“One wouldn’t hurt him,” Fritz muttered.
“You’re a help,” I said bitterly. “I warn both of you, I’ve got a gun in my pocket. What a household!”
V
For nine months of the year Inspector Cramer of Homicide, big and broad and turning gray, looked the part well enough, but in the summertime the heat kept his face so red that he was a little gaudy. He knew it and didn’t like it, and as a result he was some harder to deal with in August than in January. If an occasion arises for me to commit a murder in Manhattan I hope it will be winter.
Tuesday at noon he sat in the red leather chair and looked at Wolfe with no geniality. Detained by another appointment, he hadn’t been able to make it at eleven, the hour when Wolfe adjourns the morning session with his orchids up in the plant rooms. Wolfe wasn’t exactly beaming either, and I was looking forward to some vaudeville. Also I was curious to see how Wolfe would go about getting dope on a murder from Cramer without spilling it that there had been one, as Cramer was by no means a nitwit.
“I’m on my way uptown,” Cramer grumbled, “and haven’t got much time.”
That was probably a barefaced lie. He merely didn’t want to admit that an inspector of the NYPD would call on a private detective on request, even though it was Nero Wolfe and I had told him we had something hot.
“What is it,” he grumbled on, “the Dickinson thing? Who brought you in?”
Wolfe shook his head. “No one, thank heaven. It’s about the murder of Alberto Mion.”
I goggled at him. This was away beyond me. Right off he had let the dog loose, when I had thought the whole point was that there was no dog on the place.