his footsteps in the hall, heading for the office.
If you think a problem child is tough, try handling a problem elephant. He is plenty knotty even when he is himself, and that day he was really special. After looking through the mail, glancing at his desk calendar, and signing three checks I had put on his desk, he had snapped at me, 'A fine prospect. Dealing with them singly would be interminable. Will you have them all here at six o'clock?'
I kept calm. I merely asked, 'All of whom?'
'You know quite well. Those women.'
I still kept calm. 'I should think ten of them would be enough. You said yourself that two of them can be crossed off.'
'I need them all. Those two can help establish the order in which the plates were taken.'
I held on. I too was short on sleep, shorter even than he, and I didn't feel up to a fracas. 'I have a suggestion,' I said. 'I suggest
4 3 '* Wolfe's Door
that you postpone operations until your wires are connected again. Counting up to five hundred might help. You know damn well that all twelve of them will spend the afternoon either at the District Attorney's office or receiving official callers at their homes-- probably most of them at the DA's office. And probably they'll spend the evening there too. Do you want some aspirin?'
'I want them,' he growled.
I could have left him to grope back to normal on his own and gone up to my room for a nap, but after all he pays my salary. So I picked up a sheet of paper I had typed and got up and handed it to him. It read:
Assigned to Served
Peggy Choate Helen lacono Pyle Wolfe Wolfe Kreis
Nora Jaret Carol Annis Kreis Schriver Schriver Dart
Lucy Morgan Fern Faber Dart Hewitt Hewitt No one
2'Fern Faber's out,' I said, 'and I realize it doesn't have to be one of those five, even though Lucy Morgan took the last plate. Possibly one or two others took plates after Peggy Choate did, and served the men they were assigned to. But it seems--'
I stopped because he had crumpled it and dropped it in the wastebasket. 'I heard them,' he growled. 'My faculties, including my memory, are not impaired. I am merely ruffled beyond the bounds of tolerance.'
For him that was an abject apology, and a sign that he was beginning to regain control. But a few minutes later, when the bell rang, and after a look through the one-way glass panel of the front door I told him it was Cramer, and he said to admit him, and Cramer marched in and planted his fanny on the red leather chair and opened up with an impolite remark about concealing facts connected with a murder, Wolfe had cut loose; and Cramer asked him what the hell was that to scrape his neck, which was a new one to me but sounded somewhat vulgar for an inspector. He had probably picked it up from some hoodlum.
Ruffling Cramer beyond the bounds of tolerance did Wolfe
Poison a la Carte 25
good. He leaned back in his chair, 'Everyone conceals something,' he said placidly. 'Or at least omits something, if only because to include everything is impossible. During those wearisome hours, nearly six of them, I answered all questions, and so did Mr. Good win. Indeed, I thought we were helpful. I thought we had cleared away some rubble.'
'Yeah.' Cramer wasn't grateful. His big pink face was always a little pinker than normal, not with pleasure, when he was tackling Wolfe. 'You had witnessed the commission of a murder, and you didn't notify--'
'It wasn't a murder until he died.'
'All right, a felony. You not only failed to report it, you--'
'That a felony had been committed was my conclusion. Others present disagreed with me. Only a few minutes before Mr. Steb bins entered the room Mr. Leacraft, a member of the bar and therefore himself an officer of the law, challenged my conclusion.'
'You should have reported it. You're a licensed detective. Also you started an investigation, questioning the suspects--'
'Only to test my conclusion. I would have been a ninny to report it before learning--'
'Damn it,' Cramer barked, 'will you let me finish a sentence? Just one?'
Wolfe's shoulders went up an eighth of an inch and down again. 'Certainly, if it has import. I am not baiting you, Mr. Cramer. But I have already replied to these imputations, to you and Mr. Steb bins and an assistant district attorney. I did not wrongly delay reporting a crime, and I did not usurp the function of the police. Very well, finish a sentence.'
'You knew Pyle was dying. You said so.'
'Also my own conclusion. The doctors were still trying to save him.'
Cramer took a breath. He looked at me, saw nothing inspiring, and returned to Wolfe. 'I'll tell you why I'm here. Those three men--the cook, the man that helped him, and the man in the dining room--Fritz Brenner, Felix Courbet, and Zoltan Mahany--were all supplied by you. All close to you. I want to know about them, or at least two of them. I might as well leave Fritz out of it. In the
2,6
3 at Wolfe's Door
first place, it's hard to believe that Zoltan doesn't know who took the first two or three plates or whether one
