“Yes.” Sara was on a chair next to her father. “He wanted to ask me something. About my camera being stolen. You remember I spoke about it yesterday, and last evening I told Mr. Goodwin. Of course that was all I could tell Mr. Wolfe, that it was gone and I had no idea who took it.”
So they discussed the camera. There had been two murders, an estate of millions had apparently gone up the flue as far as they were concerned, Dunn was tumbling headlong off of a national eminence, their April was being questioned by the police as a suspect, and they discussed the camera. That would have been all right if they had had any idea of its relation to the cataclysm, but as far as I could tell nobody had. They were still discussing it when Wolfe came back in.
He got into his chair and looked around at the faces. “Now,” he said brusquely, “let’s tidy up a little. First, Mrs. Hawthorne’s vindictiveness after you cornered her on that loan business. I suppose one of the things she told the police was about the cornflower Andy found hanging on a briar, and April’s wearing a bunch of cornflowers Tuesday afternoon which had been presented to her by Mr. Stauffer.”
There were stares and two or three exclamations. Stauffer started, “How the devil—”
Wolfe wiggled a finger. “Let me go on. I’m not trying to stagger you with effects. I got that story firsthand, from Mrs. Hawthorne herself yesterday. Did she give it to the police?”
“Yes, she did,” June replied.
“Describing, of course, the scene she saw through a window Tuesday evening, when Andy exhibited the cornflower to you and your husband and told where he had found it. I suppose the police questioned you about that?”
“Yes.”
“Did you admit it?”
“Of course not. It wasn’t true. We denied it.”