“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 think it was Commissioner Kelly. There’s a wisecrack, I seem to be recovering. I suppose I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Sorry. I’ll be in to sign the statement before five.” I was going. He called after me, wanting to know who had told me, but I said I couldn’t remember, and went.
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.”
“Yes, sir. You can be sore at him.”
“Soreness won’t help. Nor will it help to use my mind — supposing that I have one. This is disaster. There is only one forlorn issue to raise: whether we should verify it before we act, and if so how.”
“If you had been there I doubt if you would think it was necessary. If you could have seen his face when he said ‘I thought that was—’ and chopped it off.”
“No doubt. He’s a simpleton.”
He flattened his palms on his desk and stared into space. That didn’t look promising. It didn’t mean he was using his mind; when he uses his mind he leans back and closes his eyes, and when he’s hard at it his lips go in and out. So he wasn’t working. He was merely getting set to swallow a pill that would taste bad even after it was down and dissolved. It took him a full three minutes.
Then he transferred his palms to the chair arms and spoke. “Very well. Your notebook. A letter to Mr. Jarrell, to be delivered at once by messenger. It might be best to take it yourself, to make sure he gets it without delay.”
He took a breath. “Dear Mr. Jarrell. I enclose herewith my check for ten thousand dollars, returning the retainer you paid me in that amount for which I gave you a receipt. My outlay for expenses has not been large and I shall not bill you.
“Paragraph. A circumstance has transpired which makes it necessary for me to report to the proper authority some of the information I have acquired while acting on your behalf, particularly the disappearance of your Bowdoin thirty-eight revolver. Not being at liberty to specify the circumstance, I will say only that it compels me to take this step in spite of my strong inclination against it. I shall take it later this afternoon, after you have received this letter and the enclosure.
“Paragraph. I assume, naturally, that in this situation you will no longer desire my services and that our association ceases forthwith. In the unlikely event that you—”
He stopped short and I raised my eyes from the notebook. His lips were clamped tight and a muscle at the side of his neck was twitching. He was having a fit.
“No,” he said. “I will not. Tear it up.”
I hadn’t cared much for it myself. I put the pen down, ripped two pages from the notebook, tore them across three times, and dropped them in the wastebasket.
“Get Mr. Cramer,” he said.
I cared for that even less. Apparently he had decided it was too ticklish to wait even a few hours and was going to let go even before notifying the client. Of course that wasn’t unethical, with two murders sizzling, but it was rather unindomitable. I would have liked to take a stand, but in the first place he was in no mood for one of my stands, and in the second place the only alternative was the letter to Jarrell and that had been torn up. So I got Cramer, who, judging from his tone, was in a mood too. He told Wolfe he could give him a minute.
“That may do,” Wolfe said. “You may remember our conversation Saturday. Day before yesterday.”
“Yeah, I remember it. What about it?”
“I said then that if I have reason to think I have information relevant to the crime you’re investigating I am bound to give it to you. I now suspect that I have such information but I want to make sure. To do so I must proceed on the basis of knowledge that has come to me in a peculiar manner and I don’t know if I can rely on it. Mr. Goodwin has learned, or thinks he has, that the markings on the bullet which killed Corey Brigham have been compared with those on the bullet which killed James L. Eber, and that they are identical. I can proceed to verify my suspicion only if I accept that as established, and I decided to consult you. Do you advise me to proceed?”
“By God,” Cramer said.
“I’m afraid,” Wolfe objected, “that I need something more explicit.”
“Go to hell and get it there,” Cramer advised. “I know where Goodwin got it, from that damn fool at Leonard Street. He wanted us to find out who had leaked it to Goodwin, and we wanted to know exactly what Goodwin had said, and he told us, and we told him if he wanted to know who leaked it to Goodwin just look in a mirror. And now you’ve got the gall to ask me to verify it. By God. If you’ve got relevant information about a murder you know where it belongs.”
“I do indeed. And I’ll soon know whether I have it or not if I proceed on the basis of Mr. Goodwin’s news. If and when I have it you’ll get it without undue delay. Do you advise me to proceed?”
“Look, Wolfe. Are you listening?”
“Yes, I’m listening.”
“Okay, you want my advice. Here it is. Get the written permission of the police commissioner and the mayor too, and then proceed all you want to.”
He hung up.
I did too, and swiveled, and spoke. “So that’s settled. It was the same gun. And in spite of it, Jarrell’s private affairs are still private, or we’d be downtown right now, both of us, and wouldn’t get home for dinner. By the way, I apologize. I thought you were going to cough it up.”