Rex Stout - Not Quite Dead Enough (The Rex Stout Library)

“That will do,” Wolfe snapped. His eyes moved. “Archie. Explain this at once.”

“Confronted with this evidence,” Cramer rumbled, “Goodwin refuses to talk. He submitted to a search without protest, with that notebook in his pocket. He permitted us to make a microscopic comparison of the strand of hair with his. But he won’t talk. And by God,” he hit the desk with one of the fists, “you have the gall to come down here, the first time you have ever honored us with a visit, and threaten to have the police department abolished!”

“I merely-” Wolfe began.

“Just a minute!” Cramer roared. “I’ve been taking your guff for fifteen years, and Goodwin has been riding for a fall for at least ten. Here it is. He is not now charged with murder. He is detained as a material witness. But it’s going to take a lot of comedy to laugh off that strand of hair. It’s exactly the kind of thing that could have happened without him knowing it, the girl grabbing at him and seizing his hair, and then when he got the scarf around her, trying to get her fingers behind it to pull it away and leaving the hair there. You’re smart, Wolfe, as smart a man as I ever knew. All right, try to figure out any other conceivable way how Goodwin’s hair got behind that scarf. That’s why we’re prepared to oppose any application for release on bail.”

Cramer pulled a cigar from his pocket, conveyed it to his mouth, and sank his teeth in it.

“It’s all right, boss,” I told Wolfe, trying to smile as if I were trying to smile bravely. “I don’t think they’ll ever convict me. I’m pretty sure they can’t. I’ve got a lawyer coming to see me. You go on home and forget about it. I don’t want you to break training.”

Wolfe’s lips moved faintly but no sound came out. He was speechless with rage.

He took a deep breath.

“Archie,” he said, “you have the advantage over me. There is nothing I can do to you. I can’t dismiss you, since you are no longer in my employ.” His eyes moved. “Mr. Cramer, you are an ass. Leave Mr. Goodwin alone with me for an hour, and I’ll get you all the information you want.”

“Alone with you?” Cramer grunted derisively. “Not that big an ass I’m not.”

Wolfe grimaced. He was having all he could do to control himself.

I said in a manly tone, “It’s like this, boss. I’m in a bad hole. I admit it. I am innocent, but my honor is involved. A good lawyer may pull me through. I had to grit my teeth last night to keep from waking you up to tell you about it. I knew you didn’t want-”

“Apparently, Archie,” he said grimly, “you forget how well I know you. Enough of this flummery. What are your terms?”

He had me flustered for a second. I stammered, “My what? Terms?”

“Yes. For the information I’ll have to have to clean up this mess. First to get you out of here. Do you realize, when Fritz brought me that paper and I saw that headline-”

“Yes, sir, I realize. As for terms, it’s not me, it’s the Army. I’m in it, and I’m on duty. We ask your assistance-”

“You’re going to get it. I am preparing for it-”

“Sure you are. You’re preparing to dry up and die. We respectfully request an appointment for Colonel Ryder to call on you at the earliest opportunity. We request you to remove your brain from the cedar chest and give me back my sweater, which is stretched out of shape, and go to work.”

“Confound you-”

“What the hell,” Cramer barked, “is all this?”

“Please be quiet,” Wolfe snapped. He folded his arms and shut his eyes, and his lips pushed out and then in again, and out and in. Cramer and I had both seen that before, on various occasions. This time it went on for quite a while. Finally Wolfe heaved a deep sigh and his eyes opened.

“Very well,” he muttered at me. “Talk.”

I grinned at him. “May I phone Colonel Ryder to come tomorrow at eleven?”

“How do I know? I’ve got a job to do.”

“As soon as it’s finished?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” I turned to Cramer. “Tell Stebbins to phone Fritz to dust and air the office and to get things in and have dinner at eight, as before-let’s see-pan-broiled young turkey and what goes with it. And beer. Three cases of beer.”

Purley uttered a grunt of indignation, but Cramer made it an order by nodding at him, and he left the room.

“Also,” I told Cramer cheerfully, “before I pull the zipper I want a passport from you. I’ve got-”

“Save it,” he rasped. “It’s your turn now. If I like it well enough-”

“Nothing doing.” I shook my head firmly. “You’re not going to like it at all. Short of murder there’s practically nothing you couldn’t wrap around me if you felt like it. So I’ve got terms for you too. You can have the satisfaction of salting me away for ten years-five anyhow. Or you can have the facts. But you’re not going to get both satisfaction and facts. Now say you lock me up and Mr. Wolfe totters home without me. How long do you think it would take you to find out how a lock of my hair got under that scarf? And so forth. If you want the facts, give me a passport. In advance. And get set to restrain yourself, because I freely admit that in my enthusiasm I-”

“In your what?”

“Enthusiasm. Zeal.”

“Yeah.”

“Yes, sir. I admit that I acted somewhat arbitrarily and when I tell you about it you will be inclined to take offense. In fact-”

“Don’t talk so damn much. What do you want?”

“Fresh air. Short of murder, I’m clear. Not a signed statement, just verbal will do.”

“Go to hell.”

“Suit yourself.” I shrugged. “You can’t possibly tag me for murder. I know the facts and you don’t. It would take you three thousand years to find out about that lock of hair, let alone-”

“Shut up!”

I did so. Cramer glowered at me, and I gazed at him composedly but inflexibly. Wolfe was leaning back with his eyes closed.

“Okay,” he said. “Short of murder you’re clear. Shoot.”

I stood up. “May I use your phone, please?”

Cramer shoved the phone across and I put in a person-to-person call to Lily Rowan at the Worthington at Greenwich. Evidently she wasn’t out leading Roy a chase, for I got her right away. She was inclined to be cantankerous, but I told her all conversation would have to be postponed until I saw her, which would be that very afternoon if she would take the next train to New York and go straight from the station to Wolfe’s office. Then I asked her to return me to the hotel switchboard and when I got it asked to speak to Roy Douglas. In a couple of minutes I had him. His voice sounded as if he had the jitters, and he began sputtering about the papers saying he had run away and was being searched for, but I calmed him down and told him the same thing I had told Lily, to return to New York and go to Wolfe’s office. When I put the receiver back on the cradle Cramer was regarding me with a mean eye. He reached for the phone and got somebody and growled into it: