Murder by the Book

"It clears away the rubbish. The rubbish was the assumption that Corrigan wrote that confession and killed himself. I have shown that one is false and the other is not invulnerable. Depriving you of a suicide was simple. Giving you a murder, and a murderer, is harder. May I proceed?"

"If you've got something better than guesses, yes."

"I've got a question," Kustin put in. "Is this a buildup for charging someone in this room with murder?"

"Yes."

"Then I want to speak with you privately."

"The devil you do." Wolfe was indignant. To control his emotions, he closed his eyes and waggled his head. Then he

told Kustin dryly, "So you're beginning to see something, now that I've cleared away some of the rubbish? And you'd like to point at it? I'll do the pointing, Mr. Kustin." His eyes moved. "Before I go on to particulars, another comment. At my first reading of this"-he tapped the paper-"I saw the flaw that told me that Corrigan hadn't written it: his performance in Los Angeles made it obvious that he had never read the manuscript. But it could have been written by you, Mr. Kustin, or you, Mr. Phelps, or you, Mr. Briggs. It could have been any one of you, instead of Corrigan, who had done the deeds which this document attributes to Corrigan. That was why it was of first importance to learn if any of you had had access to the typewriter at the Travelers Club. Learning that you hadn't, and therefore had not exposed O'Malley, it was clear that if one of you had committed three murders it must have been for some other motive than concealment of a betrayal of your former partner."

"Get down to it," Cramer growled.

Wolfe ignored him. He looked over the heads of the lawyers and inquired abruptly, "Is one of you ladies named Dondero?"

I twisted my neck. Sue was one of the four on the couch. Startled, she stared at him. "Yes, I am." She was a little flushed and pretty as a picture.

"You are Mr. Phelps's secretary?"

"Yes."

"A week ago Saturday, nine days ago, Mr. Phelps dictated a brief letter to me, to be sent by messenger. There were en›-closures for it-items of material written by Leonard Dykes, from the files, including a letter of resignation he wrote last July. Do you remember that incident?"

"Yes. Certainly."