I got up to hand it to Wolfe, and he took it in with a glance and slipped it into the top drawer of his desk. He looked at Caroline and then at Aubry. “You don’t need me,” he told them. “Your problem has been solved for you. Mr. Karnow is dead.”
They gawked at him.
“Of course,” he added, “you now have another problem, which may be even thornier.”
Caroline was stiff, frozen. “I don’t believe it,” Aubry said harshly.
“It seems authentic,” Wolfe declared. “Archie?”
“Yes, sir. Sergeant Stebbins of Homicide is out on the stoop. He says that Karnow was murdered, shot in the back of the head, this afternoon in his room at the Churchill. Mr. Aubry and Mrs. Karnow were seen leaving the hotel with me, and he wants to know if they’re here, and if not, where? He says he wants them.”
“Good God,” Aubry said. Caroline had let out a gasp, but no word. She was still rigid.
Her lips moved, and I thought she asked, “He’s dead?” but it was too low to be sure.
Wolfe spoke. “So you have another problem. The police will give you a night of it, and possibly a week or a month. Mr. Stebbins cannot enter this house without a search warrant, and if you were my clients I wouldn’t mind letting him wait on the stoop while we considered the matter, but since the job you gave me is now not feasible I am no longer in your hire. I have on occasion welcomed an opportunity to plague the police, but never merely for pastime, so I must bid you good evening.”
Caroline had left her chair and gone to Aubry with her hands out, and he had taken them and pulled her to him. Evidently the ban was off.