“It’ll do,” Sperling agreed.
Madeline was concentrating hard. She had a question. “What did you stay here all evening for?”
“A good question, Miss Sperling, but my conduct can be left to me. I refused to leave here without the money or a firm commitment on it.”
“What about Gwenn’s phoning Louis to come up here?”
Wolfe looked at Gwenn. “What did you tell him?”
“This is awful,” Gwenn whispered. She was gazing at Wolfe as if she couldn’t believe he was there. She repeated aloud, “This is awful!”
Wolfe nodded. “No one will contradict you on that. Do you remember what you said to him?”
“Of course I do. I just told him I had to see him, and he said he had some appointments and the first train he could make was the one that leaves Grand Central at eight-twenty. It gets to Chappaqua at nine-twenty-three.”
“You told him nothing of what had happened?”
“No, I–I didn’t intend to. I was just going to tell him I had decided to call it off.”