'Yes, I'm fat. And, of course, we're all fools. I'm sorry you won't be here to see the end of this. A silly little victory, but it's mine.'
'Victory!'
'Yes.'
Her lip curled. She turned and started off. I got to the door and opened it, but before she passed through she halted to fling back at him, 'Teega mee bornie roosa' or at least that was what it sounded like. Then she went on, don't-touch-me all over, with the dick at her heels. I let them out, followed them into the November night air, and stood on the stoop to overlook the departure. As well as I could see in the dim light, the dick didn't pass any signal to any colleague, and when they rolled off in the police car they certainly weren't followed.
I stayed on the stoop long enough to be absolutely sure of that, knowing as I did the lengths a cop will sometimes go to on account of his passion for law and order, and was about to check it off and go back in when a big black town car rolled to the kerb there below me. A chauffeur jumped out and opened the door, and touched his cap when one of the two men who emerged said something to him. They started up the steps, and I recrossed the threshold and turned to welcome two generations of Barretts. I asked them to wait there a minute and went to the office and told Wolfe:
'Father and son.'
'Bring them in.'
I did that. John P., who hadn't changed his clothes, took the chair Neya had occupied. His face was all tightened up, and the glance that he shot first at Cramer and then at Wolfe was not what I would call conciliatory. I moved up another chair for Donald. He looked so fierce and truculent that I had a notion to go get him a hunk of raw meat. Nobody had seemed to have any inclination to shake hands like gentlemen.
Wolfe said, 'Fred, wait in front.'
Fred went.
'Archie, take your note-book.'
I took it.
John P. asked, 'Are you Police Inspector Cramer?'
'Yes, sir,' Cramer told him. 'Of the Homicide Bureau.'
John P. said to Wolfe, 'That's ridiculous. This is a confidential business matter. And telling your man to take his note-book.'
Wolfe leaned back and pressed his five right finger-tips against his five left ones. 'No,' he said, 'I wouldn't call it ridiculous. Mr Cramer's presence is surely appropriate, since one of the things you'll want to do is to try to arrange it so that your son will escape an indictment for first-degree murder.'
Cramer's head jerked around. Donald gawked, and some of the colour leaving his face made him look a little less fierce. John P. betrayed no sign whatever of having heard anything more provocative than a remark about the weather. But he clipped off words and lunged with them:
'That's worse than ridiculous. And more dangerous. That's actionable.'
'So it is.' Wolfe's tone sharpened. 'I'm coming right out with it, Mr Barrett. My dinner's in an hour, and I don't want to waste time flopping around in a mire of inanities. I hold the cards and I don't have to finesse. Your deal with the Donevitch gang is done for. Accept that. Swallow it. I want to go on from that-'
'I'd like to see you alone.' John P. stood up. 'Get them out of here, or take me-'
'No. Sit down.'
'Sit down for what? You say the deal's done for. Whether it is or isn't, I'm not talking on that basis. There's nothing to talk about. Come, Donald.'
He started off. Wolfe's words hit him in the back:
'Within an hour a warrant will issue charging your son with murder! It will be too late to talk to me then.'
Donald was up and following his leader. But his leader suddenly wheeled, strode back to confront Cramer, and demanded:
'You're a responsible police officer. This blackmailing threat is made in your presence. Do you know who I am?… Well?'
That was a fizzle, in spite of the fact that Cramer hadn't the faintest idea of what was going on. I wouldn't have given an unconditional guarantee on his brains, but there was nothing wrong with his guts.
'Yeah, I know who you are,' he said calmly. 'Sit down and give him rope. He owns this house and about a million dollars' worth of orchids. It's a good thing you've got me here as a witness in case you try for damages.'
Wolfe snorted irritably, 'Get out if you want to and take the consequences. You're acting like a schoolgirl in a pet. Can't you see I've got something to say and the best of your alternatives is to sit down and listen to it? Do you take me for a maudlin blatherskite?'
Donald blurted, 'He's a goddam bluffer-'
A look from his father cut him off, and a jerk of his father's head ordered him back to his chair. Donald sat down. John P. did the same and told Wolfe curtly:
'Say it.'
'That's better.' Wolfe got his finger-tips together again. 'I'll make it as brief as I can, since you
