Champagne for One

"I expect it to, Mr Schuster. A murder trial is commonly regarded as a matter of law." Wolfe leaned forward, flattened his palms on the desk, and sharpened his tone. "Gentlemen. Let’s get to the point, if there is one. What are you here for? Not, I suppose, merely to grumble at me. To buy me off? To bully me? To dispute my ground? What are you after?"

"Goddammit," Cecil demanded, "what are you after? That’s the point! What are you trying to pull? Why did you send-"

"Shut up, Cece," Beverly Kent ordered him, not diplomatic at all. "Let Paul tell him."

The lawyer did so. "Your insinuation," Schuster said, "that we have entered into a conspiracy to buy you off is totally unwarranted. Or to bully you. We came because we feel, with reason, that our rights of privacy are being violated without provocation or just cause, and that you are responsible. We doubt if you can justify that responsibility, but we thought you should have a chance to do so before we consider what steps may be taken legally in the matter."

"Pfui," Wolfe said.

"An expression of contempt is hardly an adequate justification, Mr Wolfe."

"I didn’t intend it to be, sir." Wolfe leaned back and clasped his fingers at the apex of his central mound. "This is futile, gentlemen, both for you and for me. Neither of us can possibly be gratified. You want a stop put to your involvement in a murder inquiry, and my concern is to involve you as deeply as possible-the innocent along with-"

"Why?" Schuster demanded. "Why are you concerned?"

"Because Mr Goodwin’s professional reputation and competence have been challenged, and by extension my own. You invoked respondeat superior; I will not only answer, I will act. That the innocent must be involved along with the guilty is regrettable but unavoidable. So you can’t get what you want, but no more can I. What I want is a path to a fact. I want to know if one of you has buried in his past a fact that will account for his resort to murder to get rid of Faith Usher, and if so, which. Manifestly you are not going to sit here and submit to a day-long inquisition by me, and even if you did, the likelihood that one of you would betray the existence of such a fact is minute. So, as I say, this is futile both for you and for me. I wish you good day only as a matter of form."