Wolfe kept going. “But if you insist on minimizing Koven’s dependence as a fact, let me assume it as a hypothesis in order to put a question. Say, just for my question, that Koven felt strongly about his debt to Getz and his reliance on him, that he proposed to do something about it, and that he found it necessary to confide in one of you people, to get help or advice. Which of you would he have come to? We must of course put his wife first, ex officio and to sustain convention — and anyway, out of courtesy I must suppose you incapable of revealing your employer’s conjugal privities. Which of you three would he have come to — Mr. Hildebrand, Mr. Jordan, or you?”
Miss Lowell was wary. “On your hypothesis, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“None of us.”
“But if he felt he had to?”
“Not with anything as intimate as that. He wouldn’t have let himself have to. None of us three has ever got within miles of him on anything really personal.”
“Surely he confides in you, his agent and manager?”
“On business matters, yes. Not on personal things, except superficialities.”
“Why were all of you so concerned about the gun in his desk?”
“We weren’t concerned, not really concerned — at least I wasn’t. I just didn’t like it’s being there, loaded, so easy to get at, and I knew he didn’t have a license for it.”