Free Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 25 by Before Midnight

Miss Tescher answered. “I suppose you know that I am assistant director of research at
Clock.”
    “At least I know it now.”
    “The publicity about the contest, after what happened last night and this morning, and my connection with it, was discussed at a conference this afternoon. I can tell you confidentially that Mr. Tite himself was there. I thought I would be fired, but Mr. Tite is avery fair man and very loyal to his employees. All my work on the contest was done on my own time—of course I’m a highly trained researcher. So it was decided that Mr. Hibbard and Mr. Knudsen and Mr. Schultz should come with me here. They want to be available for advice if I need it.”
    “Mr. Hibbard is a counselor-at-law?”
    “Yes.”
    “Is he your attorney?”
    “Why—I don’t—” She looked at Hibbard. He moved his head, once to the left and back again. “No,” she said, “he isn’t.” She cocked her head. “I want to say something.”
    “Go ahead.”
    “I came here only as a favor to Lippert, Buff and Assa, because Mr. Assa asked me to. The conditions for breaking the tie in the contest were agreed to last evening by all of us, and they can be changed only by changing the agreement, and it remains the same. So there is really nothing to discuss. That’s the way it looks to me and I wanted you to understand it.”
    Wolfe grunted. She went on, “But of course there’s nothing personal about it—I mean personal towards you. I happen to know a lot about you because I researched you two years ago, when you were on the list of cover prospects for
Clock
, but don’t ask me why they didn’t use you because I don’t know. Of course there are always dozens on the list, and they can’t all—”
    Knudsen cleared his throat, rather loud, and she looked at him. There was no additional signal that I caught, but evidently she didn’t need one. She let it lay. Returning to Wolfe, “So,” she said, “it’s not personal. It’s just that there is nothing to discuss.”
    “From your point of view,” Wolfe conceded, “thereprobably isn’t. And naturally, for you, as a consequence of the peculiar constitution of the human ego, your point of view is paramount. But your ego is bound to be jostled by other egos, and efforts to counteract the jostling by ignoring it have rarely succeeded. It is frequently advisable, and sometimes necessary, to give a little ground. For example, suppose I ask you for information in which you have no monopoly because it is shared with others. Suppose I ask you: at the meeting last evening, after Mr. Dahlmann displayed a paper and said it contained the answers, what remarks were made about it by any of the contestants? What did you say, and what did you hear any of them say?”
    “Are you supposing or asking?”
    “I’m asking.”
    She looked at Knudsen. His head moved. At Schultz. His head moved. At Hibbard. His head moved. She returned to Wolfe. “When Mr. Assa asked me to come to see you he said it was about the contest, and that has no bearing on it.”
    “Then you decline to answer?”
    “Yes, I think I should.”
    “The police must have asked you. Did you decline to answer?”
    “I don’t think I should tell you anything about what the police asked me or what I said to them.”
    “Nor, evidently, anything about what the other contestants have said to you or you have said to them.”
    “My contact with the other contestants has been very limited. Just that meeting last evening.”
    Wolfe lifted a hand and ran a finger tip along the side of his nose a few times. He was being patient. “I may say, Miss Tescher, that my contact with the othercontestants, mine and Mr. Goodwin’s, has been a little broader. Several courses have been suggested. One was that all five of you agree that the first five prizes be pooled, and that each of you accept one-fifth of the total as your share. The suggestion was not made by my clients or by me; I am merely asking you, without prejudice,