The Second Confesion

“You ought to know.” “I'm disappointed in you.” Her eyes went open. “Why didn't you shoot them?” “My mind was elsewhere. You ought to know that too. We can compare notes on that some other time. Thank you very much for stalling it until it was too late for your father to head us off. Also thank you for taking my word for it that this is the best we can do for Gwenn. How many names have I got here now and where do they fit in?” “Oh, you're Archie everywhere. I explained that much to Webster and Paul and Connie too, because they'll eat lunch with us and it would have been too complicated, and anyway with Nero Wolfe here-they're not halfwits. Incidentally, you've made lunch late; we usually have it at one, so come on. How's your appetite?” I told her I'd rather show her than tell her, and we went in.

Lunch was served in the big dining-room. Wolfe and I were the only ones with neckties on, though the day was too chilly for extremes like shorts. Sperling had a striped jacket over a light blue silk shirt open at the neck. Jimmy and Paul Emerson were sporting dingy old coat sweaters, one brown and one navy.

Webster Kane varied it with a wool shirt with loud red and yellow checks. Mrs Sperling was in a pink rayon dress and a fluffy pink sweater, unbuttoned; Connie Emerson was in a dotted blue thing that looked like a dressing-gown but maybe I didn't know, Gwenn in a tan shirt and slacks, and Madeline in a soft but smooth wool dress of browns and blacks that looked like a PSI fabric.

So it was anything but a formal gathering, but neither was it free and easy.

They ate all right, but they all seemed to have trouble deciding what would be a good thing to talk about. Wolfe, who can't stand a strained atmosphere at meals, tried this and that with one and another, but the only line that got anywhere at all was a friendly argument with Webster Kane about the mechanism of money and a book by some Englishman which nobody else had ever heard of, except maybe Sperling, who may have known it by heart but wasn't interested.

When that was over and we were on our feet again, there was no loitering around.