“Nothing much,” I told him on the phone. “Only that Nero Wolfe is out of the detective business because Inspector Cramer is taking away his license.”
“Quite a gag,” Lon conceded.
“No gag. Straight.”
“You mean it?”
“We’re offering it for publication. Exclusive, unless Cramer’s office spills it, and I don’t think they will.”
“The Getz murder?”
“Yes. Only a couple of paragraphs, because details are not yet available, even to you. I’m out on bail.”
“I know you are. This is pie. We’ll raid the files and get it over there as soon as we can.”
He hung up without pressing for details. Of course that meant he would send Dazzle Dan COD, with a reporter. When the reporter arrived a couple of hours later, shortly after Wolfe had come down from the plant rooms at six o’clock, it wasn’t just a man with a notebook, it was Lon Cohen himself. He came to the office with me, dumped a big heavy carton on the floor by my desk, removed his coat and dropped it on the carton to show that Dazzle Dan was his property until paid for, and demanded, “I want the works. What Wolfe said and what Cramer said. A picture of Wolfe studying Dazzle Dan—”
I pushed him into a chair, courteously, and gave him all we were ready to turn loose of. Naturally that wasn’t enough; it never is. I let him fire questions up to a dozen or so, even answering one or two, and then made it clear that that was all for now and I had work to do. He admitted it was a bargain, stuck his notebook in his pocket, and got up and picked up his coat.