Before Midnight

They all started clawing, not at me but at each other. I sat and watched the bubbles, and heard them. LBA was certainly boiling over, and I tried to take it in, knowing that Wolfe would want a verbatim report, but it got a little confused. Finally they got it decided, I didn't know exactly how, and Buff got at a phone and talked, and pretty soon the door opened and Patrick O'Garro was with us. He was still brown all over, and his quick brown eyes were blazing.

"Are you all feeble-minded?" he blurted. "I said I'd go along with whatever you decided. I don't intend--"

I cut in. "Hold it, Mr. O'Garro. It's my fault. I came to report for Mr. Wolfe, and you have got to be present. I'm willing to wait, but they're in a hurry--some of them."

He said something cutting to Heery, and the others chimed in, and I thought the boiling was going to start again, but Buff got up and took O'Garro's arm and eased him to a chair. Then Buff returned to his own chair, which was next to me at the left.

"All right, Goodwin," he said. "Go ahead." I took a paper from my pocket and unfolded it. "First," I announced, "here is a letter to Mr. Hansen, signed by Mr. Wolfe. It's only one sentence. It says, 'I herewith dismiss you as my attorney and instruct you not to represent me in any matter whatsoever.' Mr. Wolfe told me to deliver it before witnesses." I handed it to Assa, he handed it to O'Garro, and he handed it to Hansen. Hansen glanced at it, folded it, and put it in his pocket. "Proceed," he said stiffly.

"Yes, sir. There are three points to consider. The first is the job itself and how you people have handled it. In the years I have been with Mr. Wolfe he has had a lot of damn fools for clients, but you have come pretty close to the record. Apparently you--"

"For God's sake," O'Garro demanded, "do you call that reporting? We want to know what he's done!"

"Well, you're not going to. Apparently you haven't stopped to realize what the job's like. I'll put it this way: if he knew right now who went there and stole the wallet --and killed Dahlmann, put that in too--and all he needed was one additional piece of evidence and he knew he was going to get it tonight--if he knew all that, he wouldn't tell any of you one single damn thing about it. Not before he had it absolutely sewed up. In the condition of panic you're in, all of you except Mr. Hansen, I don't know how much you can understand, but maybe you can understand that."