It was hard to tell, for me at least, how much Mrs. Tillotson was giving and how much she was covering. If there was something in her past that someone might have felt she should pay for or give a reckoning of, either she didn’t know what it