Over My Dead Body

He appeared to be preparing to leave his chair. Wolfe displayed a palm.

"Please, Mr Cramer. Good heavens, the corpse is barely cooled off. Would you mind telling me how Mr Faber made himself responsible for the fact that there's been no arrest? I think that was how you put it."

"I might and I might not. Do you know Faber?"

"I've said all those people are strangers to me. I tell only useful lies, and only those not easily exposed."

"Okay. I would have arrested your client-I'm pretty sure I would-if it hadn't been for Faber."

"Then I'm in debt to him."

"You sure are. Except for lack of motive, which might have been supplied and still may be, it looked like Miss Tormic. She admitted she was in there fencing with Ludlow. There was no evidence of anyone else having entered the room, though of course someone could have done so unobserved. Miss Tormic said that when she left the room Ludlow said he would stay and fool with the dummy a while. A dummy is a thing fastened to the wall with a mechanical arm that you can hook a sword on to. She said she went to the locker room and left her pad and glove and mask, and then-"

"What about her йpйe?"

"She said she left it in the fencing room. There's a dozen or more in there on a rack. There was one with a button on it lying on the floor not far from Ludlow's body, presumably the one he had been using. Ludlow had no mask on, but of course it could have been slipped off after he was killed. I see no reason why it should have been, unless to make it look as if he hadn't been fencing at the moment it happened. Nor was there any reason for removing the culdymore as far as I can see except to play hide and seek with it. But about Faber. He was downstairs in a dancing room with Zorka until she went with Ted Gill to show him how to hold a sword. Then he went up and changed to fencing clothes, intending to get Carla Lovchen to fence with him as soon as she was through with Driscoll. He was hanging around the upper hall when Miss Tormic came out of the end room, and Ludlow was there too, opening the door for her to leave. Ludlow called to ask Faber if he cared to fence a little, and Faber said no. He says, Ludlow said all right, he'd practise his wrist on the dummy, and went back in the end room, closing the door, and Faber and Miss Tormic went to an alcove at the other end of the hall and sat and smoked a couple of cigarettes. They were still there when the porter entered the end room to clean up, thinking it was empty, and saw the body and came out squealing. They ran to see what it was, and other people appeared from all directions."

Wolfe, who had closed his eyes, opened them to slits. "I see," he murmured. "You couldn't very well have arrested her after that, even if you had known she was my client. From where they sat did they have a view of the hall?"

"No, there's a corner."

"How long were they sitting there before the rumpus?"

"Fifteen to twenty minutes."

"Did anyone see them?"

"Yes. Donald Barrett. He was looking for Miss Tormic to ask her to have di

"He hadn't looked for her in the end room?"

"No. Miss Lovchen told him she had stopped in the locker room and left her pad and glove and mask, so he presumed she wasn't fencing."

After a little silence Wolfe heaved a sigh. "Well," he said irritably but mildly, "I don't see why the devil you resent my client. She seems to be wrapped in a mantle of i

"Sure, it's simply beautiful." Cramer abruptly got up. "But. there's a couple of little things. So far as is known, she and no one else was in that room with him, and for the purpose of lunging at him with an йpйe. Then the alibi Faber gives her is one of those neat babies that could be 99 per cent true and still be a phoney. All you've to subtract would be the part about his seeing and speaking with Ludlow as Miss Tormic left the end room. I don't claim to know any reason why Faber-"

The interruption was the entrance of Fritz. Inside the door a pace he halted to get a nod from Wolfe, and then advanced to the desk and extended the card tray. Wolfe took the card, glanced at it, and elevated his brows.

He told Fritz to stand by, and looked up at Cramer, who was standing, speculatively.

"You know," he said, "since you're leaving anyway, I could easily finesse around you by having this caller shown into the front room until you're gone. But I really do like to co-operate when I can. One of your ten inmates up there has got loose. Unless they've let him go in order to follow him. which I believe is a usual tactic."

"Which one?"

Wolfe glanced at the card again. "Mr Rudolph Faber."

"You don't say." Cramer stared at Wolfe's face for seven seconds. "This is a hell of time of night for a complete stranger to be making an unexpected call."

"It certainly is. Show him in, please, Fritz."

Cramer turned to face the door.

I chalked up one for the chinless wonder. He may have been shy on chin, but his nerve was okay. While there may have been no reason why the unlooked-for sight of Inspector Cramer's visage should have paralysed him with terror, it must have been at least quite a surprise, but he did no shrinking or blanching. He merely halted in a ma

Cramer grunted something at him, grunted a good-night to Wolfe and me, and tramped out. I got up to greet the newcomer, leaving the front hall politeness to Fritz. Wolfe submitted to a handshake and motioned the caller to the chair that was still warm after Cramer. Faber thanked him and blinked at him, and then turned on me and demanded:

"How did you get away up there? Bribe the cop?"

I could have told, just looking at him, that that was the tone he would use asking a question. A tone that took it for granted any question he asked was going to be answered just because he asked it. I don't like it and I know of no way anybody is ever going to make me like it.

I said, "Write me special delivery and I'll refer the matter to my secretary's secretary."

His forehead wrinkled in displeasure. "Now, my man-"

"Not on your life. Not your man. I belong to me. This is the United States of America. I'm Nero Wolfe's employee, bodyguard, office manager, and wage slave, but I can quit any minute. I'm my own man. I don't know in what part of the world the door is that your key fits, but-"

"That will do, Archie." Wolfe said that without bothering to glance at me; his eyes were on the caller. "Apparently, Mr Faber, Mr Goodwin doesn't like you. Let's disregard that. What can I do for you?"

"You can first," said Faber in his perfect precise English, "instruct your subordinate to answer questions that are put to him."

"I suppose I can. I'll try it some time. What else can I do for you?"

"There is no discipline in your country, Mr Wolfe."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. There are various kinds of discipline. One man's flower is another man's weed. We submit to traffic cops and the sanitary code and so on, but we are extremely fond of certain liberties. Surely you didn't come here in order to discipline Mr Goodwin? Don't try it; you'd soon get sick of the job. Forget it. Beyond that?. "

"I came to satisfy myself as to your position and intentions regarding Miss Neya Tormic "

"Well " Wolfe was keeping his voice oiled-controlling himself. "What is it in you that requires satisfaction? Your curiosity?"

"No. I am interested. I might be prepared, under certain conditions, to explain my interest, and you might find it profitable to help me advance it. I know your reputation, of course-and your methods. You're expensive. What you want is money "