Might as Well Be Dead

Jerry hesitated, then shrugged. “I talked with him there in the lobby. I didn’t ask him upstairs because I had some scripts to go over. He asked me the same things he had asked my wife, but I couldn’t tell him as much as she had because she had talked with Tom on the phone. I really couldn’t tell him anything. He tried to be clever, asking trick questions about how it was decided to invite Mrs. Molloy, and finally I got fed up and told him to go peddle his papers.”

“Did he say anything about having seen Mr. or Mrs. Irwin?”

“No. I don’t think so. No.”

“Then he left?”

“I suppose so. We left him in the lobby when we went to the elevator.”

“You and your wife went up to your apartment?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do the rest of the evening?”

Arkoff took a breath. “By God,” he said, “if anyone had told me an hour ago that I was going to be asked where I was at the time of the murder I would have thought he was crazy.”

“No doubt. It does often seem an impertinence. Where were you?”

“I was in my apartment, working with scripts until after midnight. My wife was in another room, and neither of us could have gone out without the other one knowing it. No one else was there.”

“That seems conclusive. Certainly either conclusive or collusive.” Wolfe’s eyes went right. “Mr. Irwin, since Mr. Keems had been told that you had suggested Mrs. Molloy, I presume he sought you. Did he find you?”

From the expression on Tom Irwin’s face, he needed a hand to hold. He opened his mouth and closed it again. “I’m not sure I like this,” he said. “If I’m going to be questioned about a murder I think I’d rather be questioned by the police.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” his wife protested. “He won’t bite you! Do what Rita did, get it over with!” She went to Wolfe. “Do you want me to tell it?”

“If you were present, madam.”

“I was. That man-what was his name?”

“John Joseph Keems.”

“It was nearly nine o’clock when he came, and we were just going out. We had promised to drop in at a party some friends were giving for somebody, and we would have been gone if my maid hadn’t had to fix the lining of my wrap. He said the same thing he told Rita, about the possibility of a new trial for Peter Hays, and he asked my husband about the phone call to the restaurant. Rita has told you about that. Actually-”

“Did your husband’s account of it agree with Mrs. Arkoffs?”