“And you met Mrs. Sperling and her son. How sure are you that he invented those letters?”
I shrugged. “You heard me describe it.”
“You, Saul?”
“Yes, sir, I agree with Archie.”
“Then that settles it.” Wolfe sighed. “This is a devil of a mess.” He looked at Fred and Orrie. “Come up closer, will you? I’ve got to say something.”
Fred and Orrie moved together, but not alike. Fred was some bigger than Orrie. When he did anything at all, walk or talk or reach for something, you always expected him to trip or fumble, but he never did, and he could trail better than anybody I knew except Saul, which I would never understand. Fred moved like a bear, but Orrie like a cat. Orrie’s strong point was getting people to tell him things. It wasn’t so much the questions he asked. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t very good at questions; it was just the way he looked at them. Something about him made people feel that he ought to be told things.
Wolfe’s eyes took in the four of us. He spoke.
“As I said, we’re in a mess. The man we were investigating has been killed, and I think he was murdered. He was an outlaw and a blackguard, and I owe him nothing. But I am committed, by circumstances I prefer not to disclose, to find out who killed him and why, and, if it was murder, to get satisfactory evidence. We may find that the murderer is one who, by the accepted standards, deserves to live as richly as Mr. Rony deserved to die. I can’t help that; he must be found. Whether he must also be exposed I don’t know. I’ll answer that question when I am faced by it, and that will come only when I am also facing the murderer.”
Wolfe turned a hand over. “Why am I giving you this lecture? Because I need your help and will take it only on my own terms. If you work with me on this and we find what we’re looking for, a murderer, with the required evidence, any one or all of you may know all that I know, or at least enough to give you a right to share in the decision: what to do about it. That’s what I won’t accept. I reserve that right solely to myself. I alone shall decide whether to expose him, and if I decide not to, I shall expect you to concur; and if you concur you will be obligated to say or do nothing that will conflict with my decision. You’ll have to keep your mouths shut, and that is a burden not to be lightly assumed. So before we get too far I’m giving you this chance to stay out of it.”
He pressed a button on his desk. “I’ll drink some beer while you think it over. Will you have some?”