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dumped there?”
    “No.”
    “Have you evidence pointing to any other place in this house as the spot where he was killed?”
    “No.”
    “Have you for any reason, evidential or speculative, excluded any of these people from suspicion?”
    “No.”
    Boyle cut in from the couch. “How long do you intend to let this go on, Inspector?”
    “You could have stopped it before it started,” Wolfe said dryly. “But here’s a comment. It is close to unbelievable that Lewent was killed where he was found. From such a blow he died instantly, and surely it was not struck in that narrow passage, particularly since it was moving upward at the moment of impact. With no sign of any struggle, with no displacement of the rug even, I can’t believe that such a blow could be struck—”
    “Skip it,” Cramer growled. “Neither can we.”
    “You think he was killed elsewhere?”
    “Yes.”
    “But you don’t know where?”
    “No.”
    Mandelbaum exploded, “What do you think this is, Wolfe, twenty questions?”
    Wolfe ignored him. “My second comment. If he was killed elsewhere, why was the body moved? Because the murderer didn’t want it found where it was. How was it moved? That’s the real question. For vertical transport there was the elevator, but to and from the elevator, how? Was it dragged? That would leave marks, and of course you have looked for them. Have you found any?”
    “No.”
    “Then it wasn’t dragged. Carried? By whom? None of these women would be up to it. Lewent was undersized, but he weighed more than a hundred pounds. By Mr. Huck? It has been established that his legs will take him, with no burden, only a few steps. Then Mr. Thayer? He’s all we have left, but why? That’s another question I must ask you, Mr. Cramer. Why did Mr. Thayer kill Mr. Lewent?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Have you even a decent surmise?”
    “At present no.”
    “Neither have I. But there’s another reason for excluding him, at least provisionally—that he’s not a lunatic.Only a lunatic would carry the body of a man he had just murdered up and down these halls at that time of day, with so great a probability of being seen. No, I think we may conclude that the body was neither dragged nor carried. It only remains—”
    “By God!”
    That was me. It popped out. It is not often that I let myself interrupt Wolfe when he has steam up and is rolling, but that time it hit me so hard that I didn’t even know I was speaking. Eyes came to me, and Wolfe turned his head to inquire, “What is it, Archie?”
    I shook my head. “I’ll save it.”
    “No, we’re through saving. What is it?”
    “Nothing much, only that I suddenly realized that I actually saw the murderer in the act of transporting the corpse. I stood and looked straight at him while he was moving it, and we exchanged words. I don’t like to brag, but don’t you agree?”
    “Yes, I think it likely—”
    “This is one hell of a time to realize it,” Sergeant Stebbins blurted at me.
    “I suggest,” Wolfe told him, “that you post yourself near Mr. Huck. He could have almost anything hidden around that chair, especially under that quilt, and I don’t—”
    “Just a minute, Wolfe.” Mandelbaum had left the couch and was marching. “If you have any evidence against anyone, including Mr. Huck, we want to hear it or see it first.”
    “This is the man,” Huck said in a voice not very steady, “who tried to extort one hundred thousand dollars from me!”
    “And succeeded,” Wolfe declared. “I’m by no means sure I couldn’t collect, though—”
    He stopped, startled. So was I, and the others. Purley Stebbins, who knew Wolfe from away back, had quietly moved to Huck’s chair, at his right elbow, and all of a sudden Huck had jerked his head around and snarled at him in a spasm of fury, “Get away!” It was such a nasty snarl that Mandelbaum, also startled, forgot about Wolfe to stare at Huck. Purley, who had been snarled at by experts in his