What time did you leave there?

A little after six o'clock.

Driving? Your own car?

Yes.

With a chauffeur?

No. I have no chauffeur.

Was anyone with you in the car?

No, I was alone. She gestured with the wedding-ring hand. Of course you're a detective, Mr. Wolfe, I'm not, but I don't see the point of all this.

Then you haven't used your brain. He turned. Tell her, Archie.

He was insulting her. Not caring to bother with something so obvious, he switched it to me. I obliged. You've probably been too busy with the baby to go into it, I told her. Say it was me. I put the baby in the vestibule before I phoned you. I wouldn't have done that if I hadn't known you were there, that the phone would be answered. It's possible that I had hung around until I saw you come home or until I saw a light in the house, but it's even more possible that I knew you were away for the weekend and would get home by dark. I might even have known what time you left Westport. Take the last question: was anyone with you in the car? That would have been the simplest and surest way for me to know when you got home, to be with you in the car. So if you had said yes, the next question would have been, who?

Good heavens. She was staring at me. Someone I know well enough to… She let it hang and turned to Wolfe. All right. Ask anything you want to.

He grunted. Not want. Must if I take the job. You own your house. Where is it?

Eleventh Street near Fifth Avenue. I inherited it. My great-grandfather built it. When I said I was sick and tired of being an Armstead I wasn't just talking, I meant it, but I like the house, and Dick loved it.