a roof across the street.
“Yep. I was sitting right here and heard it.
“So I understand. Since no one was killed that never got to me officially, but naturally I heard things. Wolfe had started to investigate a man named Rony, and
Rony's activities were the kind that might lead a first-class investigator like
Wolfe in the direction of Arnold Zeck, maybe up close to Zeck, possibly even clear to him. I thought then that Wolfe had got warned off, by Zeck himself or someone near him, and he had disregarded it, and for a second warning they messed up his orchids. Then Rony got killed, and that was a break for Wolfe because it put him and Zeck on the same side.
“Gosh, I remarked, “it sounds awful complicated to me.
“I'll bet it does. Cramer moved the cigar-getting shorter now, although he never lit one-to the other side of his mouth. “All I'm doing is showing you that
I'm not just hoping for a bite, and I don't want to string it out. It was a good guess that Wolfe had jostled up against Arnold Zeck in both the Orchard case and the Rony case, and now what happens? Not long after Mrs Rackham calls on him and hires him to check on her husband's income, someone sends him a cylinder of tear gas-not a bomb to blow out his guts, which it could have been, just tear gas, so of course it was for a warning. And that night Mrs Rackham gets murdered. You tell him about it on the phone, and when you get home he's gone.
Cramer took the cigar from his mouth and pointed it at me. Til tell you what I believe, Archie. I believe that if Wolfe had stayed and helped, the murderer of
Mrs Rackham would be locked up by now, I believe that he had reason to think that if he did that, helped to catch the murderer, he would have to spend the rest of his life trying to keep Arnold Zeck from getting him. I believe that he decided that the only way out was for him to get Zeck. How's that?
“No comment, I said politely. “If you're right you're right, and if you're wrong I wouldn't want to hurt your feelings.
“Much obliged. But he did get a warning from Zeck-the tear gas.
“No comment.
“I wouldn't expect any. Now here's what I came for. I want you to give Wolfe a personal message from me, not as a police officer but as a friend. This is between you and me-and him. Zeck is out of his reach. He is out of anybody's reach. It's a goddam crime for an officer of the law to have to say a thing like that, even privately, but it's true. Here's a murder case, and thank God it's not mine. I'm not pointing at Ben Dykes or the D.A. up there, I'm not pointing at any person or persons, but if the set-up is that Barry Rackham is tied in with one or more of Zeck's operations, and if Rackham killed his wife, I say he will never burn. I don't say at what point Zeck will get his hand in, or who or what he will use, but Rackham will never burn.
Cramer hurled his cigar at my wastebasket and missed it a foot. Since it wasn't lit I ignored it. “Hooray for justice, I cheered.
He snarled, but apparently not at me. “I want you to tell Wolfe that. Zeck is out of his reach. He can't get him.
“But, I objected, “granting that you've got it all straight, which I haven't, that's a hell of a message. Look at it from the other end. He is not out of
Zeck's reach, not if he comes home. I know he doesn't go out much, but even if he never did people have to come in-and things, like packages of sausage. Not to mention that the damage they did to the plants and equipment last year came to thirty-eight thousand bucks. I get the idea that he is to lay off Zeck, but that's only what he doesn't do. What does he do?
Cramer nodded. “I know. That's it. He's so damn' bullheaded. I want you to understand, Archie, why I came here. Wolfe is too cocky to live. He has enough brass and bluster to outfit a thousand sergeants. Sure, I know him; I ought to.
I would love to bloody his nose for him, I've tried to often enough, and some day I will and enjoy it. But I would hate to see him break his neck on a deal like this where he hasn't got a chance. It's a good guess that in the past ten years there have been over a hundred homicides in this town that were connected in one way or another with one of the operations Arnold Zeck has a hand in. But not in a single case was there the remotest hope of tying Zeck up with it. We couldn't possibly have touched him.
“You're back where you started, I complained. “He can't be reached. So what?
“So Wolfe should come back where he belongs, return what Mrs Rackham paid him to her estate, let the Westchester people take care of the murder, which is their job anyhow, and go on as before. You can tell him I said that, but by God don't quote me around. I'm not responsible for a man like Zeck being out of reach.
“But you never strained a muscle stretching for him.
“Nuts. Facts are facts.
“Yeah, like sausage is tear gas. I stood up so as to look down my nose at him.
“There are two reasons why your message will not get to Mr Wolfe. First, he is to me as Zeck is to him. He's out of my reach. I don't know where he is.
“Oh, keep it up.
“I will. Second, I don't like the message. I admit that I have known Mr Wolfe to discuss Arnold Zeck. I once heard him tell a whole family about him, only he was calling him X. He was describing the difficulties he would be in if he ever found himself tangled with X for a showdown, and he told them that he was acquainted, more or less, with some three thousand people living or working in
New York, and there weren't more than five of them of whom he could say with certainty that they were in no way involved in X's activities. He said that none might be or that any might be. On another occasion I happened to be inquiring about Zeck of a newspaperman, and he had extravagant notions about Zeck's payroll. He mentioned, not by name, politicians, barflies, cops, chambermaids, lawyers, private ops, crooks of all types,
