“All right, if you do don’t tell me, I want to guess. Of course you realize that I’m not exactly a boob. If you don’t, Nero Wolfe does. I arrested a man once and he turned out to be guilty, that’s why I was made an inspector. I know Wolfe expects to open up this Mr. Chapin and get well paid for it, and therefore if I expected him to pass me any cards out of his hand I would be a boob. But I’ll be frank with you, in the past six weeks I’ve made so many grabs at this cripple without getting anything that I don’t like him at all and in fact I’d like to rip out his guts. Also, they’re giving me such a riding that I’m beginning to get saddle-sores. I would like to know two things. First, how far has Wolfe got?—Sure, I know he’s a genius. Okay. But has he got enough of it to stop that cripple?”
I said, and I meant it, “He’s got enough to stop any guy that ever started.”
“When? I won’t lose any sleep if he nicks Pratt for four grand. Can you say when, and can I help?”
I shook my head. “No twice. But he’ll do it.”
“All right. I’ll go on poking around myself. The other thing, you might tell me this, and I swear to God you won’t regret it. When Dora Chapin was here this morning did she tell Wolfe she saw nitroglycerin tablets in her husband’s pocket any time between September eleventh and September nineteenth?”
I grinned at him. “There are two ways I could answer that, inspector. One way would be if she had said it, in which case I would try to answer it so you couldn’t tell whether she had or not. The other way is the one you’re hearing: she wasn’t asked about it, and she said nothing about it. She just came here to get her throat cut.”
“Uh-huh.” Cramer got up from his chair. “And Wolfe started working on her from behind. He would. He’s the damnedest guy at getting in the back door... well. So-long. I’ll say much obliged some other day. Give Wolfe a Bronx cheer for me, and tell him that as far as I’m concerned he can have the money and the applause of the citizens in this Chapin case, and the sooner the better. I’d like to get my mind on something else.”
“I’ll tell him. Like to have a glass of beer?”
He said no, and went. Since he was an inspector, I went to the hall and helped him on with his coat and opened the door for him. At the curb was a police car, one of the big Cadillacs, with a chauffeur. Now, I thought, that’s what I call being a detective.
I went back to the office. It looked dismal and gloomy; it was nearly six o’clock and the dark had come over half an hour ago and I had only turned on one light. Wolfe was still upstairs monkeying with the plants; he wasn’t due down for seven minutes. I didn’t feel like sitting watching him drink beer, and had no reason to expect anything more pertinent out of him, and I decided to go out and find a stone somewhere and turn it up to see what was under it. I opened a couple of windows to let Cramer’s pipe-smoke out, got my Colt from the drawer and put it in my pocket from force of habit, went to the hall for my hat and coat, and beat it.