“You’ve skipped something,” Ben Dykes protested. “Why did it have to be Reynolds who murdered and took the card?”
“It didn’t,” Wolfe admitted. “These were assumptions, not conclusions. But they were a whole; if one was good, all were: if one was not, none. If the murderer had killed and searched the body to get that card, surely it was to prevent the disclosure that he had joined the Communist party under the name of William Reynolds, a disclosure threatened by Rony — who was by no means above such threats. That’s where I stood Tuesday noon. But I was under an obligation to my client, Mr. Sperling, which would be ill met if I gave all this to the police — at least without trying my own hand at it first. That was what I had decided to do” — Wolfe’s eyes went straight at Sperling — “when you jumped in with that confounded statement you had coerced Mr. Kane to sign. And satisfied Mr. Archer, and fired me.”
His eyes darted at Kane. “I wanted you here for this, to repudiate that statement. Will you? Now?”
“Don’t be a fool, Web,” Sperling snapped. And to Wolfe, “I didn’t coerce him!”
Poor Kane, not knowing what to say, said nothing. In spite of all the trouble he had caused us, I nearly felt sorry for him.
Wolfe shrugged. “So I came home. I had to get my assumptions either established or discredited. It was possible that Mr. Rony had not had the membership card on his person when he was killed. On Wednesday Mr. Goodwin went to his apartment and made a thorough search — not breaking and entering, Mr. Stebbins.”
“You say,” Purley muttered.
“He had a key,” Wolfe asserted, which was quite true. “The card wasn’t there; if it had been, Mr. Goodwin would have found it. But he did find evidence, no matter how or what, that Mr. Rony had had in his possession one or more objects, probably a paper or papers, which he had used as a tool of coercion on one or more persons here present. It doesn’t matter what his demands were, but in passing let me say that I doubt that they were for money; I think what he required, and was getting, was support for his courtship of the younger Miss Sperling — or at least neutrality. Another—”
“What was the evidence?” Archer demanded.
Wolfe shook his head. “You may not need it; if you do, you may have it when the time comes. Another assumption, that Mr. Rony was not upright when the car hit him, also got confirmed. Although the car had not struck his head, there was a severe bruise above his right ear; a doctor hired by me saw it, and it is recorded on the official report. That helped to acquit the murderer of so slapdash a method as trying to kill a lively and vigorous young man by hitting him with a car. Obviously it would have been more workmanlike to ambush him as he walked up the drive, knock him out, and then run the car over him. If that—”