“Send him down,” Cramer rasped and got up and left.
V
Even when a man is caught smack in the middle of a felony, as I had been, there is a certain amount of red tape to getting him behind bars, and in my case not only red tape but also other activities postponed my attainment of privacy. First I had a long conversation with an assistant district attorney, who was the suave and subtle type and even ate sandwiches with me. When it was over, a little after nine o’clock, both of us were only slightly more confused than when we started. He left me in a room with a specimen in uniform with slick brown hair and a wart on his cheek. I told him how to get rid of the wart, recommending Doc Vollmer.
I was expecting the promised visit by Inspector Cramer any minute. Naturally I was nursing an assorted collection of resentments, but the one on top was at not being there to see and hear the talk between Cramer and Wolfe. Any chat those two had was always worth listening to, and that one must have been outstanding, with Wolfe learning not only that his client was lying five ways from Sunday, which was bad enough, but also that I had been tossed in the can and the day’s mail would have to go unanswered.
When the door finally opened, and a visitor entered it wasn’t Inspector Cramer. It was Lieutenant Rowcliff, whose murder I will not have to premeditate when I get around to it because I have already done the premeditating. There are not many murderers so vicious and inhuman that I would enjoy seeing them caught by Rowcliff. He jerked a chair around to sit facing me and said with oily satisfaction, “At last we’ve got you, by God.”
That set the tone of the interview.
I would enjoy recording in full that two-hour session with Rowcliff, but it would sound like bragging, and therefore I don’t suppose you would enjoy it too. His biggest handicap is that when he gets irritated to a certain point he can’t help stuttering, and I’m onto him enough to tell when he’s just about there, and then I start stuttering before he does. Even with a close watch and careful timing it takes luck to do it right, and that evening I was lucky. He came closer than ever before to plugging me, but didn’t, because he wants to be a captain so bad he can taste it and he’s not absolutely sure that Wolfe hasn’t got a solid in with the Commissioner or the Mayor or possibly Grover Whalen himself.
Cramer never showed up, and that added another resentment to my healthy pile. I knew he had been to see Wolfe, because when they had finally let me make my phone call, around eight o’clock, and I had got Wolfe and started to tell him about it, he had interrupted me in a voice as cold as an Eskimo’s nose.
“I know where you are and how you got there. Mr. Cramer is here. I have phoned Mr. Parker, but it’s too late to do anything tonight. Have you had anything to eat?”
“No, sir. I’m afraid of poison and I’m on a hunger strike.”