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"They admitted it?"

"They had to. The alternative Mr. Goodwin offered them was worse."

"They killed him. That's obvious. They killed him."

Wolfe shook his; head ''That was an acceptable conjecture until yesterday morning, but they didn't kill their daughter - and that's where my report to you begins. That conjecture was then discarded in favor of another, that that girl had been killed by the person who killed Yeager - discarded by me, not by Mr. Goodwin, who had not accepted it. Summoned to that house Wednesday night by Mrs. Perez, he searched the girl's room and found evidence that supported the second conjecture. Archie?"

I went and got Maria's collection from the safe and took it to him.

He tapped it with a fingertip. "This," he said, "is that girl's carefully hidden record of a secret venture that in the end cost her her life. It is all concerned with Thomas G. Yeager. No doubt it was initiated, as so many ventures are, by simple curiosity, stirred by the existence of the elevator and the room which she was not allowed to see. She found that by turning out the light in her room and opening her door a crack she could see visitors bound for the elevator as they came down the hall. I don't know when she first did that, but I do know that, having started, she repeated it frequently."

He picked up the tear sheet. "These are from the financial pages of the Times, with the entries for Continental Plastic Products marked with a pencil." He put them aside. "These are advertisements of Continental Plastic Products." He put them with the tear sheets. "Labels from champagne bottles. Mr. Goodwin is of the opinion that Miss Perez drank none of the champagne, and I concur. These items are not essentials, they are merely tassels. So are these: newspaper reproductions of photographs, two of Mr. Yeager, one of his son, and one of his wife. I mention them only to show you how diligent Miss Perez was."

He put them with the other tassels and picked up the pictures of Meg Duncan and the bills. "These two items are of more consequence: nine five-dollar bills, and three pictures of a woman who is a public figure - one from a newspaper and two from magazines. I have spoken with her, and Mr. Goodwin talked with her at length yesterday afternoon. The money was extorted from her by Miss Perez, who had seen her in that house and demanded what she called hush money. The woman sent her five dollars a month for nine months, by mail. There is no need to name her."

He opened a drawer, put the pictures and bills in it, and shut it. "But those items raise a question. Call the woman Miss X. Mr Yeager arrived at the house Sunday evening around seven o'clock. Miss McGee arrived a a quarter past nine and found him dead. The conjecture was that Miss Perez had seen some one arrive between those hours, had recognized him or her, had concluded that he or she had killed Yeager, had undertaken a more ambitious venture in extortion, and had herself been killed. Then, since she would have recognized Miss X, why not assume that Miss X was the culprit? A reasonable assumption; but it has been established beyond question that Miss X was at a public gathering Wednesday evening until eleven o'clock, and Miss Perez left the motion-picture theater, to keep her appointment with her intended prey, before nine o'clock."

Aiken flipped an impatient hand. "You said this was urgent. What's urgent about proving that a Miss X is out of it?"

"The urgency will appear. This is a necessary prelude to it. Still another reason for excluding not only Miss X, but others: Whoever went there Sunday evening between seven and nine, with a gun and intending to use it, must have known that no other visitor would be there. What is true of Miss X is also true of every other woman who had keys to that place: First, she couldn't have gone by invitation, since Miss McGee had been invited, and Yeager entertained only one guest at a time; and second, she couldn't have expected to find him alone there on a Sunday evening - or rather, she could have expected to find him alone only if she knew that Miss McGee would arrive at nine o'clock.'' Wolfe's head turned. "Miss McGee. Had you told anyone that you were going there at nine o'clock?"

"No." It came out a squeak and she tried it again. "No, I hadn't."

"Then the others are excluded as well as Miss X. Now for you, madam. And the next item in Miss Perez' collection. These are pencil sketches she made of women she saw in that hall." He picked them up. "She was not without talent. There are thirty-one of them, and they are dated. Mr. Goodwin and I have studied them with care. There are four sketches each of three women, three each of five women, two of one woman, and one each of two women. The one of whom there are two sketches is you, and one of them is dated May eighth. It gave me the surmise, which I tricked you into validating, that you were there Sunday evening. Would you care to look at it?"

"No." This time it was too loud. Wolfe put the sketches in the drawer and returned his eyes to Julia McGee. "It was the fact that those two sketches were in the collection that made it extremely doubtful that it was you who had killed Miss Perez, having been threatened with exposure by her. For there are no sketches of persons whose names she knew. There are none of Mr. Yeager or Miss X. The sketches are merely memoranda; It is highly likely that she had made one or more of Miss X, but when she had identified her from published pictures she discarded the sketches. If she had identified you, if she knew your name, she would have preserved, not the sketches, but the ground for the identification, as she did with Miss X. Surely she would not have made a second sketch of you when she saw you in the hall Sunday evening."

Aiken snorted. "You don't have to persuade us that Miss McGee didn't kill the girl. Or Yeager."

Wolfe turned to him. "I am describing my progress to my conclusion. It is apparent that Miss Perez had assembled, and was keeping hidden, a complete record of her discoveries regarding Mr. Yeager and the visitors to that room. It is certain that she knew the name of the person whom she saw in the hall between seven and nine Sunday evening, since she was able to reach him, to confront him with her knowledge and her threat. Therefore it was a sound assumption that this collection contained an item or items on which her identification of that person was based."

He pointed to the tassels. "Two such items are there: the pictures of Mr. Yeager's wife and son, with their names. I rejected them because they did not meet the specifications. The person who went there Sunday evening with a gun and shot Yeager with it must have had keys and known how to use them, and he must have known that Miss McGee intended to arrive at nine o'clock, since otherwise he could not have expected to find Yeager alone. It was conceivable that either the wife or son met those requirements, but it was highly improbable."

He picked up the remaining item. "Adopting that reasoning, at least tentatively, I was left with this. This is a picture, reproduced in a magazine, of a gathering in the ballroom of the Churchill Hotel, a banquet of the National Plastics Association. Mr. Yeager is at the microphone. The caption gives the names of the men on this dais with him, including you. No doubt you are familiar with the picture?"

"Yes. I have it framed on the wall of my office."

"Well." Wolfe dropped it on his desk. "I asked myself, what if it was you whom Miss Perez saw in the hall on your way to the elevator Sunday evening between seven and nine? What if, having this picture in her collection, she recognized you? What if, later, having learned that Yeager had been killed up in that room - for she must have seen her father and mother transporting the body - she guessed that you had killed him, decided to make you pay for her silence, communicated with you, made an appointment to meet you, and kept it? You will concede that those were permissible questions."

"Permissible? Yes." Aiken was disdainful. "You don't need permission to ask preposterous questions."