“Okay. I'll phone you.”
I went back to the dining room and resumed with my tools and told Wolfe about it. He was provoked, as always when business intruded itself on a meal. I took my time eating, on to the coffee and through it, because I knew if I hurried and didn't chew properly it would upset Wolfe's digestion. It didn't break his heart if I was caught out in the field at feeding time and had to grab what I could get, but if I once started a meal at that table I had to complete it like a gentleman. Also, I wasn't champing at the bit for an errand I didn't fancy.
It was after two when I went to the garage for the roadster, and there I got another irritation when I found that the washing and polishing job had been done by a guy with one eye.
Downtown, on Centre Street, I parked at the triangle, and went in and took the elevator. I walked down the upstairs corridor as if I owned it, entered the anteroom of Cramer's office as cocky as they come, and told the hulk at the desk:
Tell the inspector, Goodwin of Nero Wolfe's office.”
I stood up for ten minutes, and then was nodded in. I was hoping somewhat that
Cramer would be out and my dealings would be with Burke, not on account of my natural timidity, but because I knew it would be better for everyone concerned if Cramer had a little more time to cool off before resuming social intercourse with us. But he was there at his desk when I entered, and to my surprise he didn't get up and take a bite at my ear. He snarled a little:
“So it's you. You walk right in here. Burke made a remark about you this morning. He said that if you ever wanted a rubdown you ought to get Smoky to do it for you. Smoky is the little guy with a bum leg that polishes the brass railings downstairs at the entrance.”
I said, “I guess I'll sit down.”
“I guess you will. Go ahead. Want my chair?”
“No, thanks.”
“What do you want?”
I shook my head at him wistfully. “I'll be doggoned, Inspector, if you're not a hard man to please. We do our best to help you find that red box, and you resent it. We catch a dangerous character trying to make an illegal entry, and hand him over to you, and you resent that. If we wrap this case up and present you with it, I suppose you'll charge us as accessories. You may remember that in that
Rubber Band affair-”
“Yeah, I know. Past favors have been appreciated. I'm busy. What do you want?”
“Well…” I tilted my head back so as to look down on him. “I represent the executor of Mr. McNair's estate. I came to invite Mr. Perren Gebert to attend the funeral services at the Belford Memorial Chapel at nine o'clock this evening. If you would kindly direct me to his room?”
Cramer gave me a nasty look. Then he heaved a deep sigh, reached in his pocket for a cigar, bit off the end and lit it. He puffed at it and got it established in the corner of his mouth. Abruptly he demanded:
“What have you got on Gebert?”
“Nothing. Not even passing a red light. Nothing at all.”
“Did you come here to see him? What does Wolfe want you to ask him?”
“Nothing. As Tammany is my judge. Wolfe says he's just clinging to the cliff of existence or something like that and he wouldn't let him in the house.”
“Then what the devil do you want with him?”
“Nothing. I'm just keeping my word. I promised somebody I would come down here and ask you how he is and what his future prospects are. So help me, that's on the level.”
“Maybe I believe you. Do you want to look at him?”
“Not especially. I would just as soon.”
“You can.” He pressed a button in a row. “As a matter of fact, I'd like to have you. This case is open and shut, open for ihe newspapers and shut for me. If you've got any curiosity about anything that you think Gebert might satisfy, go ahead and take your turn. They've been working on him since seven o'clock this morning. Eight hours. They can't even make him mad.”
A sergeant with oversize shoulders had entered and was standing there. Cramer told him: “This man's name is Goodwin. Take him down to Room Five and tell
Sturgis to let him help if he wants to.” He turned to me. “Drop in again before you leave. I may want to ask you something.”
“Okay. I'll have something thought up to tell you.”
I followed the sergeant out to the corridor and down it to the elevator. We stayed in for a flight below the ground floor, and he led me the length of a dim hall and around a corner, and finally stopped at a door which may have had a figure 5 on it but if so I couldn't see it. He opened the door and we went in and he closed the door again. He crossed to where a guy sat on a chair mopping his neck with a handkerchief, said something to him, and turned and went out again.
It was a medium-sized room, nearly bare. A few plain wooden chairs were along one wall. A bigger one with arms was near the middle of the room, and Perren
Gebert was sitting in it, with a light flooding his face from a floor lamp with a big reflector in front of him. Standing closer in front of him was a wiry-looking man in his shirt sleeves with little fox ears and a Yonkers haircut. The guy on the chair that the sergeant had spoken to was in his shirt sleeves too, and so was Gebert. When I got close enough to the light so that
Gebert could see me and recognize me, he half started up, and said in a funny hoarse
