“I’m not afraid of anything!”
“Then sit down and listen. All of you. Please?”
They got back to their chairs. Gwenn wasn’t so sure now that all she needed was a simple and steadfast refusal to believe a word. Her lower lip was being held tight by her teeth, and her eyes were no longer straight and stubborn at Wolfe. She even let me have a questioning, unsure glance, as if I might contribute something that would possibly help.
Wolfe focused on her. “I didn’t skimp on the background, Miss Sperling, because without it you can’t decide intelligently, and, though your father is my client, the decision rests with you. The question that must be answered is this: am I to proceed to assemble proof or not? If I—”
“You said you had proof!”
“No, I didn’t. I said I could prove it, and I can — and if I must I will. I would vastly prefer not to. One way out would be for me simply to quit — to return the retainer your father has paid me, shoulder the expense of my outlay on this job and restoration of my damaged property, and let X know that I have scuttled. That would unquestionably be the sensible and practical thing to do, and I do not brag that I’m not up to it. It is a weakness I share with too many of my fellow men, that my self-conceit will not listen to reason. Having undertaken to do a job offered to me by your father in good faith, and with no excuse for withdrawal that my vanity will accept, I do not intend to quit.
“Another way out would be for you to assume that I am not a liar; or that if I am one, at least I am incapable of such squalid trickery as the invention of this rigmarole in order to earn a fee by preventing you from marrying a man who has your affection and is worthy of it. If you make either of those assumptions, it follows that Mr. Rony is a blackguard, and since you are plainly not a fool you will have done with him. But—”
“You said you could prove it!”
Wolfe nodded. “So I can. If my vanity won’t let me scuttle, and if you reject both those assumptions, that’s what I’ll have to do. Now you see why I gave you so full a sketch of X. It will be impossible to brand Mr. Rony without bringing X in, and even if that were feasible X would get in anyway. Proof of that already exists, on the roof of my house. You may come home with me and take a look at it — by the way, I have failed to mention another possibility.”
Wolfe looked at our client. “You, sir, could of course pay my bill to date and discharge me. In that event I presume your daughter would consider my indictment of Mr. Rony as unproven as yours, and she would proceed — to do what? I can’t say; you know her better than I do. Do you want to send me home?”