These days Thanksgiving seems to be becoming the lost holiday, but not if you know Lily Rowan. Every year, as soon as Hallowe'en is put back into storage, she springs into action, calling in favors, making arrangements, pleading and scrounging and harassing. The year before she'd managed a dinner for fifty of the city's less fortunate, feeding them so well I thought some of them might pass out at the table. Now she was making noises about doubling down.

Anyone in her orbit was bound to get recruited for duty, and I was designated volunteer number one, whether I liked it or not. Not that I minded, but I did sometimes have to remind her that Mr. Wolfe signed my paychecks and I had certain obligations.

Wolfe himself is no fan of the holiday. "An exemplar," he said once when I asked him.

"Of what?"

"National attitudes. The one day a year when even the type of citizens who never pay attention to their food have an ironclad social excuse to do so, and what happens? An indiscriminate orgy of gluttony! The apparent goal being to force as much food down one's gullet as possible in the shortest time, like a Strasbourg goose."

Anyway, it was a week into November and I was already taking every hour I could be spared to help with the circus, and among other things this meant there were a few days when I didn't read the news in the morning as carefully as I normally would, which may have been why I missed noticing that a man named Richard Carter had died. On the other hand, Wolfe missed it too, so maybe it wasn't in the news. The name wouldn't have meant anything to me if I had noticed, and I didn't research him until after Evelyn Hayes came to see us.

She did it properly: arranged an appointment and followed my suggestion for the best time. The bank account was in great shape, which to me was exactly the point. Wolfe hadn't felt the need to take a job since the end of September, and between that and my spending half my time on the Thanksgiving brigade, I was feeling like I wasn't earning my pay--specifically, for the part of my job that involves keeping him from sitting behind his desk being complacent for two months.

"Evelyn Carter, legally," she said, as he watched her through barely open eyes, "but I haven't used his name for some years now, ever since we stopped living under the same roof."

She had passed fifty, and she wore it well. Not attractive in the perpetual-youth way some people try for, and she never had been, but the angles in her face worked for her, and she knew it and also knew that was more than sufficient. Her dress was strictly off-the-rack, and not the high-end kind of rack, but she'd chosen it carefully and it was exactly right. She didn't care whether she had gray hairs.

"I don't handle divorce cases," Wolfe said.

I don't know whether he meant for her to notice he was being rude, but she did. "My husband was murdered three days ago, Mr. Wolfe," she said, "so even if I had meant to divorce him I'd say that was unnecessary now. At any rate, we got along quite well both before and after our separation. We just didn't care to live together."

"My apologies. Whom do you suspect of having killed him?"

"The only person I can think of is Harrison Carroll, his business partner, as unlikely as it seems."

"Why is it unlikely?"

"Because they worked closely together for twenty years and as far as I know never had a serious argument. Also, he would have realized it would destroy the business. All the money was Richard's. Harrison found the clients; Richard provided the cash."

"Venture capital," I said. The phrase "Carter and Carroll" had just popped out of a drawer of the filing cabinet in my brain.

"That's right," she said to me. "Do you know the company?"

"No, that's all I have," I replied.

"Are there any suspects you would care to propose as more likely?" Wolfe said. "Apart from Mr. Carroll and yourself?"

She wasn't the least bit startled. "Of course you have to say that, but if I had killed him, I would hardly try to hire you."

"On the contrary," Wolfe replied, "I have been hired on those deceptive terms on several occasions. In each of those cases, the client came to regret having done so. Under the circumstances I must ask about your financial arrangements with your husband. Did he provide you with an income even after you were no longer living in the same home? Also, what are the terms of his will, to the best of your knowledge? Are there children? Other legatees?"

"He did provide me with an income," she said. "I didn't ask for much of one. Money has never interested me beyond what I need to live on. I suppose I inherit. There are no children, and he has no close living relatives. I think there may be a cousin."

"You say that 'Richard provided the cash.' I take that to mean that Mr. Carroll is not wealthy himself?"

"Only what he's made from the business. Richard could easily have insisted that the bulk of the profits go to him, since he provided most or all of the investment money, but he valued Harrison's ability to find likely projects and shared out generously. I never heard a complaint."

"But would you have heard?" Wolfe asked. "You haven't lived with your husband for some years now, you say. Did you still discuss his business with him after that time? Would you have been aware, for example, if the business relationship between the two of them had been deteriorating?"

