And be a Villian

“Sure, they've told you that.”

“Or that your laboratory has found traces of a certain substance, in a band half an inch wide, encircling the neck of the bottle.”

“They haven't told you that' Cramer's eyes got narrower. “There are only six or seven people who could have told you that, and they all get paid by the City of New York, and by God you can name him before we go any farther.”

“Pfui.” Wolfe was disgusted. “I have better use for my clients' money than buying information from policemen. Why don't you like my proposal? What's wrong with it? Frankly, I hope to heaven you accept it, and immediately. If you don't I'll have to hire two dozen men and begin all over again on those people, and I'd rather eat baker's bread-almost.”

“All right.” Cramer did not relax. “Hell, I'd do anything to save you from that.

I'm on. Your proposal, as you have twice stated it, provided I get the fact, and all of it, here and now.”

“You do. Here it is, and Mr Goodwin will have a typed copy for you. But first-a little detail-I owe it to one of my clients to request that one item of it be kept confidential, if it can possibly be managed.”

“I can't keep murder evidence confidential.”

“I know you can't. I said if it can possibly be managed.

“I'll see, but I'm not promising, and if I did promise I probably wouldn't keep it. What's the item? Give it to me first.”

“Certainly. Miss Fraser can't drink Starlite because it gives her indigestion.”

“What the hell.” Cramer goggled at him. “Orchard didn't drink Starlite, he drank coffee, and it didn't give him indigestion, it killed him.”

Wolfe nodded. “I know. But that's the item, and on behalf of my clients I ask that it be kept undisclosed if possible. This is going to take some time, perhaps an hour, and your glass and bottle are empty. Archie!”

I got up and bartended without any boyish enthusiasm because I wasn't very crazy about the shape things were taking. I was keeping my fingers crossed. If Wolfe was starting some tricky manoeuvre and only fed him a couple of crumbs, with the idea of getting a full-sized loaf, not baker's bread, in exchange, that would be one thing, and I was ready to applaud if he got away with it. If he really opened the bag and dumped it out, letting Cramer help himself, that would be something quite different. In that case he was playing it straight, and that could only mean that he had got fed up with them, and really intended to sit and read poetry or draw horses and let the cops earn his fee for him. That did not appeal to me. Money may be everything, but it makes a difference how you get it.

He opened the bag and dumped it. He gave Cramer all we had. He even quoted, from memory, the telegram that had been sent to Mom Shepherd, and as he did so I had to clamp my jaw to keep from making one of four or five remarks that would have fitted the occasion. I had composed that telegram, not him. But I kept my trap shut. I do sometimes ride him in the presence of outsiders, but rarely for Cramer to hear, and not when my feelings are as strong as they were then.

Also, Cramer had a lot of questions to ask, and Wolfe answered them like a lamb.

And I had to leave my chair so Cramer could rest his broad bottom on it while he phoned his office.

“Rowcliff? Take this down, but don't broadcast it.” He was very crisp and executive, every inch an inspector. “I'm at Wolfe's office, and he did have something, and for once I think he's dealing off the top of the deck. We've got to start all over. It's one of those goddam babies where the wrong person got killed. It was intended for the Fraser woman. I'll tell you when I get there, in half an hour, maybe a little more. Call in everybody that's on the case. Find out where the Commissioner is, and the DA. Get that Elinor Vance and that Nathan Traub, and get the cook at the Fraser apartment. Have those three there by the time I come. We'll take the others in the morning. Who was it went to Michigan-oh, I remember, Darst. Be sure you don't miss him, I want to see him…”

And so forth. After another dozen or so executive orders Cramer hung up and returned to the red leather chair.

“What else?” he demanded.

That's all,” Wolfe declared. “I wish you luck.”

Having dropped his chewed-up cigar in my waste-basket when he usurped my chair, Cramer got out another one and stuck it in his mouth'without looking at it.

“I'll tell you,” he said. “You gave me a fact, no doubt about that, but this is the first time I ever saw you turn out all your pockets, so I sit down again.

Before I leave I'd like to sit here a couple of minutes and ask myself, what for?”

Wolfe chuckled. “Didn't I just hear you telling your men to start work for me?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” The cigar slanted up. “It seems plausible, but I've known you to seem plausible before. And I swear to God if there's a gag in this it's buried too deep for me. You don't even make any suggestions.”

“I have none.”

And he didn't. I saw that. And there wasn't any gag. I didn't wonder that Cramer suspected him, considering what his experiences with him had been in the past years, but to me it was only too evident that Wolfe had really done a strip act, to avoid overworking his brain. I have sat in that office with him too many hours, and watched him put on his acts for too many audiences, not to know when he is getting up a charade. I certainly don't always know what he is up to, but I do know when he is up to nothing at all. He was simply utterly going to let the city employees do it.

“Would you suggest, for instance,” Cramer inquired, “to haul Miss Fraser in on a charge of tampering with evidence? Or the others for obstructing justice?”

Wolfe shook his head. “My dear sir, you are after a murderer, not tamperers or obstructors. Anyway you can't get convictions on charges like that, except in very special cases, and you know it. You are hinting that it isn't like me to expose a client to such a charge, but will you arrest her? No. What you will do, I hope, is find out who it is that wants to kill her. How could I have suggestions for you? You know vastly more about it than I do. There are a thousand lines of investigation, in a case like this, on which I haven't moved a finger; and doubtless you have explored all of them. I won't insult you by offering a list of them. I'll be here, though, I'm always here, should you want a word with me.” Cramer got up and went.

Chapter Thirteen I can't deny that from a purely practical point of view the deal that Wolfe made with Cramer that Friday evening was slick, even fancy, and well designed to save wear and tear on Wolfe's energy and the contents of his skull. No matter how it added up at the end it didn't need one of Professor Savarese's formulas to show how probable it was that the fact Wolfe had furnished Cramer would turn out to be an essential item. That was a good bet at almost any odds.

But.

There was one fatal flaw in the deal. The city scientists, in order to earn Wolfe's fee for him while he played around with his toys, had to crack the case.

That was the joker. I have never seen a more completely uncracked case than that one was, a full week after Wolfe made his cute little arrangement to have his detective work done by proxy. I kept up to date on it both by reading the newspapers and by making jaunts down to Homicide headquarters on Twentieth Street, for chats with Sergeant Purley Stebbins or other acquaintances, and twice with Cramer himself. That was humiliating, but I did want to keep myself informed somehow about the case Wolfe and I were working on. For the first time in history I was perfectly welcome at Homicide, especially after three or four days had passed. It got to be pathetic, the way they would greet me like a treasured pal, no doubt thinking it was just possible I had come to contribute another fact. God knows they needed one. For of course they were reading the papers too, and the Press was living up to one of its oldest traditions by bawling hell out of the cops for bungling a case which, by prompt and competent-you know how it goes.