Роберт Голдсборо - Murder in E Minor

“Balls!” Cramer shot back. “I know Wolfe’s up playing with his flowers, but you’ll do. This is important.”

“I’m flattered you’d come all the way up here to see me,” I said, swinging open the door. With his usual manners, Cramer brushed by me and into the office without bothering to take his overcoat off, and he headed straight for the red leather chair. I followed and, since my own desk is across the room from where he’d plopped down, I sat behind Wolfe’s. “I’m only half his weight,” I conceded, “but this chair has strange and wondrous powers. Whenever I sit in it, I feel transformed, as if all the truths of the universe are within my grasp.”

“I know I’ve said it before, but by God, you’ll clown your way to the grave,” Cramer snarled, jamming an unlit cigar into his mouth. “Listen, Archie, this is serious, or I wouldn’t be here.” Whenever he calls me Archie, I know he’s being earnest, or making a pretense of it, so I put on a somber face.

Cramer leaned forward, resting an elbow on the corner of the desk. “Now, I know Wolfe got Milner out on bond — don’t interrupt. Parker won’t tell us anything more than that he’s representing Milner, and that’s his right, but I know damn well that whenever I find Nathaniel Parker involved in anything big in this town, Wolfe’s there as well. Okay, so Milner’s out, and that’s his right, too. I don’t know what Wolfe’s game is, but I’ll tell you this, Archie: He’s playing with a loaded grenade this time.” Cramer jabbed a finger in my direction and went on. “We’ve got Milner cold, and if Wolfe’s trying to drum up business by convincing that Radovich girl that somebody else did it—”

“Come on, Inspector. I know you and Mr. Wolfe have gone to the mat plenty through the years, and that you’ve accused each other of everything from incompetence and bad faith to high treason and murder, but he has never tried to manufacture business without a solid reason, and you know it. The problem is that you’ve got a weak suspect.”

“Weak?” Cramer slapped the arm of his chair. “Point one,” he said, holding out a finger. “Milner and Stevens got into it over Maria Radovich backstage at the concert hall. Half a dozen people heard it, and they all say Stevens insulted and humiliated Milner. Point two, Milner was the only person who entered Stevens’s apartment the night of the murder — he was positively identified by the hallman. Point three, we found Milner’s prints four places in the apartment, including the library. Point four, Milner admits he was in the apartment. And point five, he has no alibi whatever for his whereabouts at any time during the evening of the murder, up to the moment my men arrested him coming home to his place in Queens. And you call that weak?”

“Did you find his prints on those notes Stevens got?” I asked.

“No, although everybody else’s were on them,” Cramer said with a scowl. “Stevens’s own, of course, and Maria Radovich’s — and yours. But he probably had the presence of mind to wear gloves when he printed them.”

“But he didn’t have the presence of mind to wear gloves in Stevens’s apartment?”

“I can’t answer for his actions,” Cramer said, raising his voice, “but I do know there’s enough on him now to put him away. I also know the pressure to clean up the case is coming all the way from Albany, and if Wolfe gets the least bit out of line on this one, his license is gone like that.” Cramer snapped his fingers. “And yours too. You damn near lost it on the Cather thing, you know. Someday I’ll tell you why you didn’t.

“Look, Archie” — Cramer leaned forward and lowered his voice — “I like you, in spite of everything in the past. And I even kind of like Wolfe, although I can’t talk to him without blowing up; that’s why I came at this hour. I can reason with you — at least I think I can. I’m telling you that the commissioner and the D.A. are really watching Wolfe on this one. They’d like nothing better than an excuse to lift his license. As a friend, I’m asking you to talk Wolfe out of going on with this. Yeah, I know you’ll say you don’t have any influence over him, but we both know damn well that he listens to you. Don’t let him make a fool of himself on this one.”

“Inspector, as a friend I’m telling you that even if I did have the kind of influence over Wolfe you think I do, I wouldn’t try to whistle him off, and for a very simple reason: I don’t think Gerald Milner killed Stevens either.”

Cramer stood up and threw his cigar at the wastebasket. It went in for the first time I can remember, and he headed for the hall. “I tried,” he said as he opened the front door. “Just don’t say I didn’t try.” I started to answer, but he’d already slammed the door, and by the time I looked through the panel, he was climbing into the unmarked car that had been waiting at the curb.

I finally did get through breakfast and the Times, but didn’t have much time for general housekeeping chores in the office before Wolfe came down. By eleven-oh-one, though, when I heard the sound of the elevator, I had managed to dust, empty wastebaskets, and make a little progress on the germination records.

“We had a visitor after I talked to you on the house phone,” I told Wolfe when he was settled in the chair that I had occupied an hour earlier. His face asked the question. “Inspector Cramer popped in to wish us a pleasant day,” I went on. “Actually, he wasn’t as interested in our having a nice day as he was that we quit the case. Seems the drive to get this one cleaned up fast is coming from all quarters, including the governor’s office. If you want it verbatim, I can just about work it in before Remmers arrives,” I said, looking at my watch.

“No, just the essentials,” Wolfe said, riffling through the stack of mail I’d put on his blotter. I fed it to him fast, including Cramer’s hint that he’d saved our licenses in the Cather mess. There was nothing in the mail to hold his interest, so Wolfe leaned back and closed his eyes during my recitation, grimacing occasionally at a comment of Cramer’s.

“Pfui,” he said when I was finished. “Mr. Cramer obviously came here at the insistence of others, probably the commissioner or the district attorney. It wasn’t a fishing expedition, since the inspector didn’t seem interested in any other suspects we might have. They’re putting all their chips on Mr. Milner, to use one of your phrases. And they don’t want—” The doorbell rang.

“He’s sure prompt,” I said, nodding toward the wall clock, which read eleven-fifteen. “By the way,” I added, clearing my throat, “you should know that I didn’t call Remmers — he called us. He wanted to see you.”

“Indeed. Bring him in.”

Standing on the stoop, Jason Remmers looked just like his pictures on the society pages — tall, at least six-three, lean, long-faced, and very, very distinguished. “Mr. Remmers,” I said, opening the door, “I’m Archie Goodwin. Please come in.”

“Thank you,” he said, offering a large hand with a strong grip. I took his homburg and black cashmere overcoat in the front hall and ushered him into the office. “Mr. Wolfe, Mr. Remmers,” I said. Wolfe stayed seated, nodding his head, and Remmers, apparently aware of his host’s aversion to handshakes, didn’t offer a paw. “It’s a privilege to meet you, Mr. Wolfe,” he said in his baritone. “I’ve read and heard so much about you and this office. I never thought I’d get here, and I only wish the circumstances were more pleasant,” he said, settling into the red leather chair.

“Unfortunately,” Wolfe said, “most of the people who come here do so because of less-than-happy circumstances. I understand that you had wanted to see me?”