"Oh, yes," she said. "I saw Richard regularly. We had dinner together two or three nights a week. We discussed everything, confided in each other. You think that's strange, I suppose."

"Not necessarily," he replied. "Some would consider it the optimal way to conduct a relationship. Very well, let us assume tentatively that you did not kill your husband. You've presented me with only one alternative. This increases the difficulty of the task."

"Doesn't knowing who to pursue make it easier?"

Wolfe made the tiny side-to-side head movement he thinks is an emphatic 'no.'

"If we can't crack him," I told her, "we have nothing else to chase."

"I really can't think of anyone else," she said. "I've already told you Richard had no family, and he didn't have any scandals either. There aren't any ex-girlfriends or jealous husbands. None of their clients had a grievance, and--" She paused. "No, I can't think of any other possibilities."

-----

There wasn't much more to the interview. Wolfe wasn't prepared to make bricks without straw and we couldn't even start to look at opportunity until I could find out more about the circumstances of the murder. Ms. Hayes told us her husband had been shot at his office late on Monday evening, November fourth. She knew almost nothing else about the circumstances of the crime, but confirmed that she had no alibi; she had been at her apartment alone that night. I got a few addresses from her and that was it.

Because we were assuming tentatively, I didn't expect Wolfe to ask me the odds, and he didn't, but he did say (with his eyes closed), "She says she is uninterested in money. Is she telling the truth?"

"That dress is strictly bargain-basement but she picked it so well you don't notice. Of course she could have chosen it just to give that impression. Any instructions for the moment besides Stebbins and whatever I can get about Carter and Carroll? Are we shadowing Carroll, or do you want to wait on that?"

"There is no point postponing the inevitable. Is Saul available?"

"Maybe not immediately. He was finishing up a job yesterday. I can get Fred if he isn't."

"No. Fred will be needed to follow Ms. Hayes."

So we weren't one hundred percent assuming tentatively, then.

There are a lot of people in my business who do it all on the telephone, or try to. I don't, and maybe that makes me a throwback, but besides trying to earn my paycheck, I think I get better results in person. It's a lot harder to tell someone to go to hell when they're standing in your doorway. With Sergeant Purley Stebbins, in particular, the odds always worked out better that way. On the phone he might hang up on you even if he was in a good mood. Seeing you in person reminded him that you were a human being.

He was in such a good mood that day, though, that it made me suspicious.

"Tiny office. Three desks--Carter, Carroll, and the kid they had to answer the phones and handle anybody who visited, which didn't happen much. The way they worked, if Carroll found a prospect, he went to them. Then he'd come back and talk it over with Carter at the office, usually at night. The secretary says she'd go days without seeing either of them."

"And he was killed pretty late, right?"

"About ten, forensics says. Now you're gonna ask me to tell you all about it."

"Well, I wouldn't want to push my luck."

He shook his head. "Yeah, you'd never. Nine millimeters, in the forehead, from less than three feet away. He was sitting and the angle says the shooter was standing. Walked right up to his desk, one shot, then walked out. No prints you wouldn't expect, no disturbance, no witnesses, no weapon."

"Who could get into the office?"

"Carter, Carroll and the secretary. Carter's widow had a key but says she doesn't remember what she did with it."

"Uh-huh. You've made up your mind."

"Look." He leaned back in his chair and scratched his neck. "If Wolfe wants to run the wrong way, that's the kind of thing he does, but you, I figure you oughta know better. Carroll had everything to lose, and she had a lot to gain."

That was when I realized why he was being so generous. "Maybe you're right. So how come you're not counting him out?"

He looked around. Stebbins doesn't get nervous, but it was whatever was next door to that. I had to be careful. If I went anywhere near "I can't help you if you don't tell me," he'd growl that hell would freeze over before the police ever needed my help or Wolfe's, and that'd be all I'd get.

It took him a minute to make up his mind. "Keep it to yourself, understand?"

I nodded.

"Carroll won't say where he was that night. All we got out of him was he wasn't telling us a damned thing and take it up with his lawyer. We had him in a room all day yesterday. Nothing. Cramer's about ready to blow."

"Yeah, I can see how that'd tick him off. Is Carroll still in custody?"

"No, we figured--"

I never got to hear what they figured. We both heard Inspector Cramer chewing someone out and it sounded like he was coming our way. I didn't want to land Stebbins in the soup after all that generosity, so I nodded goodbye and vanished, heading the direction Cramer wasn't.

