“Hold it!” The gruff voice came from the doorway.
Heads jerked around. Cramer advanced and stopped at Koven’s left, between him and his wife. There was dead silence. Koven had his neck twisted to stare up at Cramer, then suddenly he fell apart and buried his face in his hands.
Cramer, scowling at Wolfe, boiling with rage, spoke. “Damn you, if you had given it to us! You and your numbers game!”
“I can’t give you what you won’t take,” Wolfe said bitingly. “You can have her now. Do you want more help? Mr. Koven was still in bed Sunday morning when two of them saw the gun in the drawer. More? Spend the night with Mr. Hildebrand. I’ll stake my license against your badge that he’ll remember that when he spoke with Mrs. Koven in the hall she said something that caused him to open the drawer and look at the gun. Still more? Take all the contents of her room to your laboratory. She must have hid the gun among her intimate things, and you should find evidence. You can’t put him on the stand and ask him if and when he told her what he was doing; he can’t testify against his wife; but surely—”
Mrs. Koven stood up. She was pale but under control, perfectly steady. She looked down at the back of her husband’s bent head.
“Take me home, Harry,” she said.
Cramer, in one short step, was at her elbow.
“Harry!” she said, softly insistent. “Take me home.”
His head lifted and turned to look at her. I couldn’t see his face. “Sit down, Marcy,” he said. “I’ll handle this.” He looked at Wolfe. “If you’ve got a record of what I said here Saturday, all right. I lied to the cops. So what? I didn’t want—”
“Be quiet, Harry,” Pat Lowell blurted at him. “Get a lawyer and let him talk. Don’t say anything.”