Saul said, “Fred came about an hour after Archie phoned you. I called Orrie and asked him to come at nine o’clock. We decided to try to make him kill himself. When he came we jumped him without warning. He had his gun as usual, and in a pocket of his jacket he had a Don Pedro cigar tube. We went in and sat down and talked for about half an hour. Mostly Archie talked. He told him we were going to make it impossible for him to live. Orrie said Bassett was going to ruin him and Pierre hit him for a thousand dollars. I sealed the cigar tube with adhesive tape and put it back in his pocket, but we kept his gun. He left a little before ten o’clock.”
Wolfe said, “Satisfactory,” but he said it only with his eyes. His mouth stayed shut tight. He leaned back and closed his eyes and breathed deep. Saul looked at me and was going to say something, but he didn’t get it out because he was interrupted by a noise. Two noises. First the ring of the doorbell, and a moment later a shattering crack and clatter, somewhere close. We jumped and ran to the hall, Fred in front because he was closest. But in the hall he stopped and I passed him. As I neared the front door I slowed because the floor was covered with pieces of glass. There was nothing left of the glass panel in the door, three feet by four feet, but some jagged edges. I slid the bolt and opened the door enough to get through and stepped out.
Down on the sidewalk at the foot of the steps was Orrie Cather’s topcoat. From up above that’s just what it was, his topcoat. I went down the seven steps, and then I could see his face. There was nothing much wrong with his face. He had liked his face too much to hold it the way Pierre had held it. Nine days and ten hours had passed, two hundred and twenty-six hours, since I had stood and looked down at what had been Pierre’s face.
I lifted my head, and Saul and Fred were there, one on each side. “Okay,” I said, “stand by. I’m going in and ring Lon Cohen. I owe him something.”
Chapter 18
At half past nine that evening Wolfe and I were leaving the dining room, an hour later than usual, for after-dinner coffee in the office, when the doorbell rang. Wolfe shot a glance at the front door. He didn’t stop, but he had seen who it was, because I had stood my ground with Ralph Kerner of Town House Services and insisted that the temporary emergency job on the front door had to include some one-way glass. The bolt was a new one and wasn’t well fitted. I slid it and opened up, and Inspector Cramer entered.
He gave me a funny look, as if he wanted to ask me a question but couldn’t decide how to put it. Then he looked around at the marks on the wall and bench and rack, and the floor mat. I said, “The glass. You should have seen it.” He said, “Yeah, I bet,” and headed down the hall. I followed.
He always goes straight to the red leather chair, but not that time. Three steps in he stopped and sent his eyes around, left to right and then right to left. Then he went to the big globe and turned it, in no hurry, clear around, first to the right and then to the left, while I stood and stared. Then he took off his coat and dropped it on a yellow chair, crossed to the red leather chair, sat, and said, “I’ve been wanting to do that for years. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that it’s the biggest and finest globe I ever saw. Also I’ve never mentioned that this is the best working room I know. The best-looking. I mention it now because I may never see it again.”
“Indeed.” Wolfe’s brows were up. “Are you retiring? You’re not old enough.”
“No, I’m not retiring. Maybe I should. I’m not old enough, but I’m tired enough. But I’m not. But you are. You could call it retiring.”
“Apparently you have been misinformed. Or are you guessing?”
“No, I’m not guessing.” Cramer got a cigar from a pocket, not a Don Pedro, stuck it in his mouth and clamped his teeth on it, and took it out again. He hadn’t lit one for years. “It’s no go, Wolfe. This time you are done. Not only the DA, the Commissioner. I think he has even spoken to the Mayor. Is this being recorded?”
“Of course not. My word of honor if you need it.”
“I don’t.” Cramer put the cigar between his teeth, took it out, threw it at my wastebasket, and missed by two feet. “You know,” he said, “I don’t really know how dumb you think I am. I never have known.”
“Pfui. That’s flummery. My knowledge of you is not mere surmise. I know you. Certainly your mental processes have limits, so have mine, but you are not dumb — your word — at all. If you were dumb, you would have in fact concluded that I am done — again, your word — and you wouldn’t have come. You would have abandoned me to the vengeance of the District Attorney — perhaps with a touch of regret that you wouldn’t have another chance to come and whirl that globe around.”
“Goddam it, I didn’t whirl it!”
“Spin, rotate, twirl, circumvolute — your choice. So why did you come?”
“You tell me.”
“I will. Because you suspected that I might not be done, there might be a hole I could wriggle out through, and you wanted to know where and how.”
“That would be a wriggle. You wriggle?”
“Confound it, quit scorning my diction. I choose words to serve my purpose. Archie, tell Fritz he may bring the coffee. Three cups. Or would you prefer beer or brandy?”
Cramer said no, he would like coffee, and I went. Tired as I was after a long, hard day, including such items as telling Jill what had happened to Orrie, I didn’t drag my feet. I too wanted to know where and how. When I went back in, Wolfe was talking.
“... but I’m not going to tell you what I intend to do. Actually I don’t intend to do anything. I’m going to loaf, drift, for the first time in ten days. Read books, drink beer, discuss food with Fritz, logomachize with Archie. Perhaps chat with you if you have occasion to drop in. I’m loose, Mr. Cramer. I’m at peace.”
“Like hell you are. Your licenses have been suspended.”
“Not for long, I think. When the coffee comes—”
It came. Fritz was there with the tray. He put it on Wolfe’s desk and left. Wolfe poured, and he remembered that Cramer took sugar and cream, though it had been at least three years since he had had coffee with us. I got up and served Cramer and got mine, sat and stirred and took a sip, and crossed my legs, hoping that by bedtime I would be at peace too.
Wolfe took a swallow — he can take coffee hotter than I can — and leaned back. “I told you nine days ago,” he said, “Tuesday of last week, that I was going to tell you absolutely nothing. I repeat that. I am going to tell you nothing. But if you care to listen, I’ll make a supposition. I’ll imagine a situation and describe it. Do you want me to?”
“You can start. I can always interrupt.” Cramer took too big a sip of hot coffee. I was afraid he would have to spit it out, but his mouth and jaw worked on it and he got it down.
“A long and elaborate supposition,” Wolfe said. “Suppose that five days ago, last Saturday, an accumulation of facts and observations forced me to surmise that a man who had been associated with me for years had committed three murders. The first item of that accumulation had come the morning Pierre Ducos died in my house when Archie — I drop the formality — Archie told me what Pierre had said when he arrived. He refused to give Archie any details; he would tell only me. Perhaps it was my self-esteem that made me give that item too little thought; Pierre said I was the greatest detective in the world. All is vanity.”
He drank coffee. “The second item of the accumulation came Wednesday evening, a week ago yesterday, when Orrie Cather offered to donate his services, to take no pay. He made the offer first, before either Saul Panzer or Fred Durkin. That was out of character. For him it was remarkable. Shall I iterate and reiterate that this is merely a series of suppositions?”