I didn't need the rest anyway. If they decided that Carroll wasn't going to talk no matter what thumbscrews they used, it made sense they'd decide to let him out and see what he did.

The problem with chasing down information in person is you do sometimes waste a trip. The source I had in mind for business dirt wasn't in that day and I'd have to try again tomorrow. Instead I went to the offices of Carter and Carroll, where the secretary was still holding down her desk and trying to look like one of her bosses hadn't been shot less than six feet from where she was sitting. Stebbins hadn't bothered to put her on the list, but I like to be thorough. After five minutes I had crossed her off too. She had an alibi, she had no reason to kill her meal ticket, she didn't have any idea Carter would be in the office that night, and she was the kind who couldn't have told a convincing lie about any of it if she tried.

I got home in time to report to Wolfe before dinner. The only part which got a response was Carroll's refusal to alibi, which merited a grunt.

"I was going to ask if you wanted me to try Carroll, but ..."

He shook his head. "The police have applied their techniques and gotten nothing. Until we find a better lever, there is little point."

I'd have tried to poke him, since he was clearly already in wait-and-ignore-it mode, but for once I couldn't disagree. It already looked like we were counting on a breakthrough from Saul or Fred, and we'd only been on the job for one afternoon.

-----

The best time to try to tackle Wolfe is after lunch, when he's usually in a good post-meal mood and has enough time before his afternoon date with the orchids to not feel rushed. The second-best time, if you don't think you're going to take very long, is shortly before lunch, which is the time I suggested to Ms. Hayes. The worst time is the period between the afternoon orchids and dinner, when he likes to have peace and quiet to get his digestion ready. The second-worst time is eleven a.m., just as he's coming downstairs from his morning plant session, and is always having trouble resigning himself to the fact that he may have to spend some time earning a living.

Lorraine Taylor arrived, without an appointment, at ten forty-five. I was willing to hear what she had to say, but I hoped I could hear it all in fifteen minutes because otherwise there was going to be an explosion. She was flamboyant. I have learned many new words in my years with Mr. Wolfe. I have also learned he does not like flamboyant people.

"If there's anything I can do, Mr. Goodwin, anything at all, you know the police are sure she killed him--" She wasn't physical, no sweeping movements or hand gestures, but every word was loaded with Drama. She was somewhere around fifty, spent a fair bit of cash on maintenance to keep that number as vague as possible, her dress cost three figures and not a low three, and she sat posed perfectly in the armchair like she was in her own one-woman show on Broadway.

"Did Ms. Hayes send you to talk to us?"

"Well ... not exactly. I just--Evie is so level-headed about everything, always, and it's absolutely exasperating. I don't think she understands how serious this is. Or isn't admitting it to herself. She could go to prison! For the rest of her life!"

"Not if they can't prove a case, and at the moment they can't or she'd already be in custody. It may be that the best answer is to wait and let it all pass."

"At the moment! But what if they find the gun? Or a witness?"

The penny dropped. "You think she did it."

She looked down at the floor. Visibly repentant, but still auditioning. I wondered if she was ever not auditioning. "Mr. Goodwin ... Evie and I have been very close for many years. I don't want there to be even the slightest risk of her going to jail. I have a great deal of money."

I heard the elevator descending. I was fishing around for something to say anyway, and I decided that Ms. Taylor wasn't the only one who could be theatrical. I timed it perfectly for Wolfe's hearing. "So what you are trying to say is, you're prepared to bribe us to help you falsify an alibi for Ms. Hayes?"

"Preposterous," Wolfe said. He sat down at his desk.

"You heard the man," I said to her, "it's preposterous. Ethics aside, what will the police think when you suddenly change your story?"

"The police haven't spoken to me," she said. "They don't know that I have any connection to Evie."

Wolfe was volunteering nothing, so I kept going. "Okay, so you appear from nowhere, claim to be Evie's very close friend with a sudden-death alibi. Even if the claim holds up, if I were the police this would make me more suspicious of Ms. Hayes, not less. If you really want the best chances of keeping her out of trouble, I wouldn't say anything to the police at all."

She looked at Wolfe. He gave his minimal shrug. "I agree with Mr. Goodwin's assessment. However, there is a piece of information you may be able to provide, if you and Ms. Hayes are as close as you say."

"What's that?"

"Did Ms. Hayes have any sort of personal relationship with Mr. Carroll? That is, above and beyond him being her husband's business partner?"

