“We’re all intelligent,” Sperling snapped. “Get on.”
Wolfe looked at him. “It’s going to be long-winded, but I can’t help it. You must have it all. If you try prodding me you’ll only lengthen it. Since you head a large enterprise, sir, and therefore are commander-in-chief of a huge army, surely you know when to bullyrag and when to listen. Will you do me a favor? Sit down. Talking to people who are standing makes my neck stiff.”
“I want to say something,” Gwenn declared.
Wolfe nodded at her. “Say it.”
She swallowed. “I just want to be sure you know that I know what you’re here for. You sent that man” — she flashed a glance at me which gave me a fair idea of how my personal relationship with her stood as of now — “to snoop on Louis Rony, a friend of mine, and that’s what this is about.” She swallowed again. “I’ll listen because my family — my mother and sister asked me to, but I think you’re a cheap filthy little worm, and if I had to earn a living the way you do I’d rather starve!”
It was all right, but it would have been better if she had ad libbed it instead of sticking to a script that she had obviously prepared in advance. Calling Wolfe little, which she wouldn’t have done if she had worded it while looking at him, weakened it.
Wolfe grunted. “If you had to earn a living the way I do, Miss Sperling, you probably would starve. Thank you for being willing to listen, no matter why.” He glanced around. “Does anyone else have an irrepressible comment?”
“Get on,” said Sperling, who was seated.
“Very well, sir. If at first I seem to wander, bear with me. I want to tell you about a man. I know his name but prefer not to pronounce it, so shall call him X. I assure you he is no figment; I only wish he were. I have little concrete knowledge of the immense properties he owns, though I do know that one of them is a high and commanding hill not a hundred miles from here on which, some years ago, he built a large and luxurious mansion. He has varied and extensive sources of income. All of them are illegal and some of them are morally repulsive. Narcotics, smuggling, industrial and commercial rackets, gambling, waterfront blackguardism, professional larceny, blackmailing, political malfeasance — that by no means exhausts his curriculum, but it sufficiently indicates his character. He has, up to now, triumphantly kept himself invulnerable by having the perspicacity to see that a criminal practicing on a large scale over a wide area and a long period of time can get impunity only by maintaining a gap between his person and his crimes which cannot be bridged; and by having unexcelled talent, a remorseless purpose, and a will that cannot be dented or deflected.”
Sperling jerked impatiently in his chair. Wolfe looked at him as a sixth-grade teacher looks at a restless boy, moved his eyes for a roundup of the whole audience, and went on.