“I see.” Wolfe wasn’t arguing. “What is your opinion now, about Mrs. Mion’s claim?”
“I don’t think she has one. I don’t believe she can collect. If I were in James’ place I certainly wouldn’t pay her a cent.”
Wolfe nodded. “You don’t like her, do you?”
“Frankly, I don’t. No. I never have. Do I have to like her?”
“No, indeed. Especially since she doesn’t like you either.” Wolfe shifted in his chair and leaned back. I could tell from the line of his lips, straightened out, that the next item on the agenda was one he didn’t care for, and I understood why when I saw his eyes level at Clara James. I’ll bet that if he had known that he would have to be dealing with that type he wouldn’t have taken the job. He spoke to her testily. “Miss James, you’ve heard what has been said?”
“I was wondering,” she complained, as if she had been holding in a grievance, “if you were going to go on ignoring me. I was around too, you know.”
“I know. I haven’t forgotten you.” His tone implied that he only wished he could. “When you had a drink in the Churchill bar with your father and Judge Arnold, why did they send you up to Mion’s studio to see him? What for?”
Arnold and James protested at once, loudly and simultaneously. Wolfe, paying no attention to them, waited to hear Clara, her voice having been drowned by theirs.
“... nothing to do with it,” she was finishing. “I sent myself.”
“It was your own idea?”