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declared. “Maybe if I tried I could tell you how I knew, but I don’t have to because now I do know so I could prove it. I’ve been trying to tell you. You remember what I said about my uncle’s private file—that I thought Jean Daumery had taken it and that Bernard has it now. I went there last night to look for it, and saw that—that dead man there on the floor. You can imagine—”
    She stopped and made a gesture.
    “Yes, I can imagine,” Wolfe agreed. “Go ahead.”
    “I made myself go close to look at him—his face was dreadful but he had the beard and the slick hair. I wanted to do something but I didn’t have nerve enough, and I had to sit down to pull myself together. Now they say I was in there fifteen minutes, but Iwouldn’t think it took me that long to get up my nerve, but maybe it did, and then I went and pulled up the right leg of his trousers and pulled his sock down. He had two little scars about four inches above the ankle, and I knew those scars—that’s where my uncle got bit by a dog once. I looked at them close. I had to sit down again—” She stopped, with her mouth open. “Oh! That’s why it was fifteen minutes! I had forgotten all about that, sitting down again—”
    “Then you left? What did you do?”
    “I went home to my apartment and phoned Mr. Demarest. I hadn’t—”
    “Who’s Mr. Demarest?”
    “He’s a lawyer. He was a friend of Uncle Paul’s, and he’s the executor. I hadn’t told him about seeing my uncle last week because after all I had no proof, and I wanted to find my uncle and talk with him first, so I decided to get you to find him for me. But when I got home I thought the only thing to do was to phone Mr. Demarest, so I did, but he had gone out—”
    “Confound it,” Wolfe grumbled, “why didn’t you phone me?”
    “Well—” Cynthia looked harassed. “I didn’t know you, did I? Well enough for that? How could I tell what you would believe and what you wouldn’t?”
    “Indeed,” Wolfe said sarcastically. “So you decided to keep it from me, running the risk that I might glance at a newspaper. What is the lawyer doing? Reading up?”
    She shook her head. “I didn’t get him. I phoned again at eleven-thirty, thinking he would be home by then, but he wasn’t, and the state I was in it didn’t even occur to me to leave word for him to call. Intending to phone again at midnight, I lay down on thecouch to wait, and then—it may be hard to believe but I went to sleep and didn’t wake up until nearly seven o’clock. I thought it over and decided not to tell Mr. Demarest or anybody else. During a show season there are lots of people going up and down in those elevators in that building after hours, and I thought they wouldn’t remember about me, and my name wasn’t in the book because they know me so well and they’re not strict about it. That was dumb, wasn’t it?”
    Wolfe acquiesced with a restrained groan.
    She finished the story. “Of course I had to go to work as if nothing had happened. It wasn’t easy, but I did, and the place was full of people, police and detectives, when I got there. I had only been there a few minutes when they took me to a fitting room to ask questions, and like a fool I told them I hadn’t been there last night when they already knew about it.”
    Cynthia fluttered a hand. “When they were through with me I phoned Mr. Demarest’s office and he was out at lunch. So I came here.”
VII
    Wolfe heaved a sigh that filled his whole interior. “Well.” He opened his eyes and half closed them again. “You said you want my help in this new circumstance. What do you want me to do? Keep you from being convicted of murder?”
    “Convicted?” Cynthia goggled at him. “Of murdering my uncle?” Her chin hinges began to give. “I wouldn’t—”
    “Lay off,” I growled at Wolfe, “unless you want to make me kiss her again. She’s not a crybaby, but your direct approach is really something. Use