“You may do so now. Your opinion of me at its lowest was far above my present opinion of myself.” He looked up at the clock, which said five past three. “We now need a proper setting. How many of your staff are in my house?”
“Fourteen or fifteen.”
“We want them all in here, for the effect of their presence. Half of them should bring chairs. Also, of course, the six persons we have interviewed. This shouldn’t take too long — possibly an hour, though I doubt it. I certainly won’t prolong it.”
Cramer was looking contrary. “You’ve already prolonged it plenty. You mean you’re prepared to name him?”
“I am not. I haven’t the slightest notion who it is. But I am prepared to make an attack that will expose him — or her — and if it doesn’t, I’ll have no opinion of myself at all.” Wolfe flattened his palms on his desk, for him a violent gesture. “Confound it, don’t you know me well enough to realize when I’m ready to strike?”
“I know you too damn well.” Cramer looked at his sergeant, drew in a deep breath, and let it out. “Oh, nuts. Okay, Purley. Collect the audience.”
7
The office is a good-sized room, but there wasn’t much unoccupied space left when that gathering was fully assembled. There were twenty-seven of us all told. The biggest assortment of Homicide employees I had ever gazed upon extended from wall to wall in the rear of the six subjects, with four of them filling the couch. Cramer was planted in the red leather chair, with Stebbins on his left, and the stenographer was hanging on at the end of my desk.
The six citizens were in a row up front, and none of them looked merry. Agatha Abbey was the only person present who rated two chairs, one for herself and one for her mink, but no one was bothering to resent it in spite of the crowding. Their minds were on other matters.
Wolfe’s eyes went from right to left and back again, taking them in. He spoke. “I’ll have to make this somewhat elaborate, so that all of you will clearly understand the situation. I could not at the moment hazard even a venturesome guess as to which of you killed Leo Heller, but I now know how to find out, and I propose to do so.”