If Death Ever Slept

I returned to the front, removed the chain, and swung the door open. “He’s delighted that you’ve come. So am I.”

He may not have caught the last three words, as he had tossed his hat on the bench and was halfway down the hall. By the time I had closed the door and made it back to the office he was at the red leather chair. Orrie wasn’t visible. He hadn’t come to the hall, so Wolfe must have sent him to the front room. That door was closed. I went to my chair and was myself again.

Cramer, seated, was speaking. “Do you want me to repeat it? What I told Goodwin?”

“That shouldn’t be necessary.” Wolfe, having swiveled to face him, was civil but not soapy. “But I am curious, naturally, as to how you got the information. Has Mr. Goodwin been under surveillance?”

“No, but a certain address on Fifth Avenue has been, since eight o’clock this morning. When Goodwin was seen coming out, at a quarter to ten, and recognized, and it was learned from the man in the lobby that the man who had just gone out was named Alan Green and he was Otis Jarrell’s secretary, and it was reported to me, I wasn’t just curious. If I had just been curious I would have had Sergeant Stebbins phone you. I’ve come myself.”

“I commend your zeal, Mr. Cramer. And it’s pleasant to see you again, but I’m afraid my wits are a little dull this morning. You must bear with me. I didn’t know that taking a job under an alias is an offense against society and therefore a proper subject for police inquiry. And by you? The head of the Homicide Squad?”

“I ought to be able to bear with you, I’ve had enough practice. But by God, it’s just about all I-” He stopped abruptly, got a cigar from a pocket, rolled it between his palms, stuck it in his mouth, and clamped his teeth on it. He never lit one. The mere sight of Wolfe, and the sound of his voice, with the memories they recalled, had stirred his blood, and it needed calming down.

He took the cigar from his mouth. “You’re bad enough,” he said, under control, “when you’re not sarcastic. When you are, you’re the hardest man to take in my jurisdiction. Do you know that a man named Eber was shot, murdered, in his apartment on Forty-ninth Street Thursday afternoon? Day before yesterday?”

“Yes, I know that.”

“Do you know that for five years he had been Otis Jarrell’s secretary and had recently been fired?”

“Yes, I know that too. Permit me to comment that this seems a little silly. I read newspapers.”