Free Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 27 by Three Witnesses Page B

don’t know.”
    “Was Mr. Donovan, the defense counsel, present?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Who was?”
    “Mrs. Ashe, Mr. Ashe, myself, and two armed guards, one at the door and one at the end of the room.”
    “What room was it?”
    “I don’t know. There was no number on the door. I think I could lead you to it.”
    Mandelbaum whirled around and looked at Robina Keane, seated on the front bench. Not being a lawyer, I didn’t know whether he could get her to the stand or not. Of course a wife couldn’t be summoned to testify against her husband, but I didn’t know if this would have come under that ban. Anyway, he either skipped it or postponed it. He asked the judge to allow him a moment and went to the table to speak in an undertone to a colleague. I looked around. I had already spotted Guy Unger, in the middle of the audience on the left. Bella Velardi and Alice Hart were on the other side, next to the aisle. Apparently the Sixty-ninth Street office of Bagby Answers, Inc., was being womaned for the day from other offices. Clyde Bagby, the boss, was a couple of rows in front of Unger. Helen Weltz, the Queen of Hearts, whom I had driven from Saul’s address to a hotel seven hours ago, was in the back, not far from me.
    The colleague got up and left, in a hurry, and Mandelbaum went back to Wolfe.
    “Don’t you know,” he demanded, “that it is a misdemeanor for a witness for the State to talk with the defendant charged with a felony?”
    “No, sir, I don’t. I understand it would depend on what was said. I didn’t discuss my testimony with Mr. Ashe.”
    “What did you discuss?”
    “Certain matters which I though would be of interest to him.”
    “What matters? Exactly what did you say?”
    I took a deep breath, spread and stretched my fingers, and relaxed. The fat son-of-a-gun had put it over. Having asked that question, Mandelbaum couldn’t possibly keep it from the jury unless Jimmy Donovan was a sap, and he wasn’t.
    Wolfe testified. “I said that yesterday, seated in this room awaiting your convenience, I had formed a surmise that certain questions raised by the murder of Marie Willis had not been sufficiently considered and investigated, and that therefore my role as a witness for the prosecution was an uncomfortable one. I said that I had determined to satisfy myself on certain points; that I knew that in leaving the courtroom I would become liable to a penalty for contempt of court, but that the integrity of justice was more important than my personal ease; that I had been confident that Judge Corbett would—”
    “If you please, Mr. Wolfe. You are not now pleading to a charge of contempt.”
    “No, sir. You asked what I said to Mr. Ashe. He asked what surmise I had formed, and I told him—that it was a double surmise. First, that as one with long experience in the investigation of crime and culprits, Ihad an appreciable doubt of his guilt. Second, that the police had been so taken by the circumstances pointing to Mr. Ashe—his obvious motive and his discovery of the body—that their attention in other directions had possibly been somewhat dulled. For example, an experienced investigator always has a special eye and ear for any person occupying a privileged position. Such persons are doctors, lawyers, trusted servants, intimate friends, and, of course, close relatives. If one in those categories is a rogue he has peculiar opportunities for his scoundrelism. It occurred to me that—”
    “You said all this to Mr. Ashe?”
    “Yes, sir. It occurred to me that a telephone-answering service was in the same kind of category as those I have mentioned, as I sat in this room yesterday and heard Mr. Bagby describe the operation of the switchboards. An unscrupulous operator might, by listening in on conversations, obtain various kinds of information that could be turned to account—for instance, about the stock market, about business or professional plans, about a multitude of things. The