Before Midnight

"Well." Wolfe pursed his lips. "Not categorically. On that point I am restrained. That is what my clients have told you, and it would be uncivil for me to contradict them. In any case, that illustrates the difference between your objective and mine. Since one of my purposes is to achieve a fair and satisfactory distribution of the prizes, the contents of that paper are of the first importance to me. But to you, that is of no importance at all. What matters to you is not whether the paper contained the answers, but whether the contestants thought it did. If you had good evidence that one of them thought that Dahlmann was only hoaxing them, you'd have to eliminate him as a suspect. By the way, have you any such evidence?"

"No. Have you?"

"No, sir. I have no evidence of anything whatever."

"Do you believe that one of the contestants killed him?"

Wolfe shook his head. "I've told you, I'm not working on a murder. I think it likely that one of them took the wallet--only a conjecture, not a belief."

"Are you saying there might have been two of them-- one killed him and one took the wallet?"

"Not at all. Of course my information is scanty. I haven't even read the account in the evening paper, knowing it couldn't be relied on. Have you reason to think there were two?"

"No."

"You are assuming that whoever killed him took the wallet?"

"Yes."

"Then so am I. As I said, there's no conflict. You agree?"

There was some beer left in Cramer's bottle, and he poured it, waited a little for the foam to go down, drank, put the glass down, and licked his lips.