The Missing Chapter

“Well,” Pemberton went on after pausing for breath, “we got excited about that, and we conducted a national telephone canvass of our members, using volunteers both here and in a half-dozen other key cities. We divided the whole country, plus Canada, into regions. And in seventy-two hours, we got firm commitments for twelve thousand, three hundred dollars.” He pronounced the figure precisely, and with unabashed pride.

“For what purpose?” Wolfe growled.

Pemberton hit the side of his head with a palm. “Oh — I’m sorry. I guess I’m not telling this in a very orderly way, am I?” he said apologetically. “This money is to help compensate you for the investigation.

Here is a certified check, made out to your name, for the figure I mentioned.” He leaned forward and slid an envelope across the desk toward Wolfe.

“I admire your resourcefulness, sir, but I must decline your offer,” Wolfe replied, eyeing the envelope without interest. “I prefer to work with a single client, and as you know, I already have one.”

Wilma Race took over. “As Claude mentioned, when our members learned that you were working to discover the cause of Charles’s death, they, like we, were heartened, and all of us felt that PROBE should bear a portion of the cost.” If I had seen a more earnest face than her pleasantly round one recently, I couldn’t recall it.

“Incredible,” Wolfe murmured, his eyes wide. “Did they all electronically transfer money to New York?”

“Oh no,” McClellan put in. “We’ve gotten only a few checks and money orders so far, those by mail and mostly from the New York and Philadelphia and Boston posses, plus the one in Princeton, New Jersey. But we have the verbal commitments, which, considering our members, is the same as cash. And Claude here made up the difference out of his own pocket so that we could present you a check today.”

“I know that the members are good for it,” Pemberton said, nodding. “It will all come in, every last cent.”

“Madam. Gentlemen,” Wolfe said as his gaze moved over the trio, “I appreciate your confidence. However, I reiterate that I can serve but one master at a time. Your organization and Mr. Vinson have identical aims: To learn whether Mr. Childress was murdered, and if so, to have the perpetrator exposed. Assuming I find answers to both, you will have achieved those ends, and with no financial outlay on your part.”

“True,” Wilma Race conceded eagerly, “but we — PROBE, that is — desire to buy into the resolution of the case, indeed, to play an integral role. If Charles Childress was the victim of foul play, as we all believe he was, and if you identify his murderer, as we all believe you will, we want to feel that we have been a part of it. Call it pride, or hubris, or whatever you want to, but it is very important to those of us who have enjoyed the Barnstable stories that we be involved.”

“There is something else,” Daniel McClellan said. “Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but hell, why not?” He shrugged his pink shoulders and pressed his lips together. “We’ve all read about how you gather all the suspects right here in this office when you are about to finger a killer, and we were hoping—”

“Dan! That’s really out of line!” Pemberton admonished, sounding remarkably like my high school chemistry teacher, Orrin Fitzmorris, when he bawled out someone who was talking or, worse — sleeping — during one of his interminable lectures.

“What is it you were hoping, Mr. McClellan?” Wolfe demanded. He thinks nothing of cutting someone off in mid-sentence, but he does not tolerate it in others.

I felt sorry for the young guy, who hunched his shoulders in embarrassment and looked like he wanted to withdraw like a turtle into the shell that was his bulky sweater. He glanced at Pemberton, then at Wilma Race, and finally at Wolfe, swallowing. “We were hoping that as a co-client with Horace Vinson, we could have someone from PROBE be in the room — this room — when you... well, name the murderer. Assuming there is one, of course.”

Wolfe scowled. “Sir, this is not a theater, nor does it magically transmogrify into one on those occasions to which you refer. Your suggestion is impractical at best, absurd at worst.”

“Mr. Wolfe,” a flustered Pemberton interjected, “if I may take the liberty of amending what Dan said, PROBE’s primary interest is not in having someone attend one of your denouements, although I confess that we discussed the possibility with some relish. Rather, we want, as Wilma said, to buy into the investigation, thus showing the depth of our support for your efforts.”

“I acknowledge that support,” Wolfe said. “It is not necessary to affirm it with mammon. However, I have some questions, the answers to which might prove illuminating.”

“Ask anything,” Pemberton replied, spreading his long arms with a flourish.