"Evie with Harrison?" She went for "can't decide whether to be astonished or laugh" and nailed it on the first try. "No."

"I have nothing else to ask, then." He began opening the morning's mail. I showed her out. I expected her to raise a fuss, but she was apparently still too busy being stunned by Wolfe's wild ideas.

As I sat back down at my desk, I was trying to decide whether I owed him an apology, even though I hadn't invited her. He surprised me before I could make up my mind. "Please see if Ms. Hayes is available this afternoon."

-----

"I'm very sorry, Mr. Wolfe. I should have mentioned her, though I knew she wasn't involved in this in any way. I certainly didn't tell her to come see you. But it's exactly the sort of thing she does. Lorraine is ... impetuous."

I mentally added that to "flamboyant."

Ms. Hayes continued. "Lorraine and I have been lovers for many years; in fact, for years before I moved out. Richard was aware and had no issues with it. In fact I think he was relieved. Richard was never a very physical person, and he was pleased I had an outlet that he felt he couldn't provide himself. I explain this because I'm sure Lorraine wouldn't have, and I want you to understand exactly how things are. I hope I haven't shocked you."

Wolfe shook his head. "I am difficult to shock, perhaps to my detriment. However, Mr. Goodwin says Ms. Taylor appeared definite about your guilt. That may not be shocking, but it is somewhat surprising." He looked at me.

"That's right," I said. "She was absolutely sure you had done it. She didn't say why."

"That is surprising," Ms. Hayes said. "Even if she'd been getting bad information from somewhere, I'd like to think she'd have--"

"'From somewhere' can only be one of two sources," Wolfe said, "and Ms. Taylor says she has had no contact with the police. Is she friends with Mr. Carroll?"

"They know each other," Ms. Hayes replied. "We've all been at dinner together a few times. But not well. In fact, the last time the two of them were in the same room together I got the impression they didn't like each other very much."

Wolfe pursed his lips briefly. "When I asked you if you could provide any other possible suspects, you hesitated before deciding not to mention Ms. Taylor. I don't suggest you were lying, but I do ask you to explain your reasoning."

"What would the motive be? Jealousy? She knows better than that. There's never been the least sign of any bad feeling between her and Richard. The only reason Lorraine would kill anyone is if she thought it would make good theatre, and then she'd ruin it because she'd want to tell everyone about it afterward, or what would be the point? And if you're going to suggest the two of us colluded, then we really do have to go back to why I would come to hire you in the first place."

Wolfe turned up one corner of his mouth. "Very well. You may wish to caution Ms. Taylor. Her impetuosity is not likely to work in your favor here."

Once I had showed her out and returned to my desk, I couldn't resist. "I guess there's someone for everyone."

"Indeed," Wolfe muttered, without opening his eyes. "Though one wonders. Is there still time today to pursue the business affairs of Carter and Carroll?"

"He's in today," I said. "If I hurry I should be able to see him and get back for dinner."

"Don't be late. Fritz is trying my suggestion for the rack of lamb."

-----

The business affairs of Carter and Carroll, it turned out, were not good. My source said they had made a string of bad choices picking investments and the general opinion was the company was broke. Of course venture capital involves a lot of risk, he added, and it hadn't been the first time they'd been emptied out. Twice before, Carter had added fresh infusions of his own money. My source figured Carter was using the business, easy-come-easy-go, as his idea of philanthropy. Fine for Carter, who could afford it, but not for Carroll, whose share was based entirely on the company's money, not on Carter's personal fortune.

Did Carroll know the company was broke? Definitely, my source said; he would have known before Carter did. Carroll was the man on the ground; he knew which investments were flopping.

I didn't like to admit it, but every new piece of information made Carroll look less and less likely. There was no way he was going to be able to keep the business going unless he found another angel, and as it stood right now, Carter's death left him with just about zero.

The only thing that really kept me going was that refusal to provide an alibi. If he'd done it, then he'd want an alibi; but if he hadn't done it, he'd want an alibi even more. On balance, it seemed to me, his refusal leaned just a little bit toward his having done it. My thinking was, if he provided a fake alibi he'd worry it could be picked apart (and most fake alibis hold water for about a minute and a half), whereas if he just decided to wait it out, his odds were good that soon the police would drop the whole thing.

