He said anyone would do, and I went.
I’m not a stranger at the Tenth Precinct on West 20th Street, which includes the headquarters of Manhattan Homicide West, but that day I saw no familiar faces until I mounted to the second floor and approached one at a desk with whom I was on speaking terms. I had been right; no Cramer and no Stebbins. Lieutenant Rowcliff was in charge, and the desk man phoned that I was there to see him.
If there were twenty of us, including Rowcliff, starving on an island, and we were balloting to elect the one we would carve up for a barbecue, I wouldn’t vote for Rowcliff because I know I couldn’t keep him down; and compared to his opinion of me, mine of him is sympathetic. So I wasn’t surprised when, instead of having me conducted within, he came striding out and up to me, and rasped, “What do you want?”
I took the envelope from my pocket. “This,” I said, “is not my application for a job on the force so I can serve under you.”
“By God, if it were.” He talked like that.
“Nor is it a citation—”
He jerked the envelope from my hand, removed the contents, darted a glance at the heading, turned to the third page, and darted another at the signatures.
“A statement by you and Wolfe. A masterpiece, no doubt. Do you want a receipt?”
“Not necessarily. I’ll read it to you if you want me to.”
“All I want of you is the sight of your back on the way out.”