“How far have you got?” Cramer interrupted.
“Well.” Wolfe smirked. He is most intolerable when he smirks. “Further than you, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“Yeah,” Cramer said sarcastically. “Here the other evening, I didn’t quite understand why you didn’t pick him out and let me take him.”
“Neither did I,” Wolfe agreed. “For one moment I thought I might, when one of them said something extraordinary, but I was unable-”
“Who said what?”
Wolfe shook his head. “I’m having it looked into.” His tone implied that the 82nd Airborne was at it from coast to coast. He shifted to one of mild reproach. “You broke it up and chased them out. If you had acted like an adult investigator instead of an ill-tempered child I might have got somewhere.”
“Oh, sure. I bitched it for you. I’d do anything to square it, anything you say. Why don’t you ask me to get them all in here again, right now?”
“An excellent idea.” Wolfe nearly sat up straight, he was so overcome with enthusiasm. “Excellent. I do ask it. Use Mr. Goodwin’s phone.”
“By God!” Cramer stared. “You thought I meant it?”
“
“Who the hell does this man think he is?” Dexter demanded of Cramer.
Cramer, scowling at Wolfe, didn’t reply. After some seconds he arose and, without any alteration in the scowl, came to my desk. By the time he arrived I had lifted the receiver and started to dial Watkins 9-8242. He took it, sat on the corner of the desk, and went on scowling.
“Horowitz? Inspector Cramer, talking from Nero Wolfe’s office. Give me Lieutenant Rowcliffe. George? No, what do you expect, I just got here. Anything from on high? Yeah. Yeah? File it under C for crap. No. You’ve got a list of the people who were here at Wolfe’s Friday evening. Get some help on the phones and call all of them and tell them to come to Wolfe’s office immediately. I know that, but
He turned to Wolfe. “Anyone else?” Wolfe shook his head and Cramer resumed:
“That’s all. Send Stebbins here right away. Wherever they are, find them and get them here. Send men out if you have to. Yeah, I know, all right, they raise hell, what’s the difference how I lose my job if I lose it? Wolfe says I’m desperate, and you know Wolfe, he reads faces. Step on it.”
Cramer went back to the red leather chair, sat, pulled out a cigar and sank his teeth in it, and rasped, “There. I never thought I’d come to this.”
“Frankly,” Wolfe muttered, “I was surprised to see you. With what Mr. Goodwin and I furnished you yesterday I would have guessed you were making headway.”
“Sure,” Cramer chewed the cigar. “Headway in the thickest damn fog I ever saw. That was a big help, what you and Goodwin furnished. In the first place-”
“Excuse me,” Dexter put in. He stood up. “I have some phone calls to make.”
“If they’re private,” I told him, “there’s a phone upstairs you can use.”
“No, thanks.” He looked at me impolitely. “I’ll go and find a booth.” He started out, halted to say over his shoulder that he would be back in half an hour, and went. I moseyed to the hall to see that he didn’t stumble on the sill, and after the door had closed behind him returned to the office. Cramer was talking:
“… and we’re worse off than we were before. Zeros all the way across. If you care for any details, take your pick.”
Wolfe grunted. “The photograph and car license mailed to Mrs. Boone. The envelope. Will you have some beer?”
“Yes, I will. Fingerprints, all the routine, nothing. Mailed midtown Friday eight P.M. How would you like to check sales of envelopes in the five-and-dimes?”
“Archie might try it.” It was a sign we were all good friends when Wolfe, speaking to Cramer, called me Archie. Usually it was Mr. Goodwin. “What about those cylinders?”
“They were dictated by Boone on March 19th and typed by Miss Gunther on the 20th. The carbons are in Washington and the FBI has checked them. Miss Gunther can’t understand it, except on the assumption that Boone picked up the wrong case when he left his office Tuesday afternoon, and she says he didn’t often make mistakes like that. But if that was it the case containing the cylinders he dictated Tuesday afternoon ought to be still in his office in Washington, and it isn’t. No sign of it. There’s one other possibility. We’ve asked everyone concerned not to leave the city, but on Thursday the BPR asked permission for Miss Gunther to go to Washington on urgent business, and we let her. She flew down and back. She had a suitcase with her.”
Wolfe shuddered. The idea of people getting on airplanes voluntarily was too much for him. He flashed a glance at Cramer. “I see you have eliminated nothing. Was Miss Gunther alone on her trip?”
“She went down alone. Dexter and two other BPR men came back with her.”
“She has no difficulty explaining her movements?”
“She has no difficulty explaining anything. That young woman has no difficulty explaining period.”
Wolfe nodded. “I believe Archie agrees with you.” The beer had arrived, escorted by Fritz, and he was pouring. “I suppose you’ve had a talk with Mr. O’Neill.”
