“Where’s Dazy Perrit?”
“You mean now?”
“Now.”
“I have no idea.”
“Is he holed up in Wolfe’s house?”
“Good lord, no. It makes my teeth chatter just to think of it.”
“Did your teeth chatter yesterday, when he was there arranging things with Wolfe?”
“Look, Lieutenant,” I said grimly. “It will soon be dawn. I’ve told it over and over, all I know. I am now going to clam up. I knew a man once who insisted on hunting ducks with a shotgun with a recoil that knocked him flat on his prat every time he pulled the trigger. He seemed to love it. In a way you remind me of him. You know damn well the man to tell you what Perrit and his daughter wanted is Mr. Wolfe. You know damn well I can’t tell you. You also know that if you hold me Mr. Wolfe will resent it and you won’t be able to depend on a thing he says. What do you want to do, get in another jab in a private feud or solve a murder? I warn you I’m going to take a nap, either in a chair, on a cot, or home in bed.”
“Get out of here,” Rowcliff commanded. “Go on, get.”
He pushed a button and passed the word, and a minute later I was on the sidewalk. What had restrained Rowcliff, I was well aware, was nothing said by me, but his uncertainty regarding the amount of co-operation his superior officer, Inspector Cramer, would be wanting from Wolfe.