I shook my head and told Wolfe, "No, sir. No guarantee with sanctions, but I vote no. My reasons are like yours, but I might mention that I strongly doubt if I would have had the impulse to make her stop crying by kissing her thoroughly if she had jabbed a window pole into a man's face more than a dozen times. No."

Wolfe nodded. "Then that's settled. She didn't, unless we get cornered by facts, and in that case we'll deserve it. The other point, Miss Nieder, is this: Was the man you saw up there a week ago today your uncle, and was it he who was killed last night?"

A "yes" popped out of her. She added, "It was Uncle Paul. I saw him. I went -"

"Don't dash ahead. We'll get to that. Since I'm assuming your good faith, tentatively at least, I am not suggesting that what you told me yesterday was flummery. I grant that you thought it was your uncle you saw a week ago today, and I accepted it then, but now it's too flimsy for me. You'll have to give me something better if you've got it. What was it that convinced you it was your uncle?"

"I knew it was," Cynthia 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."