“Skip the comedy. The dog belonged to a murder victim, and you removed it from the scene of the murder. Where is it?”
Wolfe butted in. “You persist,” he objected, “in imputing an action to Mr. Goodwin without warrant. He did not ‘remove’ the dog. I advise you to shift your ground if you expect us to listen.”
His tone was firm but not hostile. I cocked an eye at him. He was probably being indulgent because he had learned that Jet’s owner was dead.
“I’ve got another ground,” Cramer asserted. “A man who lives in that house, named Richard Meegan, and who was in it at the time Kampf was murdered, has stated that he came here to see you this morning and asked you to do a job for him. He says you refused the job. That’s what he says.” Cramer jutted his chin. “Now. A man at the scene of a murder admits he consulted you this morning. Goodwin shows up at the scene half an hour after the murder was committed, and he entices — okay, put it that the dog goes away with him, the dog that belonged to the victim and had gone to that house with him. How does that look?” He pulled his chin in. “You know damn well the last thing I want in a homicide is to find you or Goodwin anywhere within ten miles of it, because I know from experience what to expect. But when you’re there, there you are, and I want to know how and why and what, and by God I intend to. Where’s the dog?”
Wolfe sighed and shook his head. “In this instance,” he said, almost genial, “you’re wasting your time. As for Mr. Meegan, he phoned this morning to make an appointment and came at eleven. Our conversation was brief. He wanted a man shadowed, but divulged no name or any other specific detail because in his first breath he mentioned his wife — he was overwrought — and I gathered that his difficulty was marital. As you know, I don’t touch that kind of work, and I stopped him. My vanity bristles even at an offer of that sort of job. My bluntness enraged him, and he dashed out. On his way he took his hat from the rack in the hall, and he took Mr. Goodwin’s raincoat instead of his own. Archie. Proceed.”
Cramer’s eyes came to me, and I obeyed. “I didn’t find out about the switch in coats until the middle of the afternoon. His was the same color as mine, but mine’s newer. When he phoned for an appointment this morning he gave me his name and address, and I wanted to phone him to tell him to bring my coat back, but he wasn’t listed, and Information said she didn’t have him, so I decided to go get it. I walked, wearing Meegan’s coat. There was a cop and a crowd and a PD car in front of twenty-nine Arbor Street, and, as I approached, another PD car came, and Purley Stebbins got out and went in, so I decided to skip it, not wanting to go through the torture. There was a dog present, and he nuzzled me, and I patted him. I will admit, if pressed, that I should not have patted him. The cop asked me if the dog was mine, and I said no and went on, and headed for home. I was—”
“Did you call the dog or signal it?”
“No. I was at Twenty-eighth and Ninth Avenue before I knew he was tailing me. I did not entice or remove. If I did, if there’s some kind of a dodge about the dog, please tell me why I phoned the precinct to get the name of his owner.”
“I don’t know. With Wolfe and you I never know. Where is it?”
I blurted it out before Wolfe could stop me. “Upstairs in my room.”