“Yeah.” I chewed my lip. There was a long silence. “So that’s how your mind’s working. I could offer a guess.”
“I prefer a calculation to a guess. For that a basis is needed, and we have it. We know the situation as we have assumed it, and we know something of his character.”
“Okay,” I conceded, “a calculation. I’ll be damned. The answer I get, he would stick around until the body was found, and if he did, then he is one of the bunch Cramer has been talking with. So that’s what occurred to you, huh?”
“No. By no means. That’s a different matter. This is merely a tentative calculation for a starting point. If it is sound, I know who the murderer is.”
I gave him a look. Sometimes I can tell how much he is putting on and sometimes I can’t. I decided to buy it. With the office sealed up by the crabbed and envious mind of Inspector Cramer, he was certainly in no condition to entertain himself by trying to string me.
“That’s interesting,” I said admiringly. “If you want me to get him on the phone I’ll have to use the one in the kitchen.”
“I want to test the calculation.”
“So do I.”
“But there’s a difficulty. The test I have in mind, the only one I can contrive to my satisfaction — only you can make it. And in doing so you would have to expose yourself to great personal risk.”
“For God’s sake.” I gawked at him. “This is a brand-new one. The errands you’ve sent me on! Since when have you flinched or faltered in the face of danger to me?”