Wolfe was probably already six steps ahead of me, so I had decided there was no point in giving him the benefit of my wisdom. It wouldn't have made a difference anyway. We had a visitor. I assumed we had a visitor because I could hear Wolfe letting loose at someone. There was usually only one person who annoyed him that much, but I didn't see Cramer's hat or coat, and Cramer wouldn't have been sitting through it that quietly.

I didn't know the man. Nearing sixty, thin, with hollow cheeks and a hairline that had mostly given up. His suit did not fit him well.

Wolfe barely spared me a glance as I sat down. "If you refuse to contribute anything of value, Mr. Carroll," with just enough emphasis that I'd know he was using the name for my benefit, "then why have you wasted my time? It is nearly my dinner hour and I have an extremely limited store of patience."

"I wanted to see what you had," Carroll said, standing up. "You don't have anything. You can yell all you like."

"I never yell," Wolfe said. "Your position, if I may reiterate it for Mr. Goodwin, is that if everyone involved would simply refuse to give the police any information whatsoever, as you have, then time will force them to put aside the matter completely without making an arrest?"

"That's what I said," Carroll replied, adding to me, "except I took half as long to say it."

"Show him out," Wolfe said to me.

True to form, Carroll didn't say a word as he left. I found Wolfe in the kitchen with Fritz. "Dinner will be slightly delayed."

"Inconceivable," I said.

He glared at me. "I needed to divert Fritz to keep watch. Under other circumstances, you would commend me on my caution."

"I suppose he could have been more dangerous than he looked," I agreed. "Is he still our bet?"

"More so." Wolfe was examining the rack of lamb closely, I guess to check it had survived the delay. "We have fifteen minutes. Is that sufficient for a report?"

"I can do it in fifteen seconds. The business was broke. Every time they ran out of cash, Carter put more of his own in, but he won't be around to do it this time. Carroll is left with zip. He knew it, too."

"Confound it," Wolfe said.

"He still could have done it for some other reason. Maybe Carter kicked his dog."

"I don't envision Mr. Carroll as a pet owner." I hadn't expected him to dignify that with a reply. "After fifteen minutes with him, I have difficulty imagining him in any sort of relationship with any other living entity. Weren't we told that he showed a talent for assessing likely investments?"

"Maybe he's gone into a decline. My source did say the business had made a series of bad choices lately."

"Hm."

There was no further work conversation for the rest of the evening. The lamb was delicious.

-----

The next two days were the weekend. We don't observe weekends strictly when we have a job, but we also had nothing else to chase, so Wolfe read his latest book and I went back temporarily to the Thanksgiving task force. I was at Lily Rowan's on Sunday night, decompressing, when Wolfe called.

"Archie. Bring Ms. Taylor here immediately."

"Nine o'clock on a Sunday without warning. It would be good to have a lever."

"If she refuses, I will have no choice but to inform the police that she is a murder suspect."

I had no idea if it was true or not, but it worked nicely. A half hour later we were in the office. Wolfe was as angry as he ever gets, not that the untrained eye could tell. Saul had reported in; Carroll had paid a visit to Lorraine Taylor's house earlier that evening. He had taken some trouble about it, too. He'd lost the cops. He hadn't lost Saul. Better than even money he'd never gotten a glimpse of Saul. There's a reason Saul can get away with charging what he does.

"You have the audacity to try to arrange a criminal act, yet somehow it doesn't occur to you to do the one thing which would genuinely have been useful: telling the truth. You plead your desire to help Ms. Hayes in your vocal performance, then betray her with your actions."

"I would never do that!" It was only the word "betray" that really cracked her. Now she was scared. She wasn't scared of Wolfe, though.

I don't usually cut him off, because I like having a job, but I had caught something. "We can keep it a secret, you know," I said. "We're not privileged like lawyers, but we're hard to dent when we need to be."

She considered it. "You had better be. OK. Harrison is blackmailing me. He's been blackmailing me for three years. He realized that--" She broke off while she tried to figure out how to play the next bit.

"He knew that you and Ms. Hayes were intimate," Wolfe said.

He'd spoiled her dramatic reveal and she wasn't happy about it. "I guess Evie told you. Look, like I said, she doesn't understand sometimes. If it got out--"

Wolfe was, I think, actually puzzled. So was I, come to that. "Ms. Taylor, I recognize that as the world shifts around me I am sometimes slow to shift with it. It's my way, and I don't apologize. Nonetheless, we are no longer in the nineteenth century."

