“As we speak, Debra Mitchell cools her very attractive heels next door. She is eager, very eager, to find out how we — make that you — are progressing in the search for the murderer of her fiancé.”
Wolfe scowled. “She is not a client,” he murmured. “Talk to her; tell her we owe her no information and no explanations.”
“Sorry, but I decline. If I did that, we would be turning our backs on a potential resource. As somebody once said, ‘Waste not, want not.’ ”
“That somebody was named Rowland Howard, and he also penned such memorable phrases as ‘Practice what you preach,’ and ‘You never miss the water till the well runs dry,’ “ Wolfe said, his facial expression making it clear what he thought about the wisdom of Mr. Howard.
“Those phrases make sense to me. Shall I bring Miss Mitchell in?”
He made a growling noise but said nothing, a tacit admission of surrender. I went to that soundproofed door connecting the office with the front room, opening it. “Miss Mitchell, Mr. Wolfe will see you now,” I told her over the sudden banging of the elevator crew and a metallic screech overhead I preferred not to contemplate.
The additional minutes spent waiting hadn’t brightened her disposition any. Debra Mitchell marched into the office with smoke coming out of her pretty ears. I motioned her to the red leather chair and made the introductions before sliding in behind my desk. This figured to be interesting.
She wasted no time on preliminaries. Leaning forward, hands cupping one knee, she said: “Mr. Wolfe, last Thursday — six days ago now — Mr. Goodwin came to see me. He told me that you were investigating Charles’s death. I want to know if you’ve made any progress at all.” She kept the tone even, but it was obvious that anger simmered just beneath the surface.
Wolfe considered her through lidded eyes. “You look more intelligent than that.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that I am not to be dragooned,” he said, flipping a palm. “I have a client, and when I have something to report, that individual will be the sole recipient of the information.”
“I am aware of who your client is — Horace Vinson,” Mitchell fired back. “Why do I know that? Because he told me he was coming to you. I know Horace, and I am just as interested as he is — probably more interested — in seeing Charles’s murderer caught.”
“Just so. But I owe you nothing.”
“I had been told you were arrogant, and that it was to be expected because you’re a genius. Well, if you’re so damn brilliant, why, after all this time, do you still fail to see the obvious?”
“Which is?”
“That Patricia Royce murdered him,” she pronounced venomously. “It hardly takes a genius to figure that out. It is entirely possible that Horace is throwing his money away.”
Wolfe eyed her without enthusiasm. “You sing a different tune from the one you warbled to Mr. Goodwin when he visited you last week,” he said after he had drained the beer in his glass. “At that time, you stopped short of accusing Miss Royce of murder. Something to do with the laws of libel and slander, I believe.”
She leaned back and folded her arms, a sour smile creasing her photogenic face. “That was last week, and in that time apparently not the slightest progress has been made, so I’ll chance it now. Besides, what’s the penalty for libeling somebody who’s a cold-blooded murderer? To hell with worrying about it.”
“I know you told Mr. Goodwin why you think Patricia Royce killed your fiancé,” Wolfe said. “But indulge me, please, madam, by repeating that litany.”
“Hah! I guess that’s really what it is, a litany,” Debra Mitchell responded without hostility. “I know I’m probably wasting my time going over this again, but you asked for it. Patricia really had it bad for Charles — maybe it takes another woman to see that. It was obvious, though, and I met her only a few times, three or four. She’d known Charles for years, since long before I entered his life, and she had what she felt were proprietary rights to him. Then I came along and ruined everything for her, albeit inadvertently. She resented me, to say the least. She probably made one last attempt to talk him out of marrying me, and when that didn’t work, she went into a rage and shot him with his own pistol. She must have been aware he had it. I knew about it, and she was at his apartment a lot more often than I was, using his word processor to work on her damn book. Claimed that her own PC was always breaking down.”
“Indeed. Did Mr. Childress inform you that Miss Royce badgered him to break off his engagement to you?”
She tossed her head in what had to be a well-practiced motion. “No, but then he wouldn’t have. Charles had an irascible side — the way he lashed out at reviewers and editors and others he came in contact with in the professional world. But when it came to interpersonal relationships, he was very tight-lipped. For instance, he never wanted to discuss any of his old flames with me, or any other aspects of his private life, including his family.”
Wolfe glared accusingly at his empty beer glass. “Did you ever question him about the nature of his relationship with Miss Royce?”
“Just once. As I said to Mr. Goodwin when he came to see me last week, I told Charles on one occasion a few months ago that I thought Patricia was in love with him. He just laughed at me. He said they were just friends, professional friends, and that the idea of Patricia being romantically interested in him was laughable. So I dropped the subject. After all, I was the one who was going to marry him, not our Little-Miss-Phony-Meek-and-Mild.” Debra Mitchell’s voice rose with each word until she was almost shouting at the end of the sentence. She suddenly looked surprised, probably at hearing her own voice, and she sunk back into the chair, exhaling loudly.
“Did you believe Mr. Childress when he said Miss Royce was not interested in him?” Wolfe asked.
“I believe that he believed it. But it’s remarkable how many men, even supposedly sensitive ones, are totally oblivious to the signals women send out.” She seemed to speak from centuries of experience.
“Did Miss Royce ever threaten you?”
“No, but threats aren’t her style. I see her as more the sneaky type.”
“Madam,” Wolfe said, “if Miss Royce were as distressed as you suggest, and as enamored of Mr. Childress as you suggest, does it not seem likely that she would do violence to you, the interloper, rather than to him, the beloved?”
“Huh! You’re being logical, which I would expect, but people in love rarely are.” She sneered triumphantly. “They act on impulse. I know, I’ve been there on occasion myself.”
“While in the throes of romance, you, too, have been impulsive?”
Debra Mitchell started to smile but checked herself. “Yes — not to the point of murder, of course. I was tempted to do violence to a man once, years ago, but... well, that’s another story,” she said, brushing her hair away from her face with a hand. “Back to Patricia Royce; there is no question whatever in my mind that she aimed that gun at Charles and pulled the trigger.”
“I will not dispute the depth of your conviction, but there appears little substance behind it,” Wolfe pronounced evenly. “Mr. Childress never spoke to you — or apparently to anyone else — about Miss Royce having a romantic interest in him. And when you questioned him, he laughed it off. Miss Royce said nothing to you — or apparently to anyone else — about her feelings toward Mr. Childress. Can you suggest some other individual who might be able to supply details about the relationship between these two?”
She shook her head. “I can’t,” she responded in barely more than a whisper. “I told you earlier that Charles was extremely close-mouthed about his personal relationships. He was extremely uncomfortable discussing his feelings. I don’t think he had any true confidants. He probably was as close to Horace as to anybody else — other than me, of course. And he only mentioned Patricia to him once or twice, and then just in passing. I know — I asked Horace about it after Charles was killed.”