Over My Dead Body

"I can't work with nothing to work on. Get away as soon as you can. Where did you put those records?"

I told him. He thanked me and rang off. I looked at Neya, sitting there with her jaw clamped and her fingers twisted, and observed grimly, "You certainly picked a lulu for an adopted daddy. Do you know what he's doing? Checking up on orchid seeds he planted a year ago! Incidentally, he says you are to answer any questions the cops ask about your movements since ten o'clock this morning. All other questions, refuse to answer until you see a lawyer. He's getting one."

"A lawyer for me?"

"Yes."

A police siren sounded through the window I had left open.

Chapter Fourteen

At five minutes past two Wolfe sipped the last drop of his luncheon coffee, put down his cup, and made two distinct and separate oral noises. The first was meant to express his pleasure and satisfaction in the immediate past, the hour spent at the table; the second was a grunt of resigned dismay at the prospect of the immediate future, which was embodied in the bulky figure of Inspector Cramer, planted in a chair in the office. He had arrived on the stroke of two and was waiting.

Wolfe and I went in and sat down. The end of the unlighted cigar in Cramer's mouth described a figure-eight.

"I hate to hurry your meal," he said sarcastically.

Wolfe eructed.

The inspector turned the sarcasm on me. "Have you had any new ideas about the purpose of your going there with Miss Tormic?"

I shook my head. "No, sir. As I told you, we merely went there to get Miss Lovchen."

"And what were you going to do with her?"

"We were going to bring her to see Mr Wolfe. To go over things."

"Had she suddenly developed paralysis of the legs?"

"Please, Mr Cramer," Wolfe murmured. "That's childish, and you know it is. Flopping your arms around is no way to discuss anything. If Archie and Miss Tormic were engaged on a mysterious errand, you don't suppose you're going to squeeze it out of him, do you?"

With his fingers entwined, Cramer rubbed his thumb-tips together, back and forth, with the cigar in his mouth aimed at the ceiling.

Finally he said, "I've been sitting here thinking."

Wolfe nodded sympathetically. "It's a good room to think in. The faint sounds from the street are just right."

Silence.

Cramer said, "I'm not a fool."

Wolfe nodded again. "We all feel like that occasionally. The poison of conceit. It's all right if you keep an antidote handy."