Before Midnight

"So when they got hard there was no one I could ask for help, and anyway, if I had got help I would have had to share the prize. I didn't do much eating or sleeping the last seven weeks of the main contest, but the worst was when they sent us five to do in a week to break the tie. I didn't go to bed that week, and I was afraid I had one of them wrong, and I didn't get them mailed until just before midnight--I went to the post office and made them let me see them stamp the envelope. After all that, do you think I'm going to let somebody get it by cheating? With three hundred women working at it while we're not allowed to go home?"

After seeing her handle the fit I didn't think she was going to let somebody get anything she had made up her mind to have, with or without cheating.

"It is manifestly unfair," Wolfe conceded, "but I doubt if it can be called cheating, at least in the legal sense. And as for cheating, it's conceivable that someone else had a bolder idea than Miss Frazee and acted upon it. By killing Mr. Dahlmann in order to get the answers."

"I'm not going to say anything about that," she declared. "I've decided not to."

"The police have talked with you, of course."

"Yes. They certainly have. For hours."

"And they asked you what you thought last evening when Mr. Dahlmann displayed a paper and said it contained the answers. What did you tell them?"

"I'm not going to talk about it."

"Did you tell the police that? That you wouldn't talk about it?"

"No. I hadn't decided then. I decided later."

"After consultation with someone?"

She shook her head. "With whom would I consult?"

"I don't know. A lawyer. A phone call to your husband."

"I haven't got a lawyer. I wouldn't call my husband--I know what he'd say. He thinks I'm crazy. I couldn't pay a lawyer anyway because I haven't got any money. They paid for the trip here, and the hotel, but nothing for incidentals. I was late for my appointment with you because I got on the wrong bus. I haven't consulted anybody. I made the decision myself."

"So you told the police what you thought when Mr. Dahlmann displayed the paper?"

"Yes."

"Then why not tell me? I assure you, madam, that I have only one interest in the matter, on behalf of my clients, to make sure that the prizes are fairly and honestly awarded. You see, of course, that that will be extremely difficult if in fact one of the contestants took that paper from Mr. Dahlmann and it contains the answers. You see that."

"Yes."