'Oh, no. Back up. From the time you got there. I want the works.'
I gave it to him, in my best style. I knew from the tone Wolfe had taken that the programme was eagerness to oblige in inessentials, so I skipped none of the unimportant details. I covered the route. One of the little cuts I made was the brief passage between the Balkans and me while I was standing guard at the front door. When I got through Cramer asked me some questions that offered no difficulty, ending with a few more jabs regarding what had happened between the time when this and the time when that. My only addition to my former explanation was that I had started to get hungry. He sat a minute and chewed his cigar, frowning, and switched to Wolfe.
'I don't believe it,' he said flatly.
'No? What is it you don't believe, Mr Cramer?'
'I don't believe that Goodwin's bughouse. I don't believe he left like that because he was homesick and hungry. I don't believe he went back there to collect a fee from Miss Tormic. I don't believe that as far as you're concerned it's washed up and you're not interested in the murder.'
'I haven't said I'm not interested in the murder.'
'Ho! Haven't you? Well, are you?'
'Yes.' Wolfe grimaced. 'Apparently I am. While Archie was on guard at the door Miss Tormic approached and asked him-me-to act in the matter in her interest. He accepted. I am committed, and the amount of profit that may be expected…' He shrugged. 'I am committed. That was what happened that made Archie feel he should communicate with me promptly and privately. As you are aware, Mr Cramer, I am quite capable of candour when the occasion presents-'
The inspector clamped his teeth on his cigar and said through them savagely, 'I knew it!'
Wolfe's brows went up a millimetre. 'You knew?…'
'I knew it the minute I learned Goodwin had been there and gone off to chase a cat. It had already begun to look like a first-class headache, and when I heard about Goodwin that clinched it. So you've got a client! And sure enough, by God, it has to be your client that was in that room fencing with him! It would be!' He rescued the cigar from his teeth with his left hand and hit the desk with his right fist, simultaneously. 'Understand this, Wolfe! I came here in a mood of co-operation, in spite of Goodwin's tricky getaway! And what am I getting? Now you try to tell me that in the space of ten seconds, just like that, your man accepted a murder case for you! Nuts!' He hit the desk again. 'I know what your abilities are-no one knows that better than I do! And like a fool I come here expecting a little disinterested discussion and you tell me you've got a client! Why have you always got to have a goddam client? Naturally from now on I can't believe a single solitary thing-'
My waving paw finally stopped his bellowing; the phone had rung and I couldn't hear. It was a request for him. With a grunt he got up and came to my desk for it, and I made way for him. For several minutes his part of it was mostly listening, and then apparently he was told something disagreeable, judging from the way he violated the law against the use of profanity on the telephone. He gave some instructions, banged the thing into its cradle, and said in a quiet but very sarcastic voice, 'That's nice, now.'
He went back to his chair and sat there a minute chewing his lip. 'That's just fine,' he said. 'The case is as good as solved. I won't have to go to any bother about it.'
'Indeed,' Wolfe murmured.
'Yes indeed. Three Federals have blown in up there. Anybody might suppose that a murder in Manhattan is the business of the homicide squad of which I happen to be the head, but who am I compared with a G-man? If we throw them out on their tail, the commissioner will say tut-tut, we've got to co-operate. It has two pleasant aspects. First, it means an entirely new angle we haven't even suspected, and that's a cheerful idea. Second, whoever solves it and however and whenever, the G-men will grab the credit. They always do.'
'Now, Inspector,' I remonstrated. 'A G-man is the representative of the American people, in fact it would hardly be going too far to say that a G-man is America-'
'Shut up. I wish you'd get an F.B.I. job yourself and they'd send you to Alaska. I can pull you in, you know.'
'If you can it's news to me. Who made any law about an innocent man being overcome with repugnance at the sight of blood and taking a taxi home?'
'Where did you see any blood?'
'I didn't. Figure of speech.'
'Metonymy,' Wolfe muttered.
'Kid me. I like it.' Cramer glared at Wolfe. 'So you've got a client.'
Wolfe made a face. 'Tentatively I have. Archie accepted the commission. I say tentatively, because I have never met her. When I've seen her and talked with her I shall know whether she's guilty or not.'
'You admit she may be.'
'Certainly she may be.' Wolfe wiggled a finger. 'May I made a suggestion, Mr Cramer? If you want consilience. It would be doubly unprofitable for you to question me, since you have stated that you will believe nothing I tell you, and since all those people are strangers to me and I am completely ignorant of what went on.'
'You say.'
'Yes, sir, I say. But it might help for me to question you. It would certainly help me, and in the long run it might even help you.'
'Great idea. Wonderful idea.'
'I think so.'
