“Maybe he did.”
“Not maybe. He did.”
“Okay.” Cramer cocked his head and watched Wolfe empty the glass and use his handkerchief on his lips. Then he said, “Look. This is what brought me here. I have learned over a stretch of years that when I find you within a mile of a murder, and Goodwin is a part of you, something fancy can be expected. I don’t need to itemize that; your memory is as good as mine. Wait a second, let me finish. I don’t say there’s no such thing as a coincidence. I know you’ve been going to that shop for two years, and Goodwin for six years. It wouldn’t be so remarkable if he happened in there this particular day, two hours after a murder, if it wasn’t for certain features. He told Graboff, his barber, that he needed an emergency shave to go to an appointment. Incidentally, it couldn’t have been much of an emergency, since he waited nearly half an hour while Graboff finished with a customer, but I might concede that. The point is that Graboff and Fickler both say that in the six years Goodwin has been going there he has never gone just for a shave. Not once. He goes only for the works, haircut, scalp massage, shampoo, and shave. That makes it too remarkable. Just one day in six years an emergency sends him there for a shave, and this is the day. I don’t believe it.”
Wolfe shrugged. “Then you don’t. I’m not responsible for your credulity quotient, Mr. Cramer. Neither is Mr. Goodwin. I don’t see how we can help you.”
“Nobody would believe it,” Cramer said stubbornly, refusing to get riled. “That’s why I’m here. I do believe that Goodwin went to that shop because he knew a man had been murdered there.”
“Then you believe wrong,” I told him. “Your credulity quotient needs an overhaul. Until I got there I hadn’t the slightest idea or suspicion that a man had been murdered, there or anywhere else.”
“You have been known to lie, Goodwin.”
“Only within limits, and I know what they are. I will state that in an affidavit. Write it out, and there’s a notary at the corner drugstore. That would be perjury, which I’m allergic to.”
“Your going there had nothing whatever to do with the murder?”
“Put it that way if you prefer it. It did not.”