Over My Dead Body

"I knew nothing about it until I felt something in my pocket there in the office."

"And you were scared. You were just simply perfectly innocent."

"Yes. I was. I am."

"Sure. But though you were perfectly innocent, you didn't tell the police about it, and you weren't going to tell about it, and you never would have told about it, if Madame Zorka hadn't reported that she saw you do it and you were afraid to deny it!" He was yapping into her face at a range of thirty inches. "Huh?"

"I-" She swallowed, "I think I might. But the way I thought about it, I thought Mr Goodwin would find it in his pocket and turn it over to you, and it wouldn't matter whether you knew it had ever been in my pocket or not."

"Then you thought wrong. Mr Goodwin doesn't turn things over to the police. Mr Goodwin climbs a fence and runs home to papa and says see what I got, and papa says-"

"Nonsense!" Wolfe cut in sharply. "We'll dispose of that point now. You know what I told you; I don't need to repeat it. Granted that your supposititious assumption is correct, that Archie knew it was in his pocket and ran away with it, and that we concealed it from you, you can't possibly establish it as a fact, so why the devil waste time harping on it? Especially in view of a fact that is established, that when Madame Zorka's phone call caused us to investigate the overcoat pocket, we immediately communicated with you."

"You had to!"

Wolfe grimaced. "I don't know. Had to? Ingenuity can nearly always create an alternative if none exists. Anyway, we did. And if we hadn't, but had proceeded without you, your two missing objects would still be missing, for when Archie and Miss Tormic called on Madame Zorka she would have been gone, and the compulsion of her threatened exposure would have been removed. So you owe your possession of these two objects to us. You owe your knowledge of a suspicious circumstance, Madame Zorka's flight with a bag and suitcase, to us. And you owe your knowledge of the manner in which the criminal disposed of the glove and col de mort to the courageous candour of my client."

Cramer, standing, stared down at him, and as far as I could see his face was not glowing with gratitude.

He said, "So she's your client, is she?"

"I told you so."

"You said tentatively. You said you'd decide when you had met her."

"I have met her."

"All right, you've met her. Is she your client?"

"She is."