Rex Stout - Where There's a Will

“I am,” Wolfe agreed. “And arrange a few things, including my mind.” He arose, and looked at Sara. “If you’ll come with me, Miss Dunn? You said you’d like to.”

When Inspector Cramer arrived, a little before six o’clock, I was in the kitchen squeezing lemons. Various things had happened during the hundred minutes since Wolfe had gone off upstairs with Sara Dunn, approximately in this order:

The visitors had departed, not much less downhearted than when they arrived, after informing us that they had checked out of the Hawthorne mansion on 67th Street and moved to a hotel. Daisy’s chumminess with the police accounted for that.

Wolfe had phoned some orders down from the roof. To send Orrie Cather up to him for instructions was the first one. I had done so, and a little later Orrie had come down and left the house. Second, to send Fred Durkin to the address on 11th Street where Eugene Davis was Earl Dawson, with instructions to get him and bring him to the office. I instructed Fred and dispatched him. Third, to get Raymond Plehn on the phone if possible. That one was entirely beyond me. Plehn was the horticultural expert of Ditson and Company, the big wholesale florists. It was still beyond me after I got him, and listened in, and heard Wolfe ask him to come down to the house as soon as possible.

Saul Panzer and Johnny Keems both phoned in, and in both cases Wolfe told me to connect them upstairs and no record was needed, which meant that my powers of dissimulation were not to be subjected to an undue strain, and it didn’t help my temper any that I didn’t even know for whose benefit the dissembling would have been necessary.

Another thing that failed to soothe my temper was the fact that I indulged in a private session of “What’s Wrong with this Picture?” and it didn’t get me anywhere. I got the six snapshots from the safe and took them to a window and studied them with the big glass in the strong light, and as far as solving a murder was concerned I might as well have been studying picture post cards from the Grand Canyon. If it was there, it wasn’t there for me; but I was going on with it when Raymond Plehn arrived. I announced him, and Wolfe told me to have Fritz take him up in the elevator, together with the envelope of snapshots, the magnifying glass, and the thing in the vase in the kitchen which Fred had brought back from Rockland County with his bag of clues. That put me in a first-class mood. I knew it was on the level, for he wouldn’t have got Plehn down there just to make me itch, but I paced the office floor and concentrated on it and couldn’t even get within a mile of a wild guess. I was still stabbing around at it when I heard the elevator descending and Fritz leading Plehn out at the front door. He came to the office to give me the envelope, which I returned to the drawer in the safe without any further attempt at homework.

Meanwhile there had been two more phone calls. John Charles Dunn first, from his hotel room, to say that April had got back from the district attorney’s office safe and sound, with nothing worse than a bad headache, and that Andy Dunn had returned with her but not Prescott. Prescott had remained with them throughout the interview, but then had left them, sending a message to Dunn that he would communicate with him later. The second call was from Fred Durkin. He reported that he had rung the bell marked “Dawson” and got no response, had got admitted by the janitor and gone up to the apartment, and had found the door locked and got no reply to knocks or kicks. He was phoning from a drugstore around the corner. I told him to hold the wire, rang Wolfe on the house line, and relayed instructions to Fred to camp.

Shortly after that, while I was in the kitchen squeezing lemons, Cramer arrived. Fritz put him in the office, and pretty soon I joined him there and offered him a glass of good cold lemonade. He wouldn’t even say no, he merely growled. From the dirty look he gave me, you might have thought I had written to the mayor about him.

I put both glasses on my desk, sat down and told him, “This weather is simply frightful,” and stirred with a spoon.

“To hell with you,” he observed. “I want to see Wolfe.”

“Okay, brother.” I sipped lemonade. “He’ll be down in a few minutes. Nothing you say to him will hurt my feelings any. I intend to resign. He’s being crafty and mysterious again, and I’m fed up with it. You know? People phoning in by the dozen, and I mustn’t listen because I can’t keep my face straight. Phooey. What I am, I’m a helot. A damn flunky. How’s chances for a job on the force?”

“Shut up.”

“All right, I’ll surprise you. I’ll shut up.” I did so, and drank lemonade. I had finished the first glass and was starting on the second when Wolfe entered. Apparently he had left Sara up with Theodore Horstmann, for he was alone. He greeted Cramer, got seated behind his desk, rang for beer, and heaved a sigh.

He regarded the inspector with his eyes nearly shut. “Something new?”

“No.” Cramer’s voice wasn’t pleasant. “Something old.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it and glanced at it, and slid it across the desk. “Take a look at that.”

Wolfe picked it up, glanced over it, let it fall to the desk, and leaned back again. A little noise came from him, something between a gurgle and a chuckle. “That thing’s dated today,” he declared. “I wouldn’t call that old.”

“No.” Cramer agreed, “that part of it’s fresh enough. But what made it necessary — your same old tricks. You’ve got no kick coming. I offered you an open road this morning, and you wouldn’t take it. Okay, I’m doing you a favor by coming after you myself. You’ve done it once too often. Even if I was inclined to play tag with you, I couldn’t. Everybody from the President of the United States down to the president of the senior class at Varney College is trying to horn in. I swear to God. But I’m not apologizing.” He turned a thumb to point it at the paper on the desk. “Skinner suggested that, but I didn’t oppose it. I’ve warned you fifty times you’d fall in some day, and this is it. What the hell did you think, because your clients are people of position and power and influence you could depend on them to pull you out, no matter—”

“I don’t depend on my clients. They depend on me.”

“Well, they’re out of luck this time. I gave you plenty of chance this morning. A chance to spill what Mrs. Hawthorne told you about young Dunn finding that cornflower. A chance to come clean about April Hawthorne’s being there with Naomi Karn disguised with a veil. Just to show you there’s no out on that, we know that Goodwin saw her there and three seconds later saw Mrs. Hawthorne in the library with you. It’s things like those we’re going to discuss downtown, those and a few others. Come on, get your hat. I’ve got a car outside that don’t jolt much.”

Wolfe looked mildly incredulous, and spoke mildly. “Nonsense. Tell me what you want.”

“I told you this morning, and what good did it do me?” Cramer arose. “Come on, they’re waiting for us down at Skinner’s office.”

“Today is Sunday, Mr. Cramer.”

“Correct. I doubt if you can get bail before tomorrow. We’ll find a cot big enough for you.”

“You haven’t got one. This is grotesque.”

“Sure it is. Come on. I may get tired of being polite.”

“You mean this. Do you?”

“I do, you know.”

“Then I request a courtesy. I want three or four minutes to dictate a letter. In your presence.”

Cramer scowled at him suspiciously. “Who to?”

“You’ll hear it.”

Cramer hesitated a moment, sat down, and growled, “Go ahead.”