coincidence that two of Jarrell’s associates, his former secretary and a close friend, had got it within a week. He had been nasty, of course-Rowcliff would be nasty to Saint Peter if he ever got near him; but he hadn’t actually snarled.
But although I sympathized with Wolfe, I’m not a genius like him, and if I was sliding into a hole too deep to crawl out of I wanted to know about it in time to get a haircut and have my pants pressed before my appearance in the line-up. Of the half a dozen possible facts that could send me over the edge there was one in particular that I wanted very much to get a line on, but it wasn’t around. None of the newscasts mentioned it, Sunday night or Monday morning. It wasn’t in the Monday morning papers. Lon Cohen didn’t have it. There were four guys-one at headquarters, one on the DA’s staff, and two on Homicide-for whom I had done favors in the past, who could have had it and who might have obliged me, but with two murders in the stew it was too risky to ask them.
So I was still factless when, ten minutes before noon, the phone rang and I got an invitation to call at the DA’s office at my earliest convenience. Wolfe was still up in the plant rooms. He always came down at eleven o’clock, but hadn’t shown that morning-for fear, as I said, that I would tell him something. I buzzed him on the house phone to tell him where I was going, went out and walked to Ninth Avenue, and took a taxi to Leonard Street.
That time I was kept waiting only a few minutes before I was taken in to Mandelbaum. He was polite, as usual, getting to his feet to shake hands. I was only a private detective, true, but as far as he knew I had committed neither a felony nor a misdemeanor, and the only way an assistant DA can get the “assistant” removed from his title is to have it voted off, making it DA, and I was a voter. The chair for me at the end of his desk was of course placed so I was facing a window.
What he wanted from me was the same as before, things I had seen and heard at Jarrell’s place, but this time concentrating on Corey Brigham instead of James L. Eber. I had to concede that that had now become relevant, and there was more ground to cover since Brigham had been there for dinner and bridge on Monday, and again on Wednesday, and also I might have heard comments about him at other times. Mandelbaum was patient, and thorough, and didn’t try to be tricky. He did double back a lot, but doubling back has been routine for so many centuries that you can’t call it a trick. I didn’t mention one of my contacts with Brigham, the conference at Wolfe’s office Friday afternoon, and to my surprise he didn’t either. I would have thought they would have dug that up by now, but apparently not.
After he told the stenographer to go and type the statement, and she went, I stood up. “It will take her quite a while,” I said. “I have to run a couple of errands, and I’ll drop in later and sign it. If you don’t mind.”
“Quite all right. Certainly. If you make it today. Say by five o’clock.”
“Oh, sure.” I turned to go, and turned back, and grinned at him. “By the way, you may have noticed that I didn’t live up to my reputation for wisecracks.”
“Yes, I noticed that. Maybe you’re running out.”
“I hope not. I’ll do better next time. I guess my mind was too busy with something I had just heard- about the bullets.”
“What bullets?”
“Why, the two bullets. Haven’t you got that yet? That the bullet that killed Eber and the one that killed Brigham were fired by the same gun?”
“I thought that was-” He stopped. “Where did you hear that?”
I gave him another grin. “I know, it’s being saved. Don’t worry, I won’t slip it out-I may not even tell Mr. Wolfe. But it won’t keep long, it’s too hot. The guy who told me, it was burning his tongue, and he knows me.”
“Who was it? Who told you?”
“I
So the fact was a fact, and I had it. I hadn’t risked anything. If it had turned out not to be a fact, and his reaction would have shown it, it could have been that someone had been stringing me, and of course I wouldn’t have remembered who. Okay, I had it. If Wolfe had known what I was bringing home with me he would probably have locked himself in his room and not answered the phone, and I would have had to yell through the door.
He had just sat down to lunch-red snapper filets baked in butter and lemon juice and almonds-so I had to hold it. Even without the rule that business was taboo at the table, I wouldn’t have had the heart to rain his meal. But I still might want time to get a haircut and have my pants pressed, so as soon as we had crossed to the office and coffee had been poured I spoke. “I hate to bring it up right after lunch, but I think you ought to know. We’re out of the frying pan. We’re in the fire. At least that is my opinion.”
He usually takes three little sips of coffee at its hottest before putting the cup down, but that time, knowing my tones of voice, he took only two.
“Opinion?”
“Yes, sir. It may be only that because it’s an inference. For more than an hour Mandelbaum asked me what I had seen and heard from, by, to, and about Corey Brigham. I said I’d drop in later to sign the statement, got up to go, and said something. So you can form your own opinion, I’ll give it to you.”
I did so. His frown at the start was a double-breasted scowl at the end. He said nothing, he just scowled. It isn’t often that his feelings are too strong for words.
“If you want to,” I said, “you can be sore at me for fishing it up. If I hadn’t worked that on him it would have been another day, possibly two, before you had to face it. But you can be sore and use your mind at the same time, I’ve seen you, and it looks to me as if a mind is needed. I’m assuming that your opinion is the same as mine.”
He snorted. “Opinion? Bah. He might as well have certified it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“He’s a simpleton. He should have known you were gulling him.”
