OTTAWA—After about 70 minutes of a tough morning’s work, Conservative senators brought down the gavel Thursday, satisfied they had got to the bottom of one thread of the Senate-PMO scandal.

They may have been a majority on the committee, but they are a tiny minority in the real world.

The fact is, it is getting tougher each day to slither under the ethical limbo bar in this town.

Senators heard from a trio of Deloitte auditors, mere players in a larger issue — a request from Stephen Harper’s chief of staff, Nigel Wright, to Conservative Sen. Irving Gerstein, to call a Deloitte managing partner and have him provide an update to the Prime Minister’s Office on the status of a supposedly independent, politically volatile, audit of the expenses of disgraced Sen. Mike Duffy.

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It seemed everyone was in the Senate committee room to hear some answers, except, of course, the two men who could have provided the definitive answers, Gerstein and his Deloitte managing partner buddy, Michael Runia.

Their absence indicated Conservatives needed to merely hear assurances from the auditors that everything was just fine, before calling it a day.

They got that, even if they left a trail of questions behind with the empty coffee cups in the room:

Was it appropriate for Gerstein, the party’s chief fundraiser and self-described bagman extraordinaire, to contact Runia, a senior Deloitte partner, the auditor of the Conservative Fund Canada and loyal Conservative financial contributor?

Was it appropriate for Runia to take the call?

Was it then appropriate for him to call the lead auditor on the Duffy file, Gary Timm, to ask him if Duffy agreed to repay money owed, “how much would that be?”

Was it appropriate for Timm to share the information about the call only with his colleagues and not the Senate committee for whom he was working?

Can we really believe that such a call from a boss, a man Timm had never even met, did not, as Timm testified, exert any influence over the audit?

How did PMO staffer Patrick Rogers, according to emails released in the RCMP affidavit, know in mid-March that Deloitte would not be able to determine Duffy’s primary residence, weeks before the audit was complete, something Deloitte auditor Alan Stewart, called “troubling?”

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And one other question, the most important one here, for the prime minister:

Why is Gerstein still a member of good standing in the Conservative Senate caucus?

Gerstein was already involved up to his eyeballs in the $90,000 payment from Wright to Duffy when he placed the call to Runia.

The reason for the call to Deloitte, according to RCMP documents, was that a deal had been cooked with Duffy by Wright that, in turn for the $90,000 to be repaid, Deloitte would stop short of determining his primary residence.

The audit ultimately could not determine Duffy’s primary residence, Deloitte said, because of a “lack of clarity’’ in Senate guidelines.

Gerstein has fallen silent since the release of police allegations, but he proudly told his Conservative colleagues at the Calgary convention that he “made it absolutely clear to Nigel Wright” that the Conservative fund would not pay any of Duffy’s expenses, merely his legal expenses of more than $13,000.

But according to the RCMP affidavits, Gerstein was willing to use the fund when it appeared Duffy owed $32,000, only balking when the tab rose north of $90,000.

In fact, Wright told the RCMP that Gerstein initiated contact, asking if there was anything he could do to help in the Duffy matter.

After offering up $32,000 from the party, Gerstein was also among the first to be informed by Wright that he had decided to pay the $90,000 out of his own pocket.

Rather than inform anyone of this, it appears Gerstein suggested Wright file a $60,000 claim for previous legal fees that Wright had incurred and paid out of his own pocket.

Gerstein is valuable to the prime minister for his fundraising prowess. Duffy had the same reputation. That counts for a lot in this party.

Gerstein and Runia have quite a tale to tell, but you won’t be hearing it at a Senate committee.

In his last act as a senator, chair Gerald Comeau won the backing of his Conservative colleagues to block Runia from being called before the committee.

The morning was succinctly analyzed by Liberal Sen. Paul Massicotte in his comments to the Deloitte trio.

“It kind of smells, really a lot,’’ said the senator. The odour lingers.

Tim Harper is a national affairs writer. His column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. tharper@thestar.ca Twitter:@nutgraf1

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