inside breast pocket and looked at it; I had only had it a couple of weeks. It was brown, ostrichskin, and was tooled in gold all over the outside. On one side the tooling was fine lines about half an inch apart, with flowers stemming out from them; the flowers were orchids; the workmanship was so good that you could tell Wolfe had given the guy a Cattleya to work from.
The other side was covered with Colt automatics, fifty-two perfect little gold Pistols all aiming at the center. Inside was stamped in gold: A. G. from N. W. Wolfe had given it to me on October 23rd, at the dinnertable, and I didn^t even know he knew when my birthday was. I carried my police and fire cards in it, and my operators license. I might have traded it for New York City if you had thrown in a couple of good suburbs.
When Fritz came and said Inspector
Cramer was there I put it back in my pocket.
I let Cramer get eased into a chair and then I went upstairs to the plantrooms.
Wolfe was at the potting-bench with Horstmann, spreading out some osmundine and leaning over to smell it; a dozen or so pots of Odontoglossums, overgrown, were at his elbow. I waited until he looked around, and I felt my throat drying up.
'Well?'
I swallowed. 'Cramer's downstairs. The rugged Inspector.' ^ 'What of it? You heard me speaking to him on the telephone.' |»f'Look here,' I said, 'I want this distinctly understood. I came up here only for one reason, because I thought maybe r^ you had changed your mind and would like to see him. Yes or no will do it. If you give me a bawling out it will be nothing but pure childishness. You know what I think.'
I Wolfe opened his eyes a little wider, winked the left one at me, twice, and , • turned to face the potting-bench again. ^ All I could see was his broad back that might have been something in a Macy Thanksgiving Day parade. He said to Horstmann: o 'This will do. Get the charcoal. No _ sphagnum, I think.' r I went back down to the office and told Cramer, 'Mr. Wolfe can't come down.
He's too infirm.' – The Inspector laughed. 'I didn't expect | him to. I've known Nero Wolfe longer than you have, sonny. You don't suppose I thought I was going to tear any secrets M^ out of him? Anything he would tell me he | has already told you. Can I light a pipe?'
'Shoot. Wolfe hates it. To hell with him.' | H 'What's this, you staging on me?'
Cramer packed his pipe, held a match to it, and puffed. 'You don't… need to.
Did Wolfe tell you what… I told him on the phone?' ‹I heard it.' I patted my notebook.
'I've got it down.'
'The hell you have. Okay. I don't want
George Pratt riding me, I'm too old to enjoy it. What went on here night before last?'
I grinned. 'Just what Wolfe told you.
That's all. He closed a little contract.'
'Is it true that he nicked Pratt for four thousand dollars?'
'He didn't nick anybody. He offered something for sale, and they gave him the .order.' ^ 'Yeah.' He puffed. 'You know Pratt?
Pratt thinks that it's funny that he has to shell out to a private dick when the city maintains such a magnificent force of brave and intelligent men to cope with such problems. He said cope. I was there. He was talking to the Deputy Commissioner.'
'Indeed.' I bit my lip. I always felt like a sap when I caught myself imitating Wolfe. 'Maybe he was referring to the Department of Health. That never occurred to me before, a cop coping.'
Cramer grunted. He sat back and looked at the vase of orchids, and pulled at his pipe. Pretty soon he said: (‹I had a funny experience this afternoon. A woman called up downtown and said she wanted Nero Wolfe arrested because he had tried to cut her throat.
They put her onto me because they knew I had Wolfe in mind about this case. I said I'd send a man up to get the details and she gave me her name and address. You could have flipped me cold with a rubber band when I heard it.'
I said, 'That's a hot one. I wonder who it could have been.'
'Sure you do. I'll bet you're puzzled.
Then a couple of hours later a guy came to see me. By invitation. He was a taxidriver.
He said that no matter how much diversion it offered he didn't care to take the rap for perjury, and that he saw blood on her when she got in his cab on Perry Street. That was one of the things I was wanting to mention to Wolfe on the Phone, but the picture in my mind's eye of him slicing a lady's gullet was so damn remarkable that I didn't get it out.' He puffed at his pipe, lit a match, and got it going again. He went on, more forceful and rugged. 'Look here, Goodwin. What the hell's the idea? I've tried that Chapin woman three times, and I couldn't get her to break down enough to tell me what her name was. She put on the clamp and left it. Wolfe gets in the case late Monday night, and here already, Wednesday morning, she's chasing up to his office to show him her operation. What the hell is it about him that gets them coming like that?'
I grinned. 'It's his sympathetic nature, inspector.'
'Yeah. Who carved her neck?'
'Search me. She told you, Wolfe. Pull him in and give him the works.'
'Was it Chapin?'
I shook my head. 'If I know that secret, it's buried here.' I tapped my chest. I i 'Much obliged. Now listen to me. I'm being serious. Am I on the level?'
