Over My Dead Body

Wolfe said, "Please, Mr Cramer, it seemed preferable that you should have the first look at it."

Even when he said that he didn't look at Cramer, but kept watching Neya. Cramer advanced and stuck his hand in the pocket and pulled the thing out. I was right at his elbow, beside myself with curiosity as to what it might be. He stared at the rolled-up bunch of canvas clenched in his fist, then put it down on the desk and unrolled it. The stains were now the colour of dark mahogany. As the little metal doo-dad was disclosed to our gaze I permitted myself an ejaculation of astonishment.

Wolfe said, "I suspected that. Your two missing objects, Mr Cramer, aren't they?"

Cramer said to me through his teeth, "So that's why you took a powder."

I gave him a cold, hard eye. "Guess again. You heard what Mr Wolfe said-"

He wheeled on Neya. "You!" he said with his jaw still clamped. "Let's have it." He grabbed the glove, with the col de mort nested in the palm, and stuck it under her nose. "Did you put that in Goodwin's pocket?"

She nodded her head. "Yes, I did."

That undamped his jaw. He goggled at her, and I guess I joined him. She was all right. Her hands were clasped tight on her lap and she sat stiff, but she certainly showed no signs of hysteria. Cramer opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again, tramped to the door and pulled it open and bellowed:

"Stebbins! Come here!"

Purley came trotting, with a startled and embarrassed look on his big face because he was trying to chew and swallow at the same time. Cramer motioned to the chair he had been occupying and growled, "Sit down there and take your notebook."

"Wait a minute," Wolfe put in. "Are you charging Miss Tormic?"

"No." Cramer didn't look at him. "I'm asking her. Any objections? If so, I can take her downtown."

"None at all. I prefer it here. We're four to two."

"I don't care if you're a hundred to two." Cramer exhibited the objects to the sergeant. "Put down that I showed her this canvas gauntlet and this steel thing with a point and asked her if she put them in Goodwin's overcoat pocket, and she replied, 'Yes, I did.' " He confronted Neya Tormic. "Now. You state that you put these two things into Goodwin's overcoat pocket while it was hanging on a rack in the office of Miltan's studio not long after Ludlow's dead body was discovered. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"Did you kill Percy Ludlow?"

She said in a good clear voice, "You've asked me that before, and I said 'no.' "

Carla Lovchen blurted, "She can explain-"