If Death Ever Slept

NORA: (with no glance at Orrie) He’s not Archie Goodwin. I knew Archie Goodwin the minute I saw him, Monday afternoon. I keep a scrapbook, Mr. Wolfe, a personal scrapbook. Among the things I put in it are pictures of people who have done things that I admire. There are three pictures of you, two from newspapers and one from a magazine, put in at different times, and one of Archie Goodwin. It was in the Gazette last year when you caught that murderer-you remember-Patrick Degan. I knew him the minute I saw him, and after I looked in my scrapbook there was no question about it.

(Orrie was looking straight at the pretty picture of the waterfall, at me though he couldn’t see me, with blood in his eye, and I couldn’t blame him. He had been given to understand that the part was a cinch, that he wouldn’t have to do or say anything to avert suspicion because she wouldn’t have any. And there he was, a monkey. I couldn’t blame him.)

WOLFE: (not visibly fazed, but also a monkey) I am flattered, Miss Kent, to be in your scrapbook. No doubt Mr. Goodwin is also flattered, though he might challenge your taste in having three pictures of me and only one of him. It will save-

NORA: Why did you send him there?

WOLFE: If you please. It will save time, and also breath, to proceed on an assumption, without prejudice. Obviously you’re convinced that Mr. Goodwin took a job as Mr. Jarrell’s secretary, and that I sent him, and it would be futile to try to talk you out of it. So we’ll assume you’re right. I don’t concede it, but I’m willing to assume it for the sake of discussion. What about it?

NORA: I am right! You know it!

WOLFE: No. You may have it as an assumption, but not as a fact. What difference does it make? Let’s get on. Did Mr. Goodwin take the job under his own name?

NORA: Certainly not. You know he didn’t. Mr. Jarrell introduced him to me as Alan Green.

WOLFE: Did you tell Mr. Jarrell that that wasn’t his real name? That you recognized him as Archie Goodwin?

NORA: No.

WOLFE: Why not?

NORA: Because I wasn’t sure what the situation was. I thought that Mr. Jarrell might have hired you to do something and he knew who Green was, but he didn’t want me to know or anyone else. I thought in that case I had better keep it to myself. But now it’s different. Now I think that someone else may have hired you, someone who wanted to know something about Mr. Jarrell’s affairs, and you arranged somehow for Goodwin to take that job, and Mr. Jarrell doesn’t know who he is.