Plot It Yourself

Amy Wynn had told two friends, a man and a woman, with whom she had dined Monday evening. Cora Ballard had told the president and vice-president of NAAD and two members of its council. Mortimer Oshin had told his lawyer, his agent, his producer, and his wife. Gerald Knapp had told his lawyer and two members of his firm. Reuben Imhof had told three of his associates at Victory Press. Philip Harvey had told no one, he said. Thomas Dexter had told his secretary, his lawyer, and six members of the board of directors of Title House. So, counting the committee members and Wolfe and me, thirty-three people had known about it. Supposing they had passed it on to others as an interesting inside item, averaging one apiece, which wasn’t hard to suppose, that would make a total of sixty-six. And supposing… You do it.

Hopeless.

Another question: what was the committee going to do now? In Gerald Knapp’s opinion, it should do nothing. It should await events. Since the police were assuming that the murderer had been motivated by the urgent necessity to silence Jacobs, they would concentrate on the effort to learn who had written the stories and instigated the claims, and, though that would have its disagreeable aspects, it meant that the purpose for which the committee was formed was now being served by the vast resources of the New York police, and in comparison the resources of the committee were nothing. Philip Harvey agreed, possibly because for the third time in nine days he had had to be up and out before noon and he wanted to catch up on his sleep. Amy Wynn supposed it wouldn’t hurt to wait and see what the police did. Cora Ballard thought there should be a special meeting of the NAAD council to consider the matter, that the council had authorized the committee to deal with plagiarism claims, not with murder.