He went to Purley. “He was there, and he could help. You know him as well as I do. What about it? Is this straight?”
“It’s possible,” the sergeant granted. “His head’s been swelling a long time now, and it got a bad jolt, and he can’t stand it. I’d buy it. We can always toss him out.”
Cramer came to me. “If this is a dodge, I’ll hook you good. Nothing goes to Wolfe, not a damn word, and nothing to the press or anyone else.”
“Right.”
“This was already a big noise, as you know, and now with this third one, another strangling, everybody in town has joined in. Two dozen copies have been made of your full report, and the Commissioner himself is studying one of them right now. Deputy Commissioner Wade is in a room down the hall with Brucker. At the DA’s, Bowen is with Miss Duday, and Mandelbaum was to start again on Hagh, the ex-husband, when he finished with you. You can join any one of them, and I’ll phone that you’re coming, or you can come with Stebbins and me. We’re going to do a retake with Helmar.”
“I’ll go with you for a starter.
“Come on.” He moved.
My first appearance as an informal adjunct of the NYPD, seated at the left of Inspector Cramer as he interviewed Perry Helmar, lasted for five hours. It was by no means the first time I had seen and heard Cramer perform, but the circumstances were new, because I was all for him with no reservations. As a spectator at a quiz job I am probably as hard to please as anybody around, after the countless times I have watched Wolfe work, and I thought Cramer was good with Helmar. He couldn’t have read my report more than once, with the full day he had had, but his picture of the meeting at Wolfe’s office was clear and accurate. I made no great contribution to the performance, supplying a few interpositions and a couple of suggestions, none of which made a noticeable whoosh. At nine o’clock Helmar was sent home without escort, after being told that he would probably be wanted again in the morning.
Cramer went off to another conference in the Commissioner’s office, and Purley and I left the building together. He had been on duty thirteen hours, and his program was eat and sleep, and I offered to buy him fried clams at Louie’s.
I don’t know how I had learned that offering Purley fried clams at Louie’s was like dangling a bit of red flannel in front of a bullfrog, since our intimacy, not social to begin with, had never reached the peak of a joint meal. In view of my new though temporary status with the NYPD, he hesitated only four or five seconds.