Over My Dead Body

Wolfe, ignoring me, went on, "I would like to say, Mr Stahl, that my temperament would incline me to resent and resist an attempt by any individual to inquire into my personal history or affairs, but I do not regard you as an individual. Naturally. You represent the Federal Government. You are, in effect, America itself sitting in my office wanting to know something about me, and I am so acutely grateful to my native country for the decencies it still manages to preserve… by the way, would you care for a glass of American beer?"

"No, thank you."

Wolfe pushed the button and leaned back. He grunted. "To your question, sir: I represent no foreign principal, firm, individual, organization, dictator, or government. Occasionally I pursue inquiries here, professionally as a detective, on requests from Europe, chiefly from Mr Ethelbert Hitchcock of London, an English confrиre, as he does there for me. I am pursuing none at present. I am not an agent of Mr Hitchcock or of anyone else."

"I see." Stahl sounded open to conviction. "That's definite enough. But your early experiences in Europe… may I ask… do you know a Prince Donevitch?"

"I knew him long ago. He's getting ready to die, I believe, in Paris."

"I don't mean him. Isn't there another one?"

"There is. Old Peter's nephew. Prince Stefan Donevitch. I believe he lives in Zagreb. When I was there in 1916 he was a six-year-old boy."

"Have you communicated with him recently?"

"No. I never have."

"Have you sent money to him or to anyone or any organization for him-or the cause he represents?"

"No, sir."

"You do make remittances to Europe, don't you?"

"I do." Wolfe grimaced. "From my own funds, earned at my trade. I have contributed to the Loyalists in Spain. I send money occasionally to the-translated, it is the League of Yugoslavian Youth. Prince Stefan Donevitch assuredly has no connexion with that."

"I wouldn't know. What about your wife? Weren't you married?"

"No. Married? No. That was what-" Wolfe stirred, as under restraint, in his chair. "It strikes me, sir, that you are nearing the point where even a grateful American might tell you to go to the devil."

I put in emphatically, "I know damn well I would, and I'm only a sixty-fourth Indian."

The G-man smiled and uncrossed his legs. "I suppose," he said amiably, "you'd have no objection to putting this in the form of a signed document. What you've told me."

"On a proper occasion, none at all."

"Good. You represent no foreign principal, directly or indirectly?"

"That is correct."