Might as Well Be Dead by Nero Wolfe Page A

telling me, and I’d ask you. I’m asking you.”
    “Tell him I’m engaged and you’ll call him back.”
    I did so, hung up, and swiveled. Wolfe’s lips were tight, his eyes were half closed, and his temple was twitching. He met my eyes and demanded, “You knew him. How much chance is there that he would have let a car kill him by inadvertence?”
    “Practically none. Not Johnny Keems.”
    Wolfe’s head turned. “Saul?”
    “No, sir.” Saul had got to his feet while I was reporting to Wolfe. “Of course it could happen, but I agree with Archie.”
    Wolfe’s head turned more, to the left. “Mrs. Molloy, if Mr. Goodwin was correct when he said that you believe there can be no evidence that will clear Peter Hays, this bitter pill for me is not so bitter for you. Not only can there be such evidence, there will be. Johnny Keems was working for me last night, on this case, and he was murdered. That settles it. You have been told that I thought it likely that Peter Hays is innocent; now I know he is.”
    His head jerked right. “Mr. Parker, the urgency is now pressing. I beg you to move with all possible speed. Well?”
    I wouldn’t say that Parker moved with all possible speed, but he moved. He made for the hall and was gone.
    Degan, lifted from his chair by Wolfe’s tone and manner, had a question. “Do you realize what you’re saying?”
    “Yes, sir, I do. Why? Do you challenge it?”
    “No, I don’t challenge it, but you’re worked up and I wondered if you realized that you were practically promising Mrs. Molloy that Peter Hays will be cleared. What if you’re giving her false hopes? What if you can’t make good on it? I think I have the right to ask, as an old friend of hers.”
    “Perhaps you have.” Wolfe nodded at him. “I concede it. It’s a stratagem, Mr. Degan, directed at myself. By committing myself to Mrs. Molloy, before witnesses, I add to other incentives that of preserving my self-conceit. If the risk of failure is grave for her it is also grave for me.”
    “You didn’t have to make it so damned positive.” Degan went to Mrs. Molloy and put a hand on her shoulder. “I hope to God he’s right, Selma. It’s certainly rough on you. Anything more I can do?”
    She said no and thanked him, and I went to the hall to let him out. Back in the office, Saul had moved back to a seat up front, presumably by invitation, and Wolfe was lecturing Mrs. Molloy.
    “… and I’ll answer your question, but only on condition that henceforth you confide in no one. You are to tell no one anything you may learn of my surmises or plans. If I suspected Mr. Degan, as I did and do, I now have better reason to suspect other friends of yours. Do you accept the condition?”
    “I’ll accept anything that will help,” she declared. “All I asked was what he was doing—the man that was killed.”
    “And I want to tell you because you may be of help, but first I must be assured that you will trust no one. You will repeat nothing and reveal nothing.”
    “All right. I promise.”
    Regarding her, he rubbed the end of his nose with a finger tip. It was a dilemma that had confronted him many times over the years. There were very few men whose tongues he had ever been willing to rely on, and no women at all, but she might have facts he needed and he had to risk it. So he did.
    “Mr. Keems left here shortly after seven o’clock last evening with specific instructions, to see the three people who were with you at the theater the evening of January third. He was to learn—What’s the matter?”
    Her chin had jerked up and her lips had parted. “You might have told me that you suspect me too. I suppose you did, when you said you suspect all of my husband’s associates.”
    “Nonsense. His target was not your alibi. He was to learn all the circumstances of the invitation you got to use an extra theater ticket. That was what got you away from your apartment for the evening. Whoever went there to kill your