Might as Well Be Dead

“He isn’t.” I looked at Wolfe, and his head moved left, just perceptibly, and back. So we were still keeping our client under our hat. I met her eyes again. “Our interest in the case developed through a conversation with Mr. Freyer, and all we expect from you is information. I asked about cash only because there must be some in your husband’s estate.”

“If there is I don’t want it. I have some savings of my own, enough to go along on a while. I just don’t know what I’m going to do.” She pinned her lower lip with her teeth, and after a moment released it. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I don’t want to be administrator or have anything to do with it. I should have left him long ago, but I had married him with my eyes open and my silly pride-”

“Okay, but it might help if we could take a look at his papers. For instance, his checkbook. Miss Brandt tells me that the furniture in the office was sold, and that before it was taken away some man went through the desks and removed the contents. Do you know about that?”

“Yes, that was a friend of mine-and he had been a friend of my husband’s-Tom Irwin. He said the office should be closed up and I asked him to attend to it.”

“What happened to the stuff he took?”

“He brought it to the apartment. It’s there now, in three cartons. I’ve never looked at it.”

“I would like to. You’ll be here with Mr. Wolfe for quite a while. I could go up to the apartment and do it now if you’re willing to let me have the key.”

Without the slightest hesitation she said, “Of course,” and opened her handbag. It didn’t put her down a notch in my book-her being so trustful with a comparative stranger. All it meant was that with her P.H. convicted of murder she didn’t give a damn about anything at all, and besides, I was the comparative stranger. Glancing at Wolfe and getting a nod, I went to her and took the keys, told her I would let her know if I found anything helpful and would give her a receipt for anything I brought away, and headed for the hall. I had just taken my topcoat from the rack when the doorbell rang, and a look through the one-way glass panel showed me Saul Panzer out on the stoop. Putting the coat back, I opened up.