The Golden Spiders (Crime Line)

Wolfe nodded, unconcerned. “Once the fabric is woven it may be embellished at will.” He glanced at the clock. “It’s twenty minutes to my lunchtime. We’re at a dead end and might as well quit unless you want to proceed on a hypothesis. We can assume that either Miss Wright or you is lying, or we can assume that Mr. Goodwin is, or he and I both are. I’m quite willing, as a basis for discussion, to assume the last. That’s the best position you could possibly have expected to occupy. What then?”

Kuffner was ready for it. “Then I ask you how you can justify making an improper and coercive proposal to Miss Wright.”

“I reply that you have no mandate to regulate my conduct. Then?”

“I would decide-this would be with reluctance-I would probably decide that it was my duty to inform the police that you were interfering with the official investigation of a murder.”

“Nonsense. My talk with Mrs. Fromm has been reported to them, but not with a copyright. I’m not an attorney, and what a client says to me is not privileged. There was no interference or impropriety, and certainly no coercion. I had something that was legally and rightfully in my possession, a record of a talk, and I offered to sell it, with no attempt at compulsion or any hint of a disagreeable alternative. Your decision to report it to the police doesn’t interest me.”

Kuffner was smiling. “You certainly were prepared for that.”

“I should have been. I framed the hypothesis. What next?”

The smile disappeared. “I would like to drop the hypothesis. Even if I could prove the offer was made-and I can’t, except for Miss Wright’s word-since you think you can justify it-and I’ll grant you’re right for the sake of argument-where would that get me? We haven’t much time left-I must get to the funeral-and I want to get down to business.”

“Your business or mine?”