The Golden Spiders (Crime Line)

“That’s absurd. I am not involved. Words are my specialty, Mr. Goodwin, and one difficulty with them is that everybody uses them, too often in ignorance of their proper meaning. I’m willing to assume that you used that word in ignorance-otherwise it was slanderous. I am not involved.”

“Okay. Are you concerned?”

“Of course I am. I wasn’t intimate with Mrs. Fromm, but I esteemed her highly and was proud to know her.”

“You were at the party at Horan’s Friday evening. You were one of the last to see her alive. The police, who specialize in words too in a way, have asked you a lot of questions and will ask you more. But say you’re concerned. Everything considered, including what I heard Mrs. Fromm tell Mr. Wolfe, I thought you might be concerned five thousand dollars’ worth.”

“This begins to sound like blackmail. Is it?”

“Search me. You’re the word specialist. I’m ignorant.”

His hands abruptly left his pockets, and for a second I thought he was going to make contact, but he only rubbed his palms together. “If it’s blackmail,” he said, “there must be a threat. If I pay, what then?”

“No threat. You get the information, that’s all.”

“And if I don’t pay?”

“You don’t get it.”

“Who does?”

I shook my head. “I said no threat. I’m just trying to sell you something.”

“Of course. A threat doesn’t have to be explicit. It has been published that Wolfe is investigating the death of Mrs. Fromm.”

“Right.”

“But she didn’t engage him to do that, since surely she wasn’t anticipating her death. This is how it looks. She paid Wolfe to investigate something or somebody, and that evening she was killed. He considered himself under obligation to investigate her death. You can’t be offering to sell me information that Wolfe regards as being connected with her death, because you couldn’t possibly suppress such evidence without Wolfe’s connivance, and you’re not claiming that, are you?”

“No.”

“Then what you’re offering is information, something Mrs. Fromm told Wolfe, that need not be disclosed as related to her death. Isn’t that correct?”

“No comment.”

He shook his head. “That won’t do. Unless you tell me that, I couldn’t possibly deal with you. I don’t say I will deal if you do tell me, but without that I can’t decide.”

He about-faced and was looking out the window, if his eyes were open. All I had was his broad back. He stayed that way long enough to take his temperature, and then some. Finally he turned.