“The hell he was. I thought a murder investigation was finished when the murderer was tried and convicted.”
Wolfe nodded. “It is. But not when an innocent man is tried and convicted.”
It looked very much as if they were headed for insults. But before Cramer had one ready Wolfe went on. “You would ask, of course, if I have evidence to establish Peter Hays’s innocence. No, I haven’t. My reasons for thinking him innocent would not be admissible as evidence, and would have no weight for you. I intend to find the evidence if it exists, and Johnny Keems was looking for it last night.”
Cramer’s sharp gray eyes, surrounded by crinkles, were leveled at Wolfe’s brown ones. He was not amused. On previous occasions, during a murder investigation, he had found Wolfe a thorn in his hide and a pain in his neck, but this was the first time it had ever happened after it had been wrapped up by a jury.
“I am familiar,” he said, “with the evidence that convicted Hays. I collected it, or my men did.”
“Pfui. It didn’t have to be collected. It was there.”
“Well, we picked it up. What aspect was Keems working on?”
“The invitation to Mrs. Molloy to go to the theater. On the chance that it was designed, to get her away from the apartment. His instructions were to see Mr. and Mrs. Arkoff and Mr. and Mrs. Irwin, and to report to me if he got any hint of suspicion. He didn’t report, which was typical of him, and he paid for his disdain. However, I know that he saw those four, all of them. They were here this afternoon for more than an hour. He saw Mrs. Arkoff at her apartment shortly after eight o’clock, and returned two hours later and saw her and her husband. In between those two visits he saw Mr. and Mrs. Irwin at their apartment. Do you want to know what they say they told him?”
Cramer said he did, and Wolfe obliged. He gave him a full and fair report, including all essentials, unless you count as an essential his telling them he wanted to talk with them before he told the police what Johnny Keems had been doing-and anyway Cramer could guess that for himself.
At the end he added a comment. “The inference is patent. Either one or more of them were lying, or Johnny saw someone besides them, or his death had no connection with his evening’s work. I will accept the last only when I must, and apparently you will too or you wouldn’t be here. Did the circumstances eliminate fortuity?”
“If you mean could it have been an accident, it’s barely possible. It wasn’t on the Drive proper, it was on one of those narrow side approaches to apartment houses. A man and woman were in a parked car a hundred feet away, waiting for someone. The car was going slow when it passed them, going up the lane. They saw Keems step into the lane from between two parked cars, and they think the driver of the car blinked his lights, but they’re not sure. As the car approached Keems it slowed nearly to a stop, and then it took a sudden spurt and swerved straight at Keems, and that was it. It kept going and had turned a corner before the man and woman were out of their car. You know we found the car this morning parked on upper Broadway, and it was stolen?”
“Yes.”
“So it doesn’t look like fortuity. I must remember to use that in a report. You said it could be that one of them was lying, or more than one. What do you think?”
Wolfe puckered his lips. “It’s hard to say. It can’t very well be just one of them, since their alibis are all in pairs-the two men in the bar the evening of January third, and for last night man and wife at home together in both cases. Of course you know their addresses, since you collected the evidence against Peter Hays.”
“They’re in the file.” Cramer’s eyes came to me. “In the neighborhood, Goodwin?”
“Near enough,” I told him. “The Arkoffs in the Eighties on Central Park West, and the Irwins in the Nineties on West End Avenue.”
“Not that that’s important. You understand, Wolfe, as far as I’m concerned the Hays case is closed. He’s guilty as hell. You admit you have no evidence. It’s Keems I’m interested in. If it was homicide, homicide is my business. That’s what I’m after.”
Wolfe’s brows went up. “Do you want a suggestion?”
“I can always use a suggestion.”
“Drop it. Charge Johnny Keems’s death to accident and close the file. I suppose a routine search for the hit-and-run driver must be made, but confine it to that. Otherwise you’ll find that the Hays case is open again, and that would be embarrassing. For all I know you may have already been faced with that difficulty and that’s why you’re here-for instance, through something found in Johnny Keems’s pockets. Was there something?”
“No.”
Wolfe’s eyes were narrowed at him. “I am being completely candid with you, Mr. Cramer.”
“So am I. Nothing was found on Keems but the usual items-keys, cigarettes, driving license, handkerchief, a little cash, pen and pencil. After what you tell me I’m surprised he didn’t have a memo of those people’s names and addresses. Didn’t you give him one, Goodwin?”
“No. Johnny didn’t believe in memos. He didn’t even carry a notebook. He thought his memory was as good as mine, but it wasn’t. Now it’s no good at all.”
He went back to Wolfe. “About your being completely candid, I didn’t think I’d go into this, but I will. Tuesday’s papers had an ad headed ‘To P.H.’ and signed by you. Tuesday noon Sergeant Stebbins phoned to ask Goodwin about it, and Goodwin told him to ask Lieutenant Murphy of the Missing Persons Bureau. What he learned from Murphy satisfied him, and me too, that your ad hadn’t been directed at Peter Hays but a man named Paul Herold, and we crossed it off as coincidence. But Wednesday morning, yesterday, Goodwin goes to the City Prison and has a talk with Peter Hays. News of that gets to Murphy, and he sees Hays and asks him if he is Paul Herold, and Hays says no. But here you are saying you think Hays is innocent and up to your neck in it hell for breakfast. If you had Keems investigating one aspect, how many men have you got on other aspects? You don’t toss money around just to see it flutter in the breeze. So if you’re being so goddam candid, who’s your client?”
Wolfe nodded. “That would interest you, naturally. I’m sorry, Mr. Cramer, I can’t tell you. You can