"I don't understand. Oh, no, wait, I do understand. You think it's no big deal. Well, for me it isn't. I mean, everybody knows I'm all over the place. I've got a history. Also I've got money and you can do whatever you want when you have money. But Evie is still married, and she married into money, and people would say she was never interested in him, just his money ... you see?"

"People could say, with equal force, that she was in a relationship with you for your money. 'People' will find something to trump up scandal about despite anyone's best efforts to avoid it. Have you spoken with Ms. Hayes about this?"

"Are you crazy? That's exactly what I'm not supposed to--"

Wolfe nodded. "Consider his reasons for that. What did Mr. Carroll tell you that convinced you Ms. Hayes murdered her husband?"

"Nothing!"

"But you are convinced. You were convinced when we last spoke and you remain so."

"Well ... there are only two people who could have done it. And I know it wasn't Harrison."

"Why?"

"Because Richard was killed on Monday night and Harrison was at my house all night. No, not like that. He liked being able to come over, knowing I couldn't tell him to get lost. You know, I think he was pissed off that Evie and I were together. Like it was ... like, hey, where's mine, what's with you two being together and I don't have anybody. He didn't have anybody, for sure, but that was his own fault."

"Mr. Carroll was at your house Monday night. For how long?"

"He got there at about eight. I finally managed to throw him out around midnight."

Wolfe closed his eyes and said nothing for three solid minutes.

"Ms. Taylor," he said, "you have been, in my opinion, an unmitigated fool."

"Now hang on--"

"Please. I strongly suggest that you have a conversation with Ms. Hayes, in which you explain about the blackmail with utter honesty. The response you get, I think, will surprise you, though it should not. I also note that Ms. Hayes understands the nature of your relationship with far more clarity than you, but this is not irreparable. I also ask a favor. Do not, under any circumstances, tell Mr. Carroll that you have told Ms. Hayes the truth, nor allow her to do so. Let him believe your arrangement continues unchanged."

I thought he delivered it well. She was less impressed, and it took me a while to show her out. Wolfe held it in until I got back to my desk.

"Astonishing. Absolutely astonishing."

For him that was an outburst. "I admit she doesn't seem to be a great communicator."

"Archie, would you remain in a relationship with someone who not only fundamentally misunderstood your nature, but compounded the failure by never once having a conversation about it? You know and I know, based solely on our limited contact with Ms. Hayes, that she wouldn't care a jot if the nature of her relationship was revealed. Ms. Taylor says she also doesn't care. I would wager no one in their social circle would bat an eye. This is a situation that should never have come to pass, and she has allowed it to continue for three years. She is either phenomenally idiotic or oblivious to reality. Furthermore, Mr. Carroll was fully aware of her gullibility or he would never have attempted such a ridiculous ruse."

"You don't have to sell me," I said. "I already thought she was in outer space."

"The consolation," he said, standing up, "is that this provides us with the final piece of necessary information. We'll bring this matter to a conclusion tomorrow." He headed for the elevator.

-----

"Why doesn't he want an alibi?"

The direct approach rarely works with Wolfe, but it was eleven Monday morning and it had been eating at me all night, and I get crabby when anything interferes with my eight hours, so I wasn't feeling subtle.

Wolfe had barely had time to sit down. "Because it would do him more harm than good. Is this the only mail? I had been expecting a package today."

That was all I got out of him, but I knew he actually had the answer, because he was mobilizing. I pulled Saul and Fred and spent the rest of the day explaining to everyone else that there was a get-together that night and attendance was mandatory. This is not my favorite part of the job.

Cramer showed up first, ahead of schedule because he wanted to get the inside track from Wolfe (Cramer and I have butted heads too many times to count, but I've never said he was dumb), which caused a problem because Wolfe had already arranged to have a little private consultation with Ms. Hayes and Ms. Taylor before the rest showed up. We sidestepped this by allowing Cramer to sit in on that conversation. I wasn't in on it; I was watching the door. The rest of the guest list was Saul and Fred, Stebbins, and Harrison Carroll. I'd have been willing to swear we were going to have to strongarm Carroll into coming, but he showed up under his own power. I think he was sure this was nothing and he was going to have a lot of fun watching it.

Once everyone was seated and had been introduced and had been served a beverage of their choice, Wolfe made his grand entrance from the kitchen, where he'd been waiting. He was also not above a little bit of theatrics.

