Might as Well Be Dead

He paused because we were both staring and he loves to make people stare.

“With reason?” Freyer demanded. “What reason?”

Satisfied with the stares, he resumed. “When Mr. Goodwin left here yesterday afternoon to go to look at your client, a man followed him. Why? It’s barely possible that it was someone bearing a grudge on account of some former activity of ours, but highly unlikely. It would be puerile for such a person merely to follow Mr. Goodwin when he left the house. He must be somehow connected with a present activity, and we are engaged in none at the moment except Mr. Herold’s job. Was Mr. Herold checking on us? Absurd. The obvious probability is that my advertisement was responsible. Many people-newspapers, the police, you yourself-had assumed that it was directed at Peter Hays, and others might well have done so. One, let us say, named X. X wants to know why I declare Peter Hays to be innocent, but does not come, or phone, to ask me; and he wants to know what I am doing about it. What other devices he may have resorted to, I don’t know; but one of them was to come, or send someone, to stand post near my house.”

Wolfe turned a hand over. “How account for so intense and furtive a curiosity? If the murder for which Peter Hays was on trial was what it appeared to be-a simple and commonplace act of passion-who could be so inquisitive and also so stealthy? Then it wasn’t so simple. You said yesterday that you were convinced that your client was the victim of a diabolical frame-up. If you’re correct, no wonder a man was sent to watch my house when I announced, on the last day of his trial, that he was known to be innocent-as was assumed. And it is with reason that I suspect that there is someone, somewhere, who felt himself threatened by my announcement. That doesn’t convince me that your client is innocent, but it poses a question that needs an answer.”

Freyer turned to me. “Who followed you?”

I told him I didn’t know, and told him why, and described the tail.

He said the description suggested no one to him and went back to Wolfe. “Then you reject A and B for both of us. Is there a C?”

“I think there is,” Wolfe declared. “You want to appeal. Can you take preliminary steps for an appeal without committing yourself to any substantial outlay for thirty days?”

“Yes. Easily.”