Wolfe switched to me. “You didn’t notify the police.”
“No, sir.” I glanced at Vollmer and back. “I need a word.”
“I suppose so.” He spoke to Doc. “If you will leave us for a moment? The front room?”
Vollmer hesitated, uncomfortable. “As a doctor called to a violent death I’d catch hell. Of course I could say—”
“Then go to a corner and cover your ears.”
He did so. He went to the farthest corner, the angle made by the partition of the bathroom, pressed his palms to his ears, and stood facing us.
I addressed Wolfe with a lowered voice. “I was here, and she came in. She was either scared good or putting on a very fine act. Apparently it wasn’t an act, and I now think I should have alerted Saul and Fritz, but it doesn’t matter what I now think. Last October a woman named Doris Hatten was killed — strangled — in her apartment. No one got elected. Remember?”
“Yes.”
“She said she was a friend of Doris Hatten’s and was at her apartment that day and saw the man that did the strangling, and that he was here this afternoon. She said he was aware that she had recognized him, that’s why she was scared, and she wanted to get you to help by telling him that we were wise and he’d better lay off. No wonder I didn’t gulp it down. I realize that you dislike complications and therefore might want to scratch this out, but at the end she touched a soft spot by saying that she had enjoyed my company, so I prefer to open up to the cops.”
“Then do so. Confound it!”