Her eyes widened at him. “Me? Bring them here?”
“Certainly.”
“But I can’t! How? What could I say? I can’t tell them that you think one of them killed Sidney, and you want — No! I can’t!” She came forward in the chair. “Don’t you see it’s just impossible? Anyhow, they wouldn’t come!”
Wolfe turned. “Archie. You’ll have to get them. I prefer six o’clock, but if that isn’t feasible after dinner will do.” He glanced up at the wall clock. “Phone Mr. Parker and make an appointment for Mrs. Karnow. Phone Saul and tell him I want him here as soon as possible. Then lunch. After lunch, proceed.” He turned to the client. “Will you join us, madam? Fritz’s rice-and-mushroom fritters are, if I may say so, palatable.”
IV
Since this is a democracy, thank God, please prepare to vote. All those in favor of my describing in full detail my efforts to the utmost, lasting a good five hours, to fill Wolfe’s order for three males and two females, say aye. I hear none. Since my eardrums are sensitive I won’t ask for the noes.
Then I’ll sketch it. James M. Beebe, I found, was not one of the machines in one of the huge legal factories that occupy so many floors in so many of New York’s skyscrapers. He was soloing it in a modest space on the tenth floor of a midtown building. The woman in the little anteroom, the only visible or audible employee, with a typewriter on her left and a telephone on her right, said Mr. Beebe would be back soon, and, if you call thirty-five minutes soon, he was.
The inner room he led me to must have been a little cramped with a conference of six people. Its furniture was adequate but by no means ornate. Beebe, who had looked runty alongside Mrs. Savage, could not be called impressive seated at his desk, with a large percentage of the area of his thin face taken up by the black-rimmed glasses. When I showed him my credentials, a note signed by Caroline Karnow saying that Nero Wolfe was acting for her, and told him that Wolfe would like to discuss the situation with those chiefly concerned at his office that afternoon or evening, he said that he understood that the police investigation was making progress, and that he questioned the wisdom of an investigation of a murder by a private detective.
Wise or not, I said, Mrs. Karnow surely had the right to hire Wolfe if she wanted to. He conceded that. Also surely the widow of his former friend and client might reasonably expect him to cooperate in her effort to discover the truth. Wasn’t that so?
He looked uncomfortable. He saw that a pencil on his desk was not in its proper place, and moved it, and studied it a while to decide if that was the best spot after all. At length he came back to me.