Black Orchids by Rex Stout Page B

said evenly, “you’ve done too much guessing already.”
    “I’ll try one more. Gould saw Pete Arango at the Flower Show, and the temptation was too much for him. He threatened him again, and made him sign another confession, and armed with that made another demand on you. What this time? Ten thousand? Twenty? Or he may even have got delusions of grandeur and gone to six figures. Anyhow, you saw that it couldn’t go on. As long as ink and paper lasted for Pete Arango to write confessions with, you were hooked. So you-by the way, Mr. Updegraff, he’s up there at your exhibit, isn’t he, and available? Pete Arango? We’ll want him when Mr. Nelson arrives.”
    “You’re damn right he’s available,” Fred said grimly.
    “Good.”
    Wolfe’s head pivoted back to Hewitt. He paused, and the silence was heavy on us. He was timing his climax, and just to make it good he decorated it.
    “I suppose,” he said to Hewitt in a tone of doom, “you are familiar with the tradition of the drama? The three traditional knocks to herald the tragedy?”
    He lifted the osmundine fork and brought it down again, thumping the floor with it, once, twice, thrice.
    Hewitt gazed at him with a sarcastic smile, and it was a pretty good job with the smile.
    “So,” Wolfe said, “you were compelled to act, and you did so promptly and effectively. And skillfully, because, for instance, Mr. Cramer has apparently been unable to trace the revolver, and no man in the world is better at that sort of thing. As Honorary Chairman of the Committee, naturally you had the run of the exhibit floors at any hour of the day; I suppose you chose the morning, before the doors were opened to the public, to arrange that primitive apparatus. I don’t pretend to be inside of your mind, so I don’t know when or why you decided to use your own cane as the homicide bait for some unsuspecting passer-by. On the theory that-“
    The door opened and Theodore Horstmann was on the threshold.
    “Phone call for Mr. Hewitt,” he said irritably. Theodore resented his work being interrupted by anything whatever. “Pete Arando or something?”
    Hewitt stood up.
    Cramer opened his mouth, but Wolfe beat him to it by saying sharply, “Wait! You’ll stay here, Mr. Hewitt! Archie-no, I suppose he would recognize your voice. Yours too, Mr. Cramer. Mr. Dill. You can do it if you pitch your voice low. Lead him on, get him to say as much as you can-“
    Hewitt said, “That phone call is for me,” and was moving for the door. I got in front of him. Dill arose, looking uncertain.
    “I don’t know whether I can-“
    “Certainly you can,” Wolfe assured him. “Go ahead. The phone is there on the potting bench. Theodore, confound it, let him by and come in here and close the door.”
    Theodore obeyed orders. When Dill had passed through Theodore pulled the door shut and stood there resenting us. Hewitt sat down again and put his elbows on his knees and covered his face with his hands. Anne had her head turned not to look at him. That made her face Fred Updegraff, who was next to her, and I became aware for the first time that he was holding her hand. Hardly as private as in a taxi, but he had her hand.
    “While we’re waiting,” Wolfe observed, “I may as well finish my speculations about the cane. Mr. Hewitt may have decided to use it on the theory that the fact of its being his cane would divert suspicion away from him instead of toward him. Was that it, Mr. Hewitt? But in that case, why did you submit to my threat to divulge the fact that it was your cane? I believe I can answer that too. Because you mistrusted my acumen? Because you were afraid my suspicions would be aroused if you failed to conform to the type of the eminent wealthy citizen zealously guarding his reputation from even the breath of scandal? Things like that gather complications as they go along. It’s too bad.”
    Wolfe looked at Hewitt, and shook his head as though regretfully. “But I have no