“What did Walt tell us?” Lila snapped at her. “Nero Wolfe is there working with the cops.” She came back at me. “Did my husband send you? Prove it.”
I bent a knee to put a foot on the edge of the frame, not aggressively. “That’s one reason,” I said, “why Mr. Wolfe can’t stand women. The way they flop around intellectually. I didn’t say your husband sent me. He didn’t. He couldn’t even if he wanted to, because for the past hour he has been kept in the locker room, conversing with a gathering of Homicide hounds, and still is. Mr. Wolfe sent me, but in a way it’s a personal problem I’ve got, and no one but you can help me.”
“You’ve got a personal problem. You have. Take it away.”
“I will if you say so, but wait till I tell you. Up to now they have only one reason for picking on your husband. The players left the clubhouse for the field in a bunch, all but one of them. One of them left later and got to the dugout five or six minutes after the others, and it was Bill Moyse. They all agreed on that, and Bill admits it. The cops figure that he had seen or heard something that made him suspect Nick Ferrone of doping the drinks — you know about that? That the Beebright was doped?”
“Yes. Walt Goidell told me.”
“And that he stayed behind with Ferrone to put it to him, and Nick got tough and he got tougher, with a baseball bat. That’s how the cops figure it, and that’s why they’re after Bill, as it stands now. But I have a private reason, which I have kept private except for Nero Wolfe, to think that the cops have got it twisted. Mr. Wolfe is inclined to agree with me, but he hasn’t told the cops because he has been hired by Chisholm and wants to earn a fat fee. My private slant is that if Bill did kill Ferrone — please note the ‘if’ — it wasn’t because he caught Ferrone doping the drinks, but the other way around. Ferrone caught Bill doping the drinks, and was going to spill it, and Bill killed him.”
She was goggling at me. “You have the nerve—” She didn’t have the words. “Why, you dirty—”
“Hold it. I’m telling you. This afternoon at the game I was in a box. By the sixth inning I had had plenty of the game and looked around for something to take my mind off it, and I saw an extremely attractive girl. I looked at her some more. I had a feeling that I had seen her before but couldn’t place her. The score was eleven to one, and the Giants were flat on their faces, and that lovely specimen was exactly what my eyes needed, except for one flaw. She was having a swell time. Her eyes showed it, her whole face and manner showed it absolutely. She liked what was happening out on the field. There was that against her, but I looked at her anyhow.”
She was trying to say something, but I raised my voice a little. “Wait till I tell you. Later, after the game, in the clubhouse, Bill Moyse said his wife was waiting for him, and someone made a crack about showing me her picture. Then it clicked. I remembered seeing a picture of his bride in the Gazette, and it was the girl I had seen in the stands. Again later, I had a chance to ask some of the players some questions, and I learned that she usually drove to games in Bill’s light blue Curtis sedan and waited for him after the game. It seemed to me interesting that it made the wife of a Giant happy to see the Giants getting walloped in the deciding game of a World Series, and Mr. Wolfe agreed, but he needed me there in the clubhouse. Finally he sent me to see if she was still around, and here I am. You see our problem. Why were you tickled stiff to see them losing?”
“I wasn’t.”