Might as Well Be Dead

Wolfe grunted. “Go back a little. Wouldn’t it have been the natural thing for Mr. Arkoff to leave the ticket at the box office instead of waiting in the lobby?”

“Not the way it was. Rita didn’t ask him to leave it at the box office, she told him to, and he doesn’t like to have her tell him to do things. So she does.” She came forward in her chair. “Listen, Mr. Wolfe,” she said earnestly. “If that man getting killed, if that means what you think it does, I don’t care what happens to anybody. I haven’t been caring what happened to me, I’ve just been feeling I might as well be dead, and I’m certainly not going to start worrying about other people, not even my best friends. But I think this is no use. Even if they lied about being in the bar, neither of them had any reason!”

“We’ll see about that,” he told her. “Someone had reason to fear Johnny Keems enough to kill him.” He glanced up at the clock. “Luncheon will be ready in seven minutes. You’ll join us? You too, Saul. Afterward you’ll stay here to be on hand if Mr. Parker needs you. And Mrs. Molloy, you’ll stay too and tell me everything you know about your friends, and you’ll invite them to join us here at six o’clock.”

“But I can’t!” she protested. “How can I? Now?”

“You said you weren’t going to worry about them. Yesterday morning Peter Hays, talking with Mr. Goodwin, used the same words you have just used. He said he might as well be dead. I intend that both of you-”

“Oh!” she cried, to me. “You saw him? What did he say?”

“I was only with him a few minutes,” I told her. “Except that he might as well be dead, not much. He can tell you himself when we finish this job.” I went to Wolfe. “I’ve got to call Purley. What do I tell him?”

He pinched his nose. He has an idea that pinching his nose makes his sense of smell keener, and a faint aroma of cheese dumplings was coming to us from the kitchen. “Tell him that Mr. Keems was working for me last evening, investigating a confidential matter, but I don’t know whom he had been just prior to his death; and that we’ll inform him if and when we get information that might be useful. I want to speak with those people before he does.”

As I turned to dial, Fritz entered to announce lunch.

Chapter 10