The Golden Spiders (Crime Line)

“None. The check was signed ‘Laura Fromm,’ and I recognized her from pictures I had seen. I felt compelled to tell you this, Mr. Goodwin, after what you told me about the murder of that boy, though I realize that it won’t help any, since Mrs. Fromm was the woman in the car and she is dead.”

I could have told him that Mrs. Fromm was not the woman in the car, but I had promised my grandmother that I would never spout just to show people how much I knew, so I skipped it. I thanked him and told him I didn’t think it would be necessary for his name to appear in headlines, and got up to go. When, at the door, I extended a hand and he took it courteously, his face had precisely the same expression as when he had first confronted me.

Orrie rejoined me down in the lobby. He waited till we were out on the sidewalk, in the drizzle again, to ask, “Did you crack him?”

“Sure, nothing to it. He said he would have been glad to tell you this afternoon but he caught you stashing a bracelet in your pocket. Mrs. Fromm bought them May eleventh.”

“I’ll be damned. Where does that leave us?”

“Not my department. Wolfe does the thinking. I just run errands that you have flubbed.”

We flagged a taxi on Central Park West, and he went downtown with me.

Wolfe was in the office looking at television, which gives him a lot of pleasure. I have seen him turn it on as many as eight times in one evening, glare at it from one to three minutes, turn it off, and go back to his book. Once he made me a long speech about it which I may record some day. As Orrie and I entered he flipped the switch.

I told him. At the end I added, “I admit I took a risk. If the boy had been not his son but a nephew he would like to choke, I would have been sunk. I wish to recommend that if we peddle this to the cops we leave his name out. And Orrie wants to know where this leaves us.”

He grunted. “So do I. Saul phoned. He has started something, but he doesn’t know what.”

“I told you I saw him at the Assadip office.”