“So had Goebbels,” Wolfe snapped. “And Mussolini.”
A short silence.
“I admit,” Sperling conceded, “that he irritates me. I think it’s chiefly his ulcers.”
“Then find someone without them. You’ll be saving money, too. If I sent you a bill in dollars it wouldn’t be modest, in view of the difficulties you made.”
“His contract expires next week.”
“Good. Let it.”
“Well — I’ll see. We’ll talk it over here.”
That was how it happened.
The tail’s second section, private, was also in the form of a phone call, some weeks later. Just yesterday, the day after Webster Kane, alias William Reynolds, was sentenced on his conviction for the first degree murder of Louis Rony, I put the receiver to my ear and once more heard a hard cold precise voice that used only the best grammar. I told Wolfe who it was and he got on.
“How are you, Mr. Wolfe?”