Plot It Yourself

“No.” Wolfe was blunt. “With the plan known to so many, I should have taken precautions to safeguard Mr Jacobs from harm. But you have shifted your ground. My default does not relieve this body of its responsibility. If you wish to dismiss me for incompetence I offer no objection, but then, to honour your obligation, you’ll have to hire somebody else. Mr Tabb. You invited my comments and I have made them.” He stood up. “If that’s all-”

“Wait a minute.” Tabb’s eyes moved. “Do you want to ask Mr Wolfe any questions?”

“I have one,” a man said. “Mr Wolfe, you heard Mr Sachs’s suggestion, that we write you a letter saying that you are to investigate the plagiarism claims and nothing else. Would you accept such a letter?”

“Certainly. If I get the swindler, which will satisfy you, I’ll also get the murderer, which will satisfy me.”

“Then I make a motion. I move that we instruct the chairman of the committee to ask Mr Sachs to draft the letter, and sign it and send it to Nero Wolfe, and tell him to go ahead with the investigation.”

Two of them, a man and a woman, seconded it.

“You understand,” Harvey said, “that I couldn’t obey those instructions. If the motion passes you’ll have to get a new chairman.”

“Mortimer Oshin,” someone said.

“That will come after we act on the motion,” Tabb said. “Or it won’t. Before we discuss it, have you any more questions for Mr Wolfe?”

“I’d like to ask him,” a woman said, “if he knows who the murderer is.”

Wolfe, on his feet, grunted. “If I did I wouldn’t be here.”

“Any further questions?” Tabb asked. Apparently not. “Then discussion of the motion.”

“You don’t need us for that,” Wolfe said. “I appreciate the courtesy of your invitation to be present, and if my opening remark gave you the impression that I accepted it solely to prevent you from forsaking a responsibility I wish to correct it. I also wish to earn a fee. Come, Archie.”

He wheeled and headed for the door, and I circled around him to open it, detouring to get his hat and cane from a chair.

Chapter 16