She glanced at the hall door again, returned to me, and lowered her voice. “This has to be done the way I say.”
“Sure, why not?”
“I wasn’t being honest with you.”
“I wouldn’t expect it from a crook. Start over.”
“I mean—” She used the teeth on the lip again. “I mean I’m not just scared about myself. I’m scared all right, but I don’t just want Nero Wolfe for what I said. I want him to get him for murder, but he has to keep me out of it. I don’t want to have anything to do with any cops — not now I don’t especially. I’m through. If he won’t do it that way — do you think he will?”
I was feeling a faint tingle at the base of my spine. I only get that on special occasions, but this was unquestionably something special, if Marjorie Evelyn Carter Cynthia Brown wasn’t taking me for a ride to pay for the drinks.
I gave her a hard look and didn’t let the tingle get into my voice. “He might, for you, if you pay him. What kind of evidence have you got? Any?”
“I saw him.”
“You mean today?”
“I mean I saw him then.” She had her hands clasped tight. “I told you — I had a friend. I stopped in at her apartment that afternoon. I was just leaving — Doris was inside, in the bathroom — and as I got near the entrance door I heard a key turning in the lock, from the outside. I stopped, and the door came open and a man came in. When he saw me he just stood and stared. I had never met Doris’s bank account and I knew she didn’t want me to, and since he had a key I supposed of course it was him, making an unexpected call, so I mumbled something about Doris being in the bathroom and went past him, through the door and on out.”