“I don’t know,” Wolfe said. “Anyway, he is at present in a drunken stupor, so he’ll keep. You were saying, sir?...”
“Yes.” Dunn scowled at me and then transferred it to Wolfe. “I don’t like this man’s being here, but what I like is no longer of much significance.” He sounded bitter.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Wolfe remonstrated. “I’ve explained about Mr. Goodwin. Without him I’m an ear without a tympanum. Go ahead. You made a fine dramatic statement, which pleased me very much because I’m an incurable romantic. You said you are going to put your fate in my hands.”
“There was nothing dramatic about it. It was merely a statement of fact.”
“I like facts too.”
“I don’t,” Dunn muttered. “Not these facts.” He turned and looked at his wife, then abruptly went over to her and bent down to kiss her on the lips. “June dear,” he said. “I’ve hardly even said hello to you. June dear.” She pulled him back down and had him kiss her again and muttered at him. Wolfe told me:
“Mr. Dunn just arrived from Washington. He phoned me from the airport.”
Dunn straightened up and came back to Wolfe. “You’ve heard the report that is being spread about Noel Hawthorne and me.”
Wolfe nodded. “Something, yes, sir. The editor of the Gazette dines with me once a month. That the decision to make the loan to Argentina was arrived at in the State Department. That shortly after the loan was announced, it was learned that valuable industrial concessions in Argentina had already been secured by companies controlled by Daniel Cullen and Company. That Noel Hawthorne had, through you, his brother-in-law, received prior secret information of the loan and its terms. That you, the secretary of state, are as good as convicted of skulduggery.”
“Do you believe it?”