Rex Stout - The Golden Spiders (Crime Line)

So Thursday was a little hectic, with no spare time for consideration of the question whether, if we had taken a different slant on the case Pete had come to share with us, Pete might still be breathing. In the detective business there are plenty of occasions for that kind of consideration, and while there is no percentage in letting it get you down, it doesn’t hurt to take time out now and then for some auditing.

It had been too late Wednesday night to get the ad in for Thursday. Friday morning I had to grin at myself a couple of times. When I went down the two flights from my bedroom and entered the kitchen, the first thing I did after greeting Fritz was to turn to the ads in the Times for a look at ours. That rated a grin. It meant nothing, either professionally or personally, since the chance of getting an answer was even slimmer than my estimate of one in a million. The second grin came later, when I was dealing with corn muffins and sausage-Fritz having taken Wolfe’s breakfast tray up to him according to schedule-with the Times in front of me on the rack, and the phone rang and I nearly knocked my chair over getting up to go for it. It was not someone answering the ad. Some guy on Long Island wanted to know if we could let him have three plants in bloom of Vanda caerulea. I told him we didn’t sell plants, and anyway that Vandas didn’t bloom in May.

But Pete’s case was brought to us again before noon, though not by way of the ad. Wolfe had just got down to the office from the plant rooms and settled himself at his desk for a look at the morning mail when the doorbell rang. Going to the hall and seeing the ringer through the one-way panel, I had no need to proceed to the door to ask him what he wanted. That customer always wanted to see Wolfe, and his arriving on the dot of eleven made it certain.

I turned and told Wolfe, “Inspector Cramer.”

He scowled at me. “What does he want?” Childish again.

“Shall I ask him?”

“Yes. No. Very well.”

I went and let him in. From the way he grunted a greeting, if it could be called a greeting, and from the expression on his face, he had not come to give Wolfe a medal. Cramer’s big red face and burly figure never inspire a feeling of good-fellowship, but he had his ups and downs, and that morning he was not up. He preceded me to the office, gave Wolfe the twin of the greeting he had given me, lowered himself into the red leather chair, and aimed a cold stare at Wolfe. Wolfe returned it.

“Why did you put that ad in the paper?” Cramer demanded.

Wolfe turned away from him and fingered in the little stack of papers on his desk that had just been removed from envelopes. “Archie,” he said, “this letter from Jordan is farcical. He knows quite well that I do not use Brassavolas in tri-generic crosses. He doesn’t deserve an answer, but he’ll get one. Your notebook. ‘Dear Mr. Jordan. I am aware that you have had ill success with-’”

“Save it,” Cramer rasped. “Okay. Putting an ad in the paper is not a felony, but I asked a civil question.”

“No,” Wolfe said with finality. “Civil?”

“Then put it your way. You know what I want to know. How do you want me to ask it?”

“I would first have to be told why you want to know.”

“Because I think you’re covering something or somebody that’s connected with a homicide. Which has been known to happen. From what you told Stebbins yesterday, you have no interest in the killing of that boy, and you have no client. Then you wouldn’t spend a bent nickel on it, not you, and you certainly wouldn’t start an inquiry that might make you use up energy. I might have asked you flat, who’s your client, but no, I stick to the simple fact why did you run that ad. If that’s not civil, civilize it and then tell me.”

Wolfe took in a long-drawn sigh and let it out. “Archie. Tell him, please.”

I obliged. It didn’t take long, since he already had Purley’s report, and I had merely to explain how we had decided to disburse Pete’s money, to which I had added $1.85 of my own. Meanwhile Cramer’s hard gray eyes were leveled at me. I had often had to meet those eyes and stall or cover or dodge, so they didn’t bother me any when I was merely handing it over straight.

When he had asked a couple of questions and had been answered, he moved the eyes to Wolfe and inquired abruptly, “Have you ever seen or heard of a man named Matthew Birch?”

“Yes,” Wolfe said shortly.

“Oh. You have.” A gleam showed in the gray eyes for a fraction of a second. If I hadn’t known them so well I wouldn’t have caught it. “I intend to make this civil. Would you mind telling me when and where?”

“No. In the Gazette day before yesterday, Wednesday. As you know, I never leave this house on business, and leave it as seldom as may be for anything whatever, and I depend on newspapers and the radio to keep me informed of the concerns and activities of my fellow beings. As reported, the body of a man named Matthew Birch was found late Tuesday night-or Wednesday, rather, around three A.M.-in a cobbled alley alongside a South Street pier. It was thought that a car had run over him.”

“Yeah. I’ll try to frame this right. Except for newspaper or radio items connected with his death, had or have you ever seen or heard of him?”

“Not under that name.”

“Damn it, under any name?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Have you any reason to suppose or suspect that the man found dead in that alley was someone you had ever seen or heard of in any connection whatever?”

“That’s more like it,” Wolfe said approvingly. “That should settle it. The answer is no. May I ask one? Have you any reason to suppose or suspect that the answer should be yes?”

Cramer didn’t reply. He tilted his head until his chin touched the knot of his tie, pursed his lips, regarded me for a long moment, and then went back to Wolfe. He spoke. “This is why I came. With the message the boy sent you by his mother, and the way the car jumped him from a standstill and then tore off, already it didn’t look like any accident, and now there are complications, and when I find complicated trouble and you even remotely involved I want to know exactly where and how you got on-and where you get off.”

“I asked about reasons, not about animus.”

“There’s no animus. Here’s the complication. The car that killed the boy was found yesterday morning, with that floater Connecticut plate still on it, parked up on One hundred and eighty-sixth Street. Laboratory men worked on it all day. They cinched it that it killed the boy, but not only that, underneath it, caught tight where an axle joins a rod, they found a piece of cloth the size of a man’s hand. That piece of cloth was the flap torn from the jacket which was on the body of Matthew Birch when it was found. The laboratory is looking for further evidence that it was that car that killed Birch, but I’m no hog and I don’t need it. Do you?”

Wolfe was patient. “For a working hypothesis, if I were working on it, no.”

“That’s the point. You are working on it. You put that ad in.”

Wolfe’s head wagged slowly from side to side to punctuate his civilized forbearance. “I’ll stipulate,” he conceded, “that I am capable of flummery, that I have on occasion gulled and hoaxed you, but you know I eschew the crudeness of an explicit lie. I tell you that the facts we have given you in this matter are guileless and complete, that I have no client connected with it in any way, and that I am not engaged in it and do not intend to be. I certainly agree-”