Before Midnight

I regarded them as-friends. It is always best to regard journalists as friends if they are not actually standing on your nose. "Hold everything," I said. "What kind of a position is a man in when he is being tugged in two directions?"

Charles Winston of the Times said, "Anomalous."

"Thanks. That's the word I wanted. I would love to get my name in the paper, and my employer's name, Nero Wolfe, spelled with an e on the end, and this is a swell chance, but I'll have to pass it up. As you all saw at once, if the contestants have been sent a list of the answers by somebody it would be a hot item in a murder case, and it would be improper for me to tell you about it. That's the function of the police and the District Attorney."

"Oh, come off it, Archie," Missy Coburn said.

"Spit out the gum," Bill Lurick said.

"Is it your contention," Charles Winston of the Times asked courteously but firmly, "that a private citizen should refuse to furnish the press with any information regarding a murder case and that the sole source of such information for the public should be the duly constituted authorities?"

I didn't want to get the Times sore. "Listen, folks," I said, "there is a story to be had, but you're not going to get it from me, for reasons which I reserve for the present, so don't waste time and breath on me. Try Inspector Cramer or the DA's office. You heard Miss Frazee mention Rudolph Hansen, the lawyer. I've told you there's a story, so that's settled, but you'll have to take it from there. Cigarettes on my bare toes will get you no more from me."

They hung on some, but pretty soon one of them broke away and headed down the hall, and of course the others didn't want him to gobble it so they made after him. I stayed in the doorway until the last of them had disappeared around the corner, then, leaving the door open, turned and went on in. Gertrude Frazee, in the same museum outfit she had worn five days previously, minus the hat, was in an upholstered armchair backed up against the wall, with a cold eye on me.

She spoke. "I have nothing to say to you. You can go. Please shut the door."