Plot It Yourself

“It will have to do.” Her hands were in her lap, tightly clasped, and there was sweat on her forehead. “The other part, about the Victory Press and Amy Wynn, all right. I’ll do that. If they’ll sign a paper not to sue me or have me prosecuted or anything, I’ll sign one giving up my claim because I made it in error. I still don’t think you could prove what you said you could. Maybe you’re not bluffing, but you can’t prove anything just by showing there’s something similar about the way those stories were written. If you want to think there’s an X somewhere, I can’t help that, but I can’t tell you his name if I don’t know anything about him.”

I was focused on her. I wouldn’t have supposed she was such a good liar. I was thinking that no matter how good you think you are at sizing people up, you can never be sure how well a certain specimen can do a certain thing until you see him try. Or her. I was also thinking that the screw we had thought would squeeze it out of her apparently wasn’t going to work without more pressure, and how would Wolfe give it another turn? Evidently, since he wasn’t speaking, he was asking the same question, and I moved my eyes to him.

And got a surprise. He not only wasn’t speaking; he wasn’t looking. He was leaning back with his eyes closed and his lips moving. He was pushing out his lips, puckered, and drawing them in-out and in, out and in. He only does that, and always does it, when he has found the crack he has been looking for, or thinks he has found it, and is trying to see through; and as I say, I was surprised. It shouldn’t have been such a strain on his brain to figure out how to bear down on Alice Porter; he simply had to show her what she was in for if he made good on his threats. I looked back at her. She had got a handkerchief from her bag and was wiping her brow.

Wolfe opened his eyes, straightened up, and cocked his head. “Very well. Miss Porter,” he said. “You can’t tell me what you don’t know, assuming that you really don’t. I’ll have to re-examine my conjectures and my conclusions. You’ll hear from me again when I have conferred with Miss Wynn and Mr Imhof. They will surely agree to the proposed arrangement. Mr Goodwin will drive you home. Archie?”