taking them in, with his lips tightened. Obviously, with the check on my desk on its way to the bank, he had decided to add them to the list of clients who told lies and go on from there. He forced his eyes wide open to rest them, let them half close again, and spoke.
“We’ll settle that along with other things before we’re through,” he asserted. “You realize, of course, that I’m assuming your innocence, but I’ve made a thousand wrong assumptions before now so they’re not worth much. Has either of you a notion of who killed Mr. Mion?”
They both said no.
He grunted. “I have.”
They opened their eyes at him.
He nodded. “It’s only another assumption, but I like it. It will take work to validate it. To begin with, I must see the people you have mentioned — all six of them — and I would prefer not to string it out. Since you don’t want them told that I’m investigating a murder, we must devise a stratagem. Did your husband leave a will, Mrs. Mion?”
She nodded and said yes.
“Are you the heir?”
“Yes, I—” She gestured. “I don’t need it and don’t want it.”