Might as Well Be Dead

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to say.” Degan took a puff, and this time blew it at Parker. “Frankly, I’m sorry I agreed to this. I did it for a friend who has had a tough break, Selma Molloy, and I wish I hadn’t. I’m on a spot. I know she’s all for the job you’re doing, trying to find grounds for a new trial for Peter Hays, and I am too, personally, so you might think I’d be willing to commit the estate to pay for your services and expenses, but the hell of it is that she says she won’t take the estate or any part of it. That didn’t matter when there were no visible assets to speak of, but now it does. It will go to someone eventually, relatives always turn up when there’s a pile in it, and what will they say if I’ve paid you some of it? You see my problem.” He took a puff.

“I do indeed.” Wolfe’s lips were slightly twisted-one of his smiles. “But you asked the wrong question. Instead of asking what if I am you should have asked if I am. The answer is no. I shall not demand, or accept if offered, anything from that trove.”

“You won’t? You mean that?”

“I do.”

“Then why didn’t you say so?”

“I have said so.” Wolfe’s lips straightened. “And now that I have answered your questions, I beg you to reciprocate. You knew Mr. Molloy for some years. Have you any knowledge of the source of that money?”

“No. I was absolutely amazed when I saw it.”

“Please bear with me. I don’t challenge you, I’m merely trying to stimulate you. You were intimate with him?”

“Intimate? I wouldn’t say intimate. He was one of my friends, and I did a little business with him from time to time.”

“What kind of business?”

“I bought advice from him now and then.” Degan reached to break cigar ash into the tray. “In connection with investments of my organization. He was an expert on certain areas of the real-estate market.”

“But you didn’t pay him enough to supply an appreciable fraction of that fortune in the box.”

“My God, no. On an average, maybe two or three thousand a year.”

“Was that the main source of Molloy’s income, supplying investment advice regarding real estate?”

“I couldn’t say. It may have been, but he did some brokerage and I think he did a little operating on his own. I never heard him say much about his affairs. He had a closed mouth.”