He sat a while tapping the arm of his chair with a fingertip, and then looked at me and said abruptly, “Archie. Draw a check to the order of Mrs. Mion for five thousand dollars.”
They gawked at him. I got up and headed for the safe. They demanded to know what the idea was. I stood at the safe door to listen.
“I’m quitting,” Wolfe said curtly. “I can’t stand you. I told you Sunday that one or both of you were lying, and you stubbornly denied it. I undertook to work around your lie, and I did my best. But now that the police have got curious about Mion’s death, and specifically about you, I refuse longer to risk it. I am willing to be a Quixote, but not a chump. In breaking with you, I should tell you that I shall immediately inform Inspector Cramer of all that you have told me. If, when the police start the next round with you, you are fools enough to contradict me, heaven knows what will happen. Your best course will be to acknowledge the truth and let them pursue the investigation you hired me for; but I would also warn you that they are not simpletons and they too will know that you are lying — at least one of you. Archie, what are you standing there gaping for? Get the checkbook.”
I opened the safe door.
Neither of them had uttered a peep. I suppose they were too tired to react normally. As I returned to my desk they just sat, looking at each other. As I started making the entry on the stub, Fred’s voice came.
“You can’t do this. This isn’t ethical.”
“Pfui.” Wolfe snorted. “You hire me to get you out of a fix, and lie to me about it, and talk of ethics! Incidentally, I did make progress Monday evening. I cleared everything up but two details, but the devil of it is that one of them depends on you. I have got to know who put that gun on the floor beside the body. I am convinced that it was one of you, but you won’t admit it. So I’m helpless and that’s a pity, because I am also convinced that neither of you was involved in Mion’s death. If there were—”
“What’s that?” Fred demanded. There was nothing wrong with his reaction now. “You’re convinced that neither of us was involved?”
“I am.”
Fred was out of his chair. He went to Wolfe’s desk, put his palms on it, leaned forward, and said harshly, “Do you mean that? Look at me. Open your eyes and look at me! Do you mean that?”
“Yes,” Wolfe told him. “Certainly I mean it.”
Fred gazed at him another moment and then straightened up. “All right,” he said, the harshness gone. “I put the gun on the floor.”
A wail came from Peggy. She sailed out of her chair and to him and seized his arm with both hands. “Fred! No! Fred!” she pleaded. I wouldn’t have thought her capable of wailing, but of course she was tired to begin with. He put a hand on top of hers and then decided that was inadequate and took her in his arms. For a minute he concentrated on her. Finally he turned his face to Wolfe and spoke.
“I may regret this, but if I do you will too. By God, you will.” He was quite positive of it. “All right, I lied. I put the gun on the floor. Now it’s up to you.” He held the other client closer. “I did, Peggy. Don’t say I should have told you — maybe I should — but I couldn’t. It’ll be all right, dearest, really it will—”
“Sit down,” Wolfe said crossly. After a moment he made it an order. “Confound it, sit down!”
Peggy freed herself, Fred letting her go, and returned to her chair and dropped into it. Fred perched on its arm, with a hand on her far shoulder, and she put her hand up to his. Their eyes, suspicious, afraid, defiant, and hopeful all at once, were on Wolfe.
He stayed cross. “I assume,” he said, “that you see how it is. You haven’t impressed me. I already knew one of you had put the gun there. How could anyone else have entered the studio during those few minutes? The truth you have told me will be worse than useless, it will be extremely dangerous, unless you follow it with more truth. Try another lie and there’s no telling what will happen; I might not be able to save you. Where did you find it?”
“Don’t worry,” Fred said quietly. “You’ve screwed it out of me and you’ll get it straight. When we went in and found the body I saw the gun where Mion always kept it, on the base of Caruso’s bust. Mrs. Mion didn’t see it; she didn’t look that way. When I left her in her bedroom I went back up. I picked the gun up by the trigger guard and smelled it; it had been fired. I put it on the floor by the body, returned to the apartment, went out, and took the elevator to the ground floor. The rest was just as I told you Sunday.”
Wolfe grunted. “You may have been in love, but you didn’t think much of her intelligence. You assumed that after killing him she hadn’t had the wit to leave the gun where he might have dropped—”
“I did not, damn you!”
“Nonsense. Of course you did. Who else would you have wanted to shield? And afterward it got you in a pickle. When you had to agree with her that the gun hadn’t been there when you and she entered, you were hobbled. You didn’t dare tell her what you had done because of the implication that you suspected her, especially when she seemed to be suspecting you. You couldn’t be sure whether she really did suspect you, or whether she was only—”
“I never did suspect him,” Peggy said firmly. It was a job to make her voice firm, but she managed it. “And he never suspected me, not really. We just weren’t sure — sure all the way down — and when you’re in love and want it to last you’ve got to be sure.”
“That was it,” Fred agreed. They were looking at each other. “That was it exactly.”
“All right, I’ll take this,” Wolfe said curtly. “I think you’ve told the truth, Mr. Weppler.”
“I know damn well I have.”
Wolfe nodded. “You sound like it. I have a good ear for the truth. Now take Mrs. Mion home. I’ve got to work, but first I must think it over. As I said, there were two details, and you’ve disposed of only one. You can’t help with the other. Go home and eat something.”
“Who wants to eat?” Fred demanded fiercely. “We want to know what you’re going to do!”
“I’ve got to brush my teeth,” Peggy stated. I shot her a glance of admiration and affection. Women’s saying things like that at times like that is one of the reasons I enjoy their company. No man alive, under those circumstances, would have felt that he had to brush his teeth and said so.
Besides, it made it easier to get rid of them without being rude. Fred tried to insist that they had a right to know what the program was, and to help consider the prospects, but was finally compelled to accept Wolfe’s mandate that when a man hired an expert the only authority he kept was the right to fire. That, combined with Peggy’s longing for a toothbrush and Wolfe’s assurance that he would keep them informed, got them on their way without a ruckus.
When, after letting them out, I returned to the office, Wolfe was drumming on his desk blotter with a paperknife, scowling at it, though I had told him a hundred times that it ruined the blotter. I went and got the checkbook and replaced it in the safe, having put nothing on the stub but the date, so no harm was done.
“Twenty minutes till lunch,” I announced, swiveling my chair and sitting. “Will that be enough to hogtie the second detail?”