Plot It Yourself

I got up and crossed to his desk. To get there I had to detour around a table that had been brought from the front room to hold about half a ton of paper. There were correspondence folders, newspaper clippings, photographs, mimeographed reports, transcripts of telephone conversations, photostats, books, tear sheets, lists of names and addresses, affidavits, and miscellaneous items. With time out only for meals and sleep and his two daily sessions in the plant rooms on the roof, Wolfe had spent the thirty-four hours working through it, and so had I. We had both read all of it except the four books-The Colour of Passion, by Ellen Sturdevant. Hold Fast to All I Give You, by Richard Echols, Sacred or Profane, by Marjorie Lippin, and Knock at My Door, by Amy Wynn. There was no point in wading through them, since it was acknowledged that their plots and characters and action were the same as those in the stories on which the claims had been based.

What I was typing, when he interrupted me, was a statement to be signed by Saul Panzer and Dol Bonner, who had come late that afternoon to report. Tuesday afternoon and evening they had spent seven hours at the apartment on Perry Street, and six hours Wednesday at Amy Wynn’s current apartment on Arbor Street. They were prepared to swear on a stack of best-sellers that in neither place was there a manuscript of a story by Alice Porter entitled “Opportunity Knocks.” At Perry Street there had been no manuscript at all, by anybody. At Arbor Street there had been a drawerful of them-two novels, twenty-eight stories, and nine articles-all by Amy Wynn and all showing signs of the wear and tear that comes from a series of trips through the mails. Saul had made a list of the titles and number of pages, but I had decided it wasn’t necessary to include it in the statement. I had dialed Philip Harvey’s number to report to the chairman, but there was no answer, so I had called Reuben Imhof at Victory Press. He was glad to get the good news and said he would tell Amy Wynn,