that he could free-lance without an office and make more than anyone on a payroll. He was always Wolfe's first choice when we had to have help, and we had used him hundreds of times.
I asked casually, 'Saul's taking over my job, I suppose?'
'I don't know,' Fritz said firmly, 'anything about what Saul is doing.'
That was plain enough. Obviously Fritz had been told that if I came around it was okay for me to know that Saul had come to an early breakfast, but no more. I made no effort to snake it out of him, having tried it once or twice before with no success at all.
On my way out I stopped in the office. Friday's mail, under a paperweight on Wolfe's desk, contained nothing that couldn't wait. There was nothing on the desk, or on the memo pad or calendar, that gave any hint of what he wanted with Saul, but in the safe I found something that indicated that it was no trivial chore. I opened the safe because I wanted to hit petty cash for a loan. One of the drawers of the safe is partitioned in the middle, with petty cash on the right and emergency reserve on the left. Getting five twenties from petty, I noticed a slip of paper in emergency that hadn't been there before, and I picked it up for a look. Scribbled on it in pencil in Wolfe's neat hand was the notation, '6/27/52 $2000 NW.' It was the long-standing rule to keep five grand in emergency, in used hundreds, twenties, and tens. A quick count showed that the slip was a record of a real transaction; two grand had been taken. That was interesting-so darned interesting that I might have forgotten to tell Fritz so long if he hadn't heard me leaving the office and come out to put the bolt back on the door. I told him it was okay to let Wolfe know I had been in for an early breakfast, but no more.
Returning to Leonard Street in a taxi, naturally I tried to decide what Saul Panzer was supposed to be doing with two thousand bucks, granting that it was in connection with Eads-Fomos-Jaffee. I concocted quite a list of guesses, beginning with a trip to Venezuela to check on Eric Hagh, and ending with a bribe to Andy Fomos to spill something his wife had told him. I bought none of them.
The five hours' sleep that I mentioned getting between early Friday morning and Monday morning came Sunday from 4 a.m. to 9 a.m., on a bumpy old couch at the headquarters of Manhattan Homicide West on Twentieth Street. I might be able, by digging hard, to give a complete report and timetable of a hundred other activities I had a share in during that stretch, but I don't know what good it would do you, and if you don't mind I would rather skip it. I sat in a couple of dozen quiz sessions, at Twentieth Street, Leonard Street, and Centre Street. I read tens of thousands of words of reports and summaries. Most of Sunday I spent in a PD car with a uniformed driver, with credentials signed by a deputy commissioner, calling on a long list of people who were connected in one way or another with something that had been said by one of the suspects. Returning to Twentieth Street Sunday around midnight, I admit I had in mind the possibility of another date with the couch, but I didn't get it. Brucker's alibi had been cracked. Feeling hot breath just behind him, he was now claiming that he had gone from Wolfe's house to Daphne O'Neil's apartment and spent the night there, and she was concurring. When I got in from my Sunday drive, Captain Olmstead was just starting to take Daphne over the bumps, and I was invited to join the party, and accepted. It ended around six a.m. Monday, and my thoughts again dived for the couch, but I didn't. I had to either get a clean shirt or go off and hide, so I went to Thirty-fifth Street and repeated Saturday's performance, including a breakfast by Fritz.
Of course I didn't see Wolfe. I had phoned him once each day, but no mention had been made of murder or Saul Panzer. He was testy, and I was touchy. I looked in the safe again; no more dough had been taken from emergency.
Returning to Twentieth Street, superficially clean and fresh, but pretty well fagged, and no bargain even at half price, I was going along the upper hall when one of my colleagues-for I might as well face it and admit it, during that period Homicide dicks were my colleagues-coming out of a room, caught sight of me, and yelled, 'Hey, where the hell have you been?'
'Look at me.' I pointed to my shirt and tie. 'Doesn't it show?'
'Yeah, let me touch you. I was going to send out a general alarm. They want you down at the Commissioner's office.'
'Who wants me?'
'Stebbins phoned twice. He's there with the inspector. There's a car down front. Come on.'
Some chauffeurs of PD cars like to have an excuse to step on it, and some don't. That one did. He didn't use much noise, but plenty of gas, and when he was in the fourth grade a maladjusted schoolteacher had made him write five hundred times, 'A miss is as good as a mile,' and it sank in. I should have clocked us from 230 West Twentieth Street to 240 Centre Street. As I got out I told him he should have an insurance vending machine, like those at airports, installed on his dash, and he grinned sociably. 'Impressed you, did it, bud?'
It did, at that, but not as much as the assortment I found waiting for me in the spacious and well- furnished office of Police Commissioner Skinner. Besides Skinner and District Attorney Bowen, there were two deputy commissioners, Cramer and another inspector, a deputy inspector, a captain, and Sergeant Purley Stebbins-and they were certainly waiting for me, from the way all faces turned and stayed turned as I entered and advanced.
Skinner told me to sit, and they had a chair waiting too. He asked Bowen, 'You want to take it, Ed?'
'No, go ahead,' the DA told him.
Skinner eyed me. 'I guess you know as much about where we stand as I do.'
I lifted my shoulders and let them down. 'I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm flat on my back.'
He nodded. 'We all are, not for quotation. Most of us gave up our weekends, but we might as well not have. During the last forty hours we've had more men on this case than any other in my time, and I can't see that we've gained an inch, and the others agree with me. It is an extremely bad situation, it couldn't be worse, and something has to be done. We've been discussing it here at length, and various proposals have been made and some adopted, and one of them concerns you. We want your help on it.'
'I've been trying to help.'
'I know you have. Ever since I read your report last Friday I have thought that our best single chance was the keys. Those keys were lifted from a lady's bag while twelve people were present in the room. I don't think it's possible that no one saw any significant glance or movement. As you know, they have been questioned over and over, and the only result has been to focus suspicion on Hagh, the ex-husband, because he was nearer Mrs. Jaffee than anyone else for most of the evening. But all of them had opportunities, as you make clear in your report-and in fact they don't deny it. We certainly can't charge Hagh just because he had more chances than the
