"But that's absolutely idiotic! Why shouldn't you come here?"

"All right, I should. But I think they came within an inch of arresting me."

"Then you need a lawyer. Where's Demarest? Did he send you to Nero Wolfe?"

Cynthia shook her head. "I haven't seen him, but I'm going to as soon as -"

"Damn it, you should have seen him first!"

"I'm not taking your time," Cynthia declared, "to ask you what I should have done. I'll tend to that, thank you. I want to ask you to do something."

I thought she was making a bad start and needed help. "May I join in?" I inquired pleasantly.

Bernard scowled at me. "This thing is absolutely crazy," he complained. "What we ought to do is ignore it! Simply ignore it!"

"Yeah," I agreed, "that would be innocent and brave, but it might get complicated. If one of you gets charged with murder and locked up it would take a master ignorer -"

"Good God, why should we? How could we? Why would any of us kill a man we never saw or heard of before? The thing for the police to do is find out how he ever got in here – that's their problem."

"I completely agree," I assured him heartily. "The trouble is you've got a logical mind and some cops haven't. So the fact remains that one of you, especially one of you that has a key to this place, is apt to get arrested for murder, and right now the odds strongly favor Miss Nieder because they know she used her key last night. Getting convicted is something else, but she would rather not even be arrested right in the middle of the showings of the fall line. May I go on a minute?"

"We're busy as the devil," Bernard muttered.

"I'll be brief. Miss Nieder has hired Mr. Wolfe. She will consult her lawyer, Demarest, within the hour. But meanwhile -"