Before Midnight

"I'll be glad to save you the trouble and maybe throw in a few extras. He was killed between eleven-thirty and three o'clock, shot once from behind, with a cushion for a muffler, with a.32 revolver. That's from the bullet; we haven't found the gun. The building has a self-service elevator and no doorman, and we haven't dug up anyone who saw Dahlmann come home or saw anyone else coming to see him. Do you want all the negatives?"

"I like positives better."

"So do I, but we haven't got any, or damn few. No fingerprints that have helped so far, no other clues from the premises, nothing in his papers or other effects, no hackie that took somebody there, no phone call to that number from the hotel, and so on right through the routine. But you already knew that. If routine had got us anywhere I wouldn't be here keeping you from your work."

"Your routine is impeccable," Wolfe said politely.

"Much obliged. As for alibis, nobody is out completely. Getting out of a big hotel, and back in again, without being observed, isn't hard to do if you've got a good reason for it. The Tescher woman says that after the meeting she went to the library of a friend of hers and worked there on the contest until four o'clock, but nobody was in the room with her and everyone in the house was asleep. This leads to the point that really brought me here-the chief point. We're finding out that there were quite a few people around town who had it in for Louis Dahlmann- three or more women for personal reasons, two or three men for personal reasons, and several of both sexes for business reasons. Even some of his own business associates. We're looking into them, checking on where they were last night and so on, but the fact that his wallet was taken, and nothing else, may mean that it's a waste of time and talent. There was no money in the wallet; he carried bills in a roll in another pocket. The wallet was more of a card case, driver's license and so on."