Read Online Might as Well Be Dead by Nero Wolfe - Free Book Online Page A

on a chair in the foyer, was a large and attractive living room with three windows. It was the room that P.H. had entered to find a corpse—if you’re on our side. The rugs and furniture had been selected by her. Don’t ask me how I know that; I was there and saw them, and saw her with them. She went to a chair over near a window, and, invited, I moved one around to face her. She said that Mr. Freyer had told her on the phone that he was consulting with Nero Wolfe, and that Mr. Wolfe wanted to send his assistant, Mr. Goodwin, to have a talk with her, and that was all she knew. She did not add, “What do you want?”
    “I don’t know exactly how to begin,” I told her, “because we have different opinions on a very important point. Mr. Freyer and Mr. Wolfe and I all think Peter Hays didn’t kill your husband, and you think he did.”
    She jerked her chin up. “Why do you say that?”
    “Because there’s no use beating around the bush. You think it because there’s nothing else for you to think, and anyhow you’re not really thinking. You’ve been hit so hard that you’re too numb to think. We’re not. Our minds are free and we’re trying to use them. But we’d like to be sure on one point: if we prove we’re right, if we get him cleared—I don’t say it looks very hopeful, but if we do—would you like that or wouldn’t you?”
    “Oh!” she cried. Her jaw loosened. She said, “Oh,” again, but it was only a whisper.
    “I’ll call that a yes,” I said. “Then just forget our difference of opinion, because opinions don’t count anyway. Mr. Freyer spent five hours with Nero Wolfe today, and Mr. Wolfe is going to try to find evidence that will clear Peter Hays. He has seen reports of your conversations with Freyer, but they didn’t help any. Since you were Molloy’s secretary for a year and his wife for three years, Mr. Wolfe thinks it likely—or, say, possible—that at some time you saw or heard something that would help. Remember he is assuming that someone else killed Molloy. He thinks it’s very improbable that a situation existed which resulted in Molloy’s murder, and that he never said or did anything in your presence that had a bearing on it.”
    She shook her head, not at me but at fate. “If he did,” she said, “I didn’t know it.”
    “Of course you didn’t. If you had you would have told Freyer. Mr. Wolfe wants to try to dig it up. He couldn’t ask you to come to his office so he could start the digging himself, because he has to spend two hours every afternoon playing with orchids, and at six o’clock he has a conference scheduled with four of his men who are going to be given other assignments—on this case. So he sent me to start in with you. I’ll tell you how it works by giving you an example. Once I saw him spend eight hours questioning a young woman about everything and nothing. She wasn’t suspected of anything; he was merely hoping to get some little fact that would give him a start. At the end of eight hours he got it: she had once seen a newspaper with a piece cut out of the front page. With that fact for a start, he got proof that a man had committed a murder. That’s how it works. We’ll start at the beginning, when you were Molloy’s secretary, and I’ll ask questions. We’ll keep at it as long as you can stand it.”
    “It seems—” Her hand fluttered. I caught myself noticing how nice her hands were, and had to remind myself that that had all been decided. She said, “It seems so empty. I mean I’m empty.”
    “You’re not really empty, you’re full. When and where did you first meet Molloy?”
    “That was four years ago,” she said. “The way you—what you want to try—wouldn’t it be better to start later? If there was a situation, the way you say, it would have been more recent, wouldn’t it?”
    “You never know, Mrs. Molloy.” It seemed stiff to be calling her Mrs. Molloy. She fully deserved to be called Selma. “Anyhow, I have