“Something that Mr. Goodwin told us. I want to consider it a little.”
“We could consider it together.”
“Later. Those people in the front room are my guests. Can’t you dispose of them?”
“One of your guests,” Cramer rasped, “was a beaut, all right.” He spoke to the dick by the door. “Bring in that woman — what’s her name? Carlisle.”
IV
Mrs. Homer N. Carlisle came in with all her belongings: her caracul coat, her gaily colored scarf, and her husband. Perhaps I should say that her husband brought her. As soon as he was through the door he strode across to the dining table and delivered a harangue. I don’t suppose Cramer had heard that speech, with variations, more than a thousand times. This time it was pretty offensive. Solid and broad-shouldered, Mr. Carlisle looked the part. His sharp dark eyes flashed, and his long gorilla-like arms were good for gestures. At the first opening Cramer, controlling himself, said he was sorry and asked them to sit down.
Mrs. Carlisle did. Mr. Carlisle didn’t.
“We’re nearly two hours late now,” he stated. “I know you have your duty to perform, but citizens have a few rights left, thank God. Our presence here is purely adventitious.” I would have been impressed by the adventitious if he hadn’t had so much time to think it up. “I warn you that if my name is published in connection with this miserable affair, a murder in the house of a private detective, I’ll make trouble. I’m in a position to. Why should it be? Why should we be detained? What if we had left five or ten minutes earlier, as others did?”
“That’s not quite logical,” Cramer objected.
“Why not?”