Friday morning, having nothing else to do, I solved the case. I did it with cold logic. Everything fitted perfectly, and all I needed was enough evidence for a jury. Presumably that was what Saul Panzer was getting. I do not intend to put it all down here, the way I worked it out, because first it would take three full pages, and second I was wrong. Anyway I had it solved when, a little before nine o’clock, I was summoned to Wolfe’s room and given an errand to perform with detailed instructions. It sent me to Twentieth Street, so I went to the garage for the car and headed south.
I would just as soon have dealt with one of the underlings, but Cramer himself was in his office and said to bring me in. As I sat down he whirled his chair a quarter turn, folded his arms, and asked conversationally, “What have you two liars got cooked up now?”
I grinned at him. “Why don’t you call Wolfe a liar to his face someday? Do it while I’m there.” I took two of the capsules, with threads attached, from my vest pocket, put them on his desk, and inquired, “Do you need any more of these?”
He picked one of them up and gave it a good look, then the other one, put them in a drawer of his desk, folded his arms again, and looked me in the eye to shrivel me.
“All right,” he said quietly. “Go on. They came in the mail, in a package addressed to Wolfe with letters cut out of a magazine.”
“No, sir, not at all. Where I spent the night last night I was idly running my fingers through her lovely hair and felt something, and there they were.” Cramer was strictly a family man and had stern ideas. Seeing I had him blushing, I went on, “Actually it was like this.”
I told him the whole story, straight and complete.
He had questions, both during the recital and at the end, and I answered what I could. The one I had expected him to put first, he saved till the last.
“Well,” he said, “for the present we’ll assume that I believe you. You know what that amounts to, but we’ll assume it. Even so, how are you on figures? How much are two and one?”
“I’m pretty good. Two plus one plus one equals four.”