“No.” Adele was puzzled and slightly exasperated. It struck me that Wolfe was recklessly getting onto thin ice, mighty close to the forbidden subject of murder. Adele added, “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“Neither do I,” Judge Arnold put in with emphasis. He smiled sarcastically. “Unless it’s force of habit with you, asking people where they were at the time a death by violence occurred. Why don’t you go after all of us?”
“That’s what I intend to do,” Wolfe said imperturbably. “I would like to know why Mion decided to kill himself, because that has a bearing on the opinion I shall give his widow. I understand that two or three of you have said that he was wrought up when that conference ended, but not despondent or splenetic. I know he committed suicide; the police can’t be flummoxed on a thing like that; but why?”
“I doubt,” Adele Bosley offered, “if you know how a singer — especially a great artist like Mion — how he feels when he can’t let a sound out, when he can’t even talk except in an undertone or a whisper. It’s horrible.”
“Anyway, you never knew with him,” Rupert Grove contributed. “In rehearsal I’ve heard him do an aria like an angel and then rush out weeping because he thought he had slurred a release. One minute he was up in the sky and the next he was under a rug.”
Wolfe grunted. “Nevertheless, anything said to him by anyone during the two hours preceding his suicide is pertinent to this inquiry, to establish Mrs. Mion’s moral position. I want to know where you people were that day, after the conference up to seven o’clock, and what you did.”
“My God!” Judge Arnold threw up his hands. The hands came down again. “All right, it’s getting late. As Miss Bosley told you, my client and I left Mion’s studio together. We went to the Churchill bar and drank and talked. A little later Miss James joined us, stayed long enough for a drink, I suppose half an hour, and left. Mr. James and I remained together until after seven. During that time neither of us communicated with Mion, nor arranged for anyone else to. I believe that covers it?”
“Thank you,” Wolfe said politely. “You corroborate, of course, Mr. James?”
“I do,” the baritone said gruffly. “This is a lot of goddam nonsense.”
“It does begin to sound like it,” Wolfe conceded. “Dr. Lloyd? If you don’t mind?”