“A little after three, I think—”
“Twenty past three,” the husband put in.
“Were you and your husband together all the time? Continuously?”
“Of course. Well — you know how it is — he would want to look longer at something, and I would move on a little—”
“Certainly we were,” Carlisle said irritably. “You can see why I made that remark about it depending on what she said. She has a habit of being vague. This is no time to be vague.”
“I am not actually vague,” she protested with no heat, not to her husband but to Cramer. “It’s just that everything is relative. There would be no presence if there were no absence. There would be no innocence if there were no sin. Nothing can be cut off sharp from anything else. Who would have thought my wish to see Nero Wolfe’s office would link me with a horrible crime?”
“My God!” Carlisle exploded. “Hear that? Link. Link! ”
“Why did you want to see Wolfe’s office?” Cramer inquired.
“Why, to see the globe.”
I gawked at her. I had supposed that naturally she would say it was curiosity about the office of a great and famous detective. Apparently Cramer reacted the same as me. “The globe?” he demanded.