Before Midnight

"No, sir. I must not. I have stretched my dignity pretty thin on occasion to keep myself going, but I will not write verses for a perfume contest. That is not to impugn the dignity of any other man who may undertake it. Dignities are like faces; no two are the same. I beg you not to insist; I won't consider it. I confess that my refusal might give me a sharper twinge but for the fact that I am about to send the firm of Lippert, Buff and Assa a bill for precisely that amount-fifty thousand dollars. Plus expenses."

"What for?" Hansen was cold.

"For the job I was hired for and have completed."

"We've discussed that," O'Garro said. "We don't see it."

"You didn't do the job," Hansen said, settling it.

"No? Who did?"

"Nobody. Circumstances beyond our control and out of your control. If anybody did it, it was Buff himself, when he sent the answers to the contestants. Also Assa learning that Buff had the wallet, but the main thing was the contestants getting the answers. That was what saved the contest."

"You acknowledge that?"

"Certainly we acknowledge it. It's obvious."

"Very well. I suppose this was unavoidable." Wolfe turned. "Archie, give Mr. Hansen a dollar."

I got one out and went and proffered it, but Hansen didn't take it. "What's this?" he demanded.

"I am retaining you as my attorney, as before. I wish what I am going to tell you to have the protection of a confidential relationship between you and me. Since the interest of Mr. O'Garro and Mr. Heery runs with mine I'll trust their discretion. You may end the relationship at any moment. That's what you told me. You and I began with a privileged communication; we'll end with one."

Hansen took the dollar, not enthusiastically, and I returned to my desk. "Go ahead," he said.