the situation and the outlook. The obvious point of attack was Mr. and Mrs. Thomas L. Irwin, but the question was how to attack. If they denied any knowledge of the reason for their maid’s absence, and if, told that she had been murdered, they denied knowledge of that too, what then? Saul and I did most of the talking. Wolfe sat and listened, or maybe he didn’t listen.
But the only point in keeping the identity of the corpse to ourselves was to have first call on the Irwins and Arkoffs, and if we weren’t going to call we might as well let the cops take over. Of course they were already giving the lumber pile and surroundings the full routine, and putting them on to the Irwins and Arkoffs wouldn’t help that any, but someone who knew what the medical examiner gave as the time of death should at least ask them where they were between this hour and that hour Thursday night. That was only common politeness.
When Fritz came to bring beer and reported that Mrs. Molloy had said she liked the pork very much but had eaten only one small piece of it, Wolfe told me to go and see if she was comfortable. When I went up I found that she hadn’t bolted the door. I knocked and got a call to enter, and did so. She was on her feet, apparently doing nothing. I told her if she didn’t care for the books on the shelf there were a lot more downstairs, and asked if she wanted some magazines or anything else. While I was speaking the doorbell rang downstairs, but with Saul there I skipped it. She said she didn’t want anything; she was going to bed and try to sleep.
“I hope you know,” she added, “that I realize how wonderful you are. And how much I appreciate all you’re doing. And I hope you won’t think I’m just a silly goose when I ask if I can see Peter tomorrow. I want to.”
“I suppose you could,” I said. “Freyer might manage it. But you shouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re the widow of the man he’s still convicted of murdering. Because there would be a steel lattice between you with guards present. Because he would hate it. He still thinks you killed Molloy, and that would be a hell of a place to try to talk him out of it. Go to bed and sleep on it.”
She was looking at me. She certainly could look straight at you. “All right,” she said. She extended a hand. “Good night.”
I took the hand in a professional clasp, left the room, pulling the door shut as I went, and went back down to the office to find Inspector Cramer sitting in the red leather chair and Purley Stebbins on one of the yellow ones, beside Saul Panzer.
Chapter 16
AS I CIRCLED AROUND Saul and Purley to get to my desk Cramer was speaking.
“… and I’m fed up! At one o’clock yesterday afternoon Stebbins phoned and told Goodwin about Johnny Keems and asked him if Keems was working for you, and Goodwin said he would have to ask you and would call back. He didn’t. At four-thirty Stebbins phoned again, and Goodwin stalled him again. At nine-thirty last evening I came to see you, and you know what you told me. Among other things-”
“Please, Mr. Cramer.” Wolfe might have been gently but firmly stopping a talky brat. “You don’t need to recapitulate. I know what has happened and what was said.”
“Yeah, I don’t doubt it. All right, I’ll move to today. At five-forty-two this afternoon Saul Panzer is waiting at the morgue to view a body when it arrives, and he views it, and beats it. At seven-twenty Goodwin shows up at the morgue to view the same body, and has a woman with him, and he says they can’t identify it and goes off with the woman. He gives her name as Mrs. Alice Bolt-Mrs. Ben Bolt, I suppose-and her address as the Churchill Hotel. There is no Mrs. Bolt registered at the Churchill. So you’re up to your goddam tricks again. You not only held out on us about Keems for eight hours yesterday, you held out on me last night, and I’m fed up. Facts connected with a homicide in my jurisdiction belong to me, and I want them.”
Wolfe shook his head. “I didn’t hold out on you last night, Mr. Cramer.”
“Like hell you didn’t!”
“No, sir. I was at pains to give you all the facts I had, except one, perhaps-that despite Peter Hays’s denial we had concluded he is Paul Herold. But you took care of that, characteristically. Knowing, as you did, that James R. Herold was my client, you notified him that you thought you had found his son and asked him to come and verify it, omitting the courtesy of even telling me you had done so, let alone consulting me in advance. Considering how you handle facts I give you, it’s a wonder I ever give you any at all.”
“Nuts. I didn’t notify James R. Herold. Lieutenant Murphy did.”
“After you had told him of your talk with me.” Wolfe flipped a hand to push it aside. “However, as I say, I gave you all the facts I had relevant to your concern. I reported what had been told me by Mr. and Mrs. Arkoff and Mr. and Mrs. Irwin. And I made a point of calling to your attention a most significant fact-more than significant, provocative-the contents of Johnny Keems’s pockets. You knew, because I told you, these things: that Keems left here at seven-thirty Wednesday evening to see the Arkoffs and Irwins, with a hundred dollars in his pocket for expenses; that during his questioning of the Irwins their maid had been present, and the questioning had been cut short by the Irwins’ departure; and that only twenty-two dollars and sixteen cents had been found on his body. I gave you the facts, as of course I should, but it was not incumbent on me to give you my inference.”
“What inference?”
“That Keems had spent the hundred dollars in pursuance of his mission, that the most likely form of expenditure had been a bribe, and that a probable recipient of the bribe was the Irwins’ maid. Mr. Goodwin got the maid’s name, and a description of her, from Mrs. Molloy, and Mr. Panzer went to see her and couldn’t find her. He spent the day at it and was finally successful. He found her at the morgue, though the identification was only tentative until Mrs. Molloy verified it.”
“That’s not what Goodwin told Donovan. He said she couldn’t make an identification.”
“Certainly. She was in no condition to be pestered. Your colleagues would have kept at her all night. I might as well save you the trouble of a foray on her apartment. She is in this house, upstairs asleep, and is not to be disturbed.”
“But she identified that body?”
