“She left a gun with you?”
“Yes. I’ll tell you about it, and give it to you, if you will give me its history at the earliest possible moment. I want your word.”
“You won’t get it. Mrs. Hazen is charged with murder. If she left a gun with you it’s evidence in a murder investigation.”
Wolfe shook his head. “No. It’s evidence in my investigation, but not in yours. You have your gun, the one the murderer used. How can it embarrass you to tell me about this one?”
Cramer considered it. “You’re going to tell me what she said about it.”
“I am.”
“Okay. Go ahead.”
“I have your word?”
“Yes.”
“Get the gun, Archie.”
I went to the safe and squatted to twirl the knob. Ordinarily I leave it unlocked when I’m in the office, but with that box in it I was taking no chances, so after I had worked the combination and got the gun I shut the door and turned the knob. As I crossed to Cramer I spoke. “By the way, I asked a question that wasn’t answered. What make is your gun? The one that killed him.”
“Drexel thirty-two.”
“So’s this.” I handed it to him. “Of course there are millions of Drexel thirty-twos.”
He gave it a look, and darned if he didn’t sniff it. As I said, that’s automatic. Also he flipped the cylinder open for a glance.
“It was fired yesterday,” Wolfe said, “by Mr. Goodwin, to get a bullet. The bullet I gave you.”
Cramer nodded. “Yeah. There’s nothing on God’s earth you wouldn’t do. It could have been... What the hell, it wasn’t. Okay, let’s hear you.”
Wolfe unloaded. He didn’t enjoy it and neither did I, spilling it, but we had to know about the gun and it might have taken us days. He skipped the details, including no quotes, but gave it straight, both parts, before the news came over the radio and after. He didn’t include my reasons for deciding that she hadn’t shot her husband, but I didn’t mind; it might have got Cramer confused and that would have been a pity. He was a little confused anyhow; toward the end he was frowning, pulling at his lip now and then, a wary look in his eyes. When Wolfe finished he sat looking at it before he spoke.
“What have you left out?” he demanded.
Wolfe shook his head. “Nothing material. You said you wanted the substance; you have it. How long will it take to trace the gun?”
“I don’t get it. After she came to you with that fairy tale, and the news came about her husband, and you learned that we were holding her, you took her for a client? I don’t get it. I have never known you to take a murderer for a client. Whether it’s just your goddamn luck, or what, I don’t know, but you haven’t. Why did you take her?”
A corner of Wolfe’s mouth turned up. “I asked Mr. Goodwin’s opinion and he said she was innocent. His judgment of women under thirty is infallible. How long will it take to trace the gun?”
“Nuts.” Cramer stood up. “Maybe an hour, maybe a week. I’m taking Goodwin. They’ll take his statement at the District Attorney’s office, a complete report of the conversation. I’ll have a man here at two o’clock to take yours. If I took you down you’d only—”
“I shall sign no statement. I am not obliged to. If you send a man he won’t be admitted. If you have questions, ask them.”
Cramer’s round red face got redder. But that was as far as it went; his memory of what had happened on the three occasions he had taken Wolfe downtown was presumably what stopped him. He stuck the gun in his pocket and turned to me. “Come on, Goodwin. We’ll see.”
As I arose the phone rang and I reached to get it. It was Nathaniel Parker. He was upset. “Archie? Nat Parker. Mrs. Hazen is being held on a charge of homicide, of course without bail. I want to see Wolfe before I see her. I have to know what she told him yesterday. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Fine,” I said. “He’s in a perfect mood for it. Come ahead.” I hung up, told Wolfe, “Parker will be here in twenty minutes,” and went to the hall for my coat and hat, with Cramer at my heels.
Chapter 8
During the next nine hours I had various opportunities to try to sort it out. En route in a police car to the DA’s office, later from there to Homicide West on 20th Street, and several waiting periods while assorted officers of the law, including the DA himself at one point, decided what to do next.
It was complicated enough even before an assistant DA kindly permitted me to use a phone, around three o’clock, and I called Wolfe. Of course the game was button, button, who had the gun when and where? Either gun. If Lucy Hazen had lied, how much? Had the gun that the maid had seen in the drawer Tuesday morning been the one that had shot Hazen or the one she had brought to Wolfe? If the former, Lucy was a liar and also either was a murderer or could name him. If the latter, who had put it in the drawer and when? And why? It wasn’t that there were no possible answers; there were too many. And too many of them made it too likely that Lucy had made a monkey of me and therefore were not acceptable.
The first hour or so I was entertained by an assistant DA named Mandel, who was not a stranger to me, and a Homicide Bureau lieutenant, and it was obvious that the gun puzzle was as tough for them as it was for me, though they didn’t say so. Then, while we were having sandwiches and coffee, no recess called, at Mandel’s desk, a phone call came for him, and he took the lieutenant to another room, and when they returned their attitude was quite different. Apparently they were no longer interested in guns; they concentrated on what Lucy had said to Wolfe and me, her exact words; and finally, a little before three o’clock, Mandel called a stenographer in and told me to start dictating my statement. Of course the room was wired for sound, and they would have fun later comparing my dictated statement with what I had told them. It was then that I insisted on making a phone call and was escorted to a booth.
I got Wolfe. “Me. In a booth at the DA’s office, and it may be tapped. They should be finished with me by the end of the week. They were curious about guns, and then a phone call came and they weren’t. I thought you might like to know.”
“I already know.” He didn’t sound depressed. “Mr. Cramer phoned shortly after one. The gun we gave him had been traced without difficulty. It was purchased by Mrs. Hazen’s father, Titus Postel, in 1953, and he committed suicide with it five years ago, in 1955.”
“And she had it?”
“Not established. I have told Mr. Parker to ask her when he sees her this afternoon. Meanwhile I have got Saul and given him an errand.”
I would have liked to ask him what errand, but that wasn’t advisable since we might have company on the line. Saul Panzer, the first and best man on our list when we need help, charges more than any other freelance operative in New York, and is worth five times as much. I told Wolfe I might or might not be home for dinner.
Dictating my statement to the stenographer, I had to keep jerking my mind back to it. The gun puzzle was okay now for the cops, since they had tagged Lucy; now they didn’t have to buy it that she had been nutty enough to take the gun home after she shot him and put it in the drawer, and the next day get it and take it back to the car. It was much neater. She had got the gun from the drawer Monday, put the one she had, that had been her father’s, in its place, and left it in the car after she shot him. And Tuesday she had got the gun from the drawer and brought it to Wolfe as a prop for her fairy tale, evidently not knowing that guns have numbers that can be traced. What better could you ask for?