"Forgive me for speaking at length," Wolfe said, sitting at his desk. "I'll be as brief as I possibly can. A week ago today, Richard Carter was murdered in his office. There is general consensus--a consensus we have nonetheless examined and confirmed to our satisfaction--that only two people could plausibly have committed the crime: His business partner, Harrison Carroll, or his spouse, Evelyn Carter, to whom I shall refer by her preferred name, Evelyn Hayes.

"Upon initial examination it would seem that Mr. Carroll had no motive. Indeed, the death of Mr. Carter appeared to leave him in a dire financial situation. However, I was engaged on the premise that Ms. Hayes did not commit the crime, which left me no alternative but to pursue the premise that Mr. Carroll did. If his motive was not financial, then what was it?"

"So you're admitting you steered away from both evidence and logic from the beginning," Carroll said.

"Evidence?" Wolfe said. "What evidence? There is no evidence. In the absence of evidence and with equal opportunity, this has been a matter of motive, and motive alone, from the beginning. As for logic, be careful which stones you cast from your glass house. It is a constant source of annoyance to me to try to conduct my business expecting people to behave in a logical way, only to continually have to recalibrate for behavior that makes absolutely no sense. Yours, in this case, and also Ms. Taylor's. We'll come to that.

"Yesterday I learned that Mr. Carroll was at Ms. Taylor's house on the evening of the murder, for a span of hours which definitively makes it impossible for him to have been at the scene of the crime."

"I hope you're taking notes," Carroll said to Stebbins.

Wolfe raised an eyebrow. "Sgt. Stebbins was taking notes about a number of other things, Mr. Carroll, such as your complete refusal to furnish any sort of explanation of your whereabouts that night. If you were at Ms. Taylor's house that night, then why not say so to the police?"

"Because it was none of their damned business," Carroll said, "and if you give them anything then it gives them an excuse. If you don't tell them anything, then sooner or later they have to let you go."

"They might dispute that," Wolfe said. "At any rate, the real reason is that you didn't want anyone to know where you were. The knowledge that you were at Ms. Taylor's house was far more damaging to you than any suspicions your silence might have aroused."

"Sure," Carroll said, "which is why I decided to go visit Lorraine on exactly the night when people would be knocking themselves out trying to figure out where I was. Do they pay you a lot for this?"

"Ah!" Wolfe said. "That's the point that gave me pause. Even given that you're a fool, that was exceptionally foolish. However, there was a reason. Your appearance there on Monday night was to provide you with an alibi. Not to the police. To Ms. Taylor. It was an alibi for the benefit of one person and one person only. For her, it was essential; you needed her to be absolutely sure you hadn't committed the murder. For everyone else, though, the same alibi was a liability. If anyone knew about it, they would examine it, and they would learn things you did not want them to know.

"Mr. Carroll has been blackmailing Ms. Taylor. He has been threatening to reveal that Ms. Taylor and Ms. Hayes are lovers. We are airing this deliberately, to defuse it. It should have been defused years ago." He glanced at Ms. Taylor and Ms. Hayes, who were sitting together on the sofa with their arms around each other's shoulders.

"The blackmail is the key point. It is more important to us than the murder because it was more important to Mr. Carroll than the murder. Ms. Taylor was paying him a staggering sum. It had become his primary income, far more than anything he made from the operations of Carter and Carroll, and far more reliable. Everything Mr. Carroll has done, every twist and turn, has been based around this: nothing must be permitted to endanger that income.

"This was made far more precarious by a fact that Mr. Carroll was aware of but which Ms. Taylor was not: that if she ever confided in Ms. Hayes about the blackmail, it would immediately be jeopardized, because neither of them actually cared whether the information was revealed to the world. Do you understand? The instant an honest conversation about the topic took place between the two of them, the blackmail would evaporate.

"Mr. Carroll's primary goal was to keep Ms. Taylor intimidated enough to not only avoid discussing it with Ms. Hayes but also the police or anyone else. However, even Ms. Taylor, who has not demonstrated the best judgment, would be likely to go to the police with suspicions against him if she weren't absolutely certain that he hadn't committed the crime. Tolerating blackmail is one thing, tolerating murder another, and since her foremost impulse was to protect Ms. Hayes, finding another suspect was in her interest. Hence the alibi for her benefit alone.

