After one brief glance I went back to the office and told Wolfe casually, “It’s only Cramer. To hell with him. Since he’s working on the Poor case and you’re not interested-”
“Archie. Confound you. Bring him in.”
The bell was ringing again, and that irritates me, so I went and got him. He was wearing his raincoat and his determined look. I relieved him of the former in the hall and let him take the latter on into the office. When I joined them Cramer was lowering himself into the red leather chair and telling Wolfe, “I dropped in on my way uptown because I thought it was only fair since you gave me that information. I think I’m going to arrest your client on a charge of murder.”
I sat down and felt at home.
IV
Wolfe grunted. He leaned back in his chair, got his fingertips touching in the locality of his belly button, and said offensively, “Nonsense. You can’t arrest my client on any charge whatever. My client is dead. By the way, is he? Has the corpse been properly identified?”
Cramer nodded. “Certainly. With a face like that it’s routine. Barber, dentist, and doctor-they’re the experts. Why, what did you think it was, an insurance fake?”
“I didn’t think. Then you can’t arrest my client.”
“Goodwin says Mrs. Poor is your client.”
“Mr. Goodwin is impulsive. You read that receipt. So you’re going to charge Mrs. Poor?”
“I think I am.”
“Indeed.”
Cramer scowled at him. “Don’t indeed me. Goddam it, didn’t I take the trouble to stop and tell you about it?”
“Go ahead and tell me.”
“Very well.” Cramer screwed up his lips, deciding where to start. “First I’d appreciate an answer to a question. What is this identity angle anyhow? There’s not the slightest doubt it was Poor. Not only the corpse itself, other things, like the elevator man that took them up when they came home, and the people up at the tavern where they ate dinner. He was known there. And what did you want a photograph for?”
“Did you bring one?”
“No. Apparently there aren’t any. I wasn’t interested after the dentist and barber verified the corpse, but I understand the papers had to settle for sketches drawn from descriptions. One reason I came here, what’s your idea doubting the identity of the corpse?”
Wolfe shook his head. “Evidently silly, since you’re ready to take Mrs. Poor. You were telling me…”
“Yeah. Of course Goodwin told you about the box of cigars.”
“Something.”
“Well, that was it all right. Poor smoked about a box every two days, boxes of twenty-five. He bought them, ten boxes at a time, from a place on Varick Street near his office and factory. There were four unopened boxes in his apartment and they’re okay. The one he started on when he got home Tuesday night-the twenty-four left in it are all loaded. Any one of them would have killed him two seconds after he lit it.”
Wolfe muttered, “That’s hard to believe-inside a cigar-”
“Right. I thought so too. The firm of Blaney and Poor has been making trick cigars for years, but they’re harmless, all they do is phut and make you jump. What’s in these twenty-four is anything but harmless-a special kind of instantaneous fuse the size of an ordinary thread, and a very special explosive capsule that was invented during the war and is still on the secret list. Even this is confidential, it’s made by the Beck Products Corporation, and their men and the FBI are raising hell trying to find out how this murderer got hold of them. That’s not for publication.”
“I’m not a publisher.”
“Okay.” Cramer got a cigar from his pocket, gazed at it with an attention that was not his habit, bit off an end, and lit it. Wolfe and I watched the operation, which we had both seen Cramer perform at least two hundred times, as if there was something very interesting about it.
“Of course,” Wolfe remarked, “the Alta Vista people deny all knowledge.”
“Sure. We let them analyze five of the twenty-four, after removing the fuses and capsules, and they say the filters are theirs but the wrappers are not. They say whoever sliced them open and inserted the things and rewrapped them was an expert, and anyhow, anybody could see that.” Cramer sank his teeth deeper in his cigar. “Now then. There are six people connected with Blaney and Poor who are good at making trick cigars. Four of them are mixed up in this. Helen Vardis is one of their most highly skilled workers. Joe Groll is the foreman and can do anything. Blaney is the best of all, he shows them how. And Mrs. Poor worked there for four years when she was Martha Davis, up to two years ago when she married Poor.”
Wolfe shuddered. “Six people good at making trick cigars. Couldn’t the murder have been a joint enterprise? Couldn’t you convict all of them?”
“I don’t appreciate jokes about murder,” Cramer said morosely. “I wish I could. It’s a defect of character. As for getting the loaded cigars into Poor’s apartment, that also is wide open. He always had them delivered to his office, and the package would lie around there, sometimes as long as two or three days, until he took it home. So anybody might have substituted the loaded box. But now about Mrs. Poor. How do you like this? Naturally we gave the cigars and the box everything we had. It was a very neat job. But underneath the cigars we found two human hairs, one five inches long and one six and a half inches. We have compared them with hairs taken from various heads. Those two came from the head of Mrs. Poor. Unquestionably. So I think I’ll charge her.” Wolfe grunted and shut his eyes.
I asked, perfectly friendly, “Hairs don’t have arches and loops and whorls, do they, Inspector?”
“Nuts.” He glared at me. “Where’s your laboratory?”
Wolfe’s eyes half opened. “I wouldn’t do it if I were you, Mr. Cramer.”
“Oh.” He glared at Wolfe. “You wouldn’t.”
“No, sir. Let me put it this way.” Wolfe maneuvered himself into position for an uplift and got to his feet. “You have her on trial. The hairs have been placed in evidence. I am the defense attorney. I am speaking to the jury.”
Wolfe fixed his eyes on me. “Ladies and gentlemen, I respect your intelligence. The operation of turning those cigars into deadly bombs has been described to you as one requiring the highest degree of skill and the minutest attention. Deft fingers and perfect eyesight were essential. Since the slightest irregularity about the appearance of that box of cigars might have attracted the attention of a veteran smoker, you can imagine the anxious scrutiny with which each cigar was inspected as it was arranged in the box. And you can realize how incredible it is that such a person, so intently engaged on anything and everything the eye could see, could possibly have been guilty of such atrocious carelessness as to leave two of the hairs of her head in that box with those cigars. Ladies and gentlemen, I appeal to your intelligence! I put it to you that those hairs, far from being evidence that Martha Poor killed her husband, are instead evidence that Martha Poor did not kill her husband!”