Before Midnight

"That's too bad." Wolfe put his palms on the table. "Now, gentlemen, I'll be as brief as may be. When I'm through we can consider whether I have to enter a defense against Mr. Hansen's charge of treachery. Until the moment of Mr. Assa's collapse in my office last evening I was concerned only with the job I had been hired for, not with murder. I invited Mr. Cramer to the meeting because I expected that developments to be contrived by me.would remove both the contestants and yourselves as primary targets of his inquiry, which was surely desirable. My first objective was to demonstrate to the contestants that their receipt of the answers by mail had made it impossible to proceed with the verses that had been given them last week, and it would be futile for them to resist the inevitable; and to get their unanimous agreement to the distribution of new verses as soon as their freedom of movement was restored."

"You say that now." Hansen was buying nothing.

"It will be supported. I was confident I could do that, for they had no feasible alternative. Then I would be through with them and they would leave, and I would pursue the second objective with the rest of you. I confess that the second objective was not at all clear, and the path to it was poorly mapped, until nearly seven o'clock last evening, when Mr. Assa called. – Mr. Hansen, did you know that Mr. Assa came to see me at that hour yesterday?"

"No. I don't know it now."

"Did you, Mr. Buff?"

"No."

"Mr. O'Garro?"

"No!"

"Mr. Heery?"

"I did not."

Wolfe nodded. "One of you is lying, and that may help. He came and we talked. Mr. Goodwin was present, and he has typed a transcript of the conversation for Mr. Cramer. He could report it to you now, but it would take too long, so I'll summarize it. Mr. Assa said he was speaking for himself, not for the firm; that he had not consulted his associates. He congratulated me for what he called my brilliant stroke in sending the answers to the contestants and thereby rescuing the contest from ruin. He offered his personal guarantee for payment of my fee. He took a drink of Pernod and poured another. And he began and ended with a demand that I call off the meeting for last evening. As for me, I denied sending the answers to the contestants, and I refused to call off the meeting. He left in a huff."