“It’s like this, Mr. Goodwin,” he piped. “I sympathize deeply with Mrs. Karnow, of course. But any obligation I am under is not to her, but to my late friend and client, Sidney Karnow. I certainly will do anything I can to help discover the truth, but it is justifiable to suppose that in employing Nero Wolfe Mrs. Karnow’s primary purpose, if not her sole purpose, is to save Paul Aubry. As an officer of the law I cannot conscientiously participate in that. I am not Aubry’s attorney. I beg you to understand.”
I kept after him. He stood pat. Finally, following instructions from Wolfe, I put a question to him.
“I suppose,” I said, “you won’t mind helping to clear up a detail. At a conference in this room last Friday afternoon Aubry left one of his business cards on your desk. It was there when he left. What happened to it?”
He cocked his head and frowned. “Here on my desk?”
“Right.”
The frown deepened. “I’m trying to remember — yes, I do remember. He suggested I might phone him later, and he put it there.”
“What happened to it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you phone him?”
“No. As it turned out, there was no occasion to.”