He pinched his nose, told me good night, and headed for the door.
14
When I arrived at the headquarters of Homicide South on West Twentieth Street at a quarter to nine Tuesday morning, I was on the fence. I wanted the cartons to get to Cramer as soon as possible, but if he was there I didn't want to deliver them to him myself, because as soon as he read the letter I would be stuck. He would hold me until the prints had been lifted and compared, and if they matched I would be held tighter and longer. So I was just as well pleased that he hadn't come yet. Neither had Purley Stebbins, but I got a sergeant I knew named Ber-man. When he saw the six cartons, one big enough to hold a wastebasket, which was one of the items Saul had brought from 490 Lexington Avenue, he said he hoped it wasn't all bombs and I said no, only one was, and the trick was to guess which. He put the letter in his pocket and promised to give it to Cramer as soon as he came.
It would be instructive to report how Saul got a big wastebasket out of that office building at ten o'clock at night, but it would take a page.
Home again, having had only orange juice before leaving, I ate breakfast, tried to find something in the
fingerprints didn't match we were left with a Grade A mess and no way on earth of making a neat package of it to deliver to the client; if they did match we could take our pick of three or four different ways to play it and they all looked good. So I expected, and although I opened the mail and gave it a look before putting it under the chunk of jade on Wolfe's desk, I had no clear idea what was in it. One thing, not in the mail, did get some real attention. Saul and I had decided that we almost certainly had enough without lifting the prints from the red leather chair. We had got bed sheets from the closet and draped them over it, and there it was, and it looked pretty silly. I removed the sheets, folded them, and put them back in the closet. What the hell, as Amy's father would say, I was there on guard. Returning to the office, I looked at my watch for about the tenth time since breakfast, saw that it was 10:38, and decided it was time to consider it calmly and realistically. To begin with, if the prints didn't match there was nothing to expect. Some detective second grade would phone in a day or two to tell me to come and get the junk I had left there. If they did match the best guess was that Lieutenant Rowcliff or Sergeant Steb-bins would phone around two or three o'clock and tell me they wanted me there quick. Or possibly-
The doorbell rang and I went to the hall and saw Cramer and Stebbins on the stoop.
Ordinarily the sight of a pair of cops wanting in doesn't scatter my wits, but as I started for the front I had room in my skull for only one item: the beautiful fact that the prints had matched and Floyd Vance had murdered Elinor Denovo. I should have realized that their coming twenty minutes before eleven o'clock, when they knew Wolfe wouldn't be available, showed that it would take handling. Before I opened up I should have put the chain bolt on, holding the door to a two-inch crack, since it would have taken a warrant to open it legally and they wouldn't have one, and we could discuss the situation. But I was so glad to see them that I swung the door wide, and I was probably showing my teeth in a big grin of welcome. If so, it soon went. They came in fast, Stebbins' shoulder jostling me as he passed, headed for the rear, and started up the stairs.
A cop inside the house is a very different problem from one outside. Once he's inside legally, and I had opened the door, about all you can do is sit down and write a letter to the Supreme Court. Even if I could beat them to the plant rooms, and I couldn't, since the elevator was up there, what good would it do? I went to the kitchen to tell Fritz what had happened and that I was going up to join the party, and then took my time mounting the three flights.
To go through those three rooms, the cool, the moderate, and the warm, down the aisles between the benches, without being stopped by a color or a shape that you didn't know existed, your mind must be fully occupied with something else. That time mine was. In the middle room I could already hear a voice, and when I opened the door to the warm room I could name it. Cramer. I walked the aisle and opened the door to the potting room, and there they were. Wolfe, in a yellow smock, was on his stool at the big bench. Theodore was standing over by the pot racks. Stebbins was off to the right. Cramer, in the center of the room, had his felt hat off and in his hand, I don't know why. Facing Wolfe, he was telling him, louder than necessary, '… and hold you as material witnesses until we get warrants and then, by God, you go to a cell. All right, talk or move.'
Wolfe stayed on the stool. His eyes came to me. 'Any complaint, Archie?'
'Only their bad manners. Next time they'll talk through a crack.'
His eyes moved. 'Mr. Cramer. As I said, I will not talk business in this room. Not a word. If you'll wait in my office I'll be down at eleven o'clock. If you put hands on me, and Mr. Goodwin, and take us elsewhere, we'll stand mute and communicate with our lawyer. When he comes we'll confer with him privately, and the afternoon paper, the
please. This Miltonia charlesworthi germination card has conflicting entries. We'll have to check it.'
I went and took the card and scowled at it.
