“Now, really.” Wolfe wiggled a finger. “That question is preposterous. Certainly I have. Haven’t I been on the case four days?”
“Who from?”
“Well, for one, from you.”
Cramer stared. He stuck his cigar in his mouth and put his teeth into it without realizing he was doing it. He threw up his hands and dropped them.
“The trouble with you, Wolfe,” he declared, “is that you can’t forget for one little moment how terribly smart you are. Hell, I know it. Do you think I ever waste my time making calls like this on Del Pritchard or Sandy Mollew? When did I tell you what?”
Wolfe shook his head. “No, Mr. Cramer. Now — as the children say — now you’re getting warm. And I’m not quite ready. Suppose we take turns at this; I have my curiosities, too. The story in the morning paper was incomplete. What sort of contraption was it that spilled the poison on Mr. Gebert?”
Cramer grunted. “You want to know?”
“I am curious, and we might as well pass the time.”
“Oh, we might.” The inspector removed his cigar and looked at its end with surprise at finding it unlit, touched a match to it, and puffed. “It was like this. Take a piece of ordinary adhesive tape an inch wide and ten inches long. Paste the ends of the tape to the cloth of the top of Gebert’s car, above the driver’s seat, about five inches apart, so that the tape swings loose like a hammock. Take an ordinary beetleware sauce dish, like they sell in the five and ten, and set it in that little hammock, and you’ll have to balance it carefully, because a slight jar will upset it. Before you set the dish in the hammock, pour into it a couple of ounces of nitrobenzene — or, if you’d rather, you can call it essence of mirbane, or imitation oil of bitter almonds, because it’s all the same thing. Also pour in with it an ounce or so of plain water, so that the nitrobenzene will settle to the bottom and the layer of water on top will keep the oil from evaporating and making a smell. If you will make the experiment of getting into a car the way a man ordinarily does, you will find that your eyes are naturally directed toward the seat and the floor, and there isn’t one chance in a thousand that you would see anything pasted to the roof, especially at night, and furthermore you will find that your head will go in within an inch of the roof and you’re sure to bump the sauce dish. And even if you don’t, it will fall and spill on you the first hole you hit or the first corner you turn. How do you like that for a practical joke?”
Wolfe nodded. “From the pragmatic standpoint, close to perfect. Simple, effective, and cheap. If you had had the poison in your possession for some time, as provision against an emergency, your entire outlay would not be more than fifteen cents — tape, an ounce of water, and sauce dish. From the newspaper account I suspected the nitrobenzene. It would do that.”