"But consider now what happens if that alibi becomes available to the police. They cannot pick it apart, because it's genuine. But they do investigate it, and in the process of verifying it they learn about Ms. Taylor's relationship with Ms. Hayes. The matter is brought into daylight and Ms. Taylor realizes she has been paying unnecessarily. Or, an alternative: Ms. Hayes is now the primary suspect. Perhaps the police, pressuring Ms. Hayes for motive, learn about her relationship with Ms. Taylor. They investigate and this, too, is sufficient to bring the blackmail to an end. We might even consider a situation in extremis: Suppose the police somehow convict Ms. Hayes of the crime? Ms. Taylor is not likely to continue paying once her lover is in prison. What's a little more scandal under the circumstances? Any amount of inquiry, any change in the situation, suffices to destroy Mr. Carroll's scheme. It cannot withstand even the slightest amount of scrutiny.

"No, Mr. Carroll cannot afford to have an alibi and he cannot afford not to have one. He cannot be the prime suspect, yet he cannot have anyone else be the prime suspect. His only hope is that no one says a word and no one gets arrested and the crime is quietly dropped. This is the only scenario that doesn't endanger his income."

Wolfe took a long sip of his beer. There were nearly two minutes of silence before everyone else in the room realized he had finished speaking.

"That's it?" Stebbins said.

"I can't give you sufficient evidence for murder," Wolfe said. "Perhaps with some investigation you can obtain it. You have everything you need for extortion. I've explained this to my client. She's content with the outcome."

"Only you," Cramer said in exasperation. "All that and you don't answer the two big questions--hold up, you, don't go anywhere." That last was to Mr. Carroll, who had stood up. "Stebbins." Stebbins hovered over Carroll's chair. Carroll sat back down.

"Which two questions?" Wolfe asked him.

"Try 'why' and 'how.'"

"The latter is easier to answer," Wolfe replied. "Because the murder took place in a locked building with no one else present, we are too eager to assume that physical access was an issue. Mr. Carroll arranged it, of course. He provided his key to a hired killer, who entered the building at a time when Mr. Carroll knew Mr. Carter would be there working alone, walked up to Mr. Carter's desk, and shot him before Mr. Carter had time to react. There is very little street traffic at that time of night in that neighborhood. As for the gunman, I believe Inspector Cramer has some avenues to pursue there."

"Yeah, we know some people to ask," Cramer said.

"As for why, the best person to ask is Mr. Carroll." Carroll sat with his mouth clenched. "No, I suppose not," Wolfe continued. "One hypothesis is simply that he and Mr. Carter quarrelled. The business was in a period of decline, and perhaps they blamed each other for it. There is also the possibility that Mr. Carter somehow found out about the blackmail and threatened to expose it. That would really cause a conundrum, wouldn't it, Mr. Carroll? A high risk of endangering the scheme if you killed him, but an absolute certainty of ending it if you didn't."

Carroll's eyes were narrowed.

"Of course I can't prove that," Wolfe said, "but I enjoy contemplating it. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, speaking as Sherlock Holmes, that a blackmailer was worse than fifty murderers. I am inclined to agree."

-----

Ten days later, two weeks to the minute from her initial appearance in Wolfe's office, Evelyn Hayes turned up unexpectedly and I showed her in.

"Ms. Hayes." Wolfe raised one eyebrow a tiny amount to indicate surprise. "I had assumed our business was concluded."

"I'm here to write you another check," she said, "since you returned the previous one."

"I did indicate a corrected amount."

"Yes, and I'm here to write you one for the amount you originally told me, and this time you'll take it."

"I engaged to find your husband's murderer," Wolfe said. "Instead I found your lover's blackmailer."

"Even if that made a difference," she replied, "he confessed yesterday."

Wolfe gave me a look. I nodded. "I hadn't gotten around to mentioning it yet. I guess he decided that he wasn't going to have anything to come back to one way or another."

Ms. Hayes was already writing the check on the small table by the armchair. She stood up and handed it to Wolfe.

"You don't understand, I think," she said. "Lorraine can be frustrating. And I agree that she was very foolish. But I need her. Richard was the same kind of person I am; he saw the world the same way. That's one reason we stopped living together. Too similar for comfort. Lorraine leads me down the damnedest alleys, yet it turns out that's something I can't do myself. I'm not capable of it."

"It's not important for me to understand," Wolfe said. "But, though you may not believe it, I do."

She looked over at me. "Yes. Yes, I suppose you do."

She picked up her purse, nodded to us both, and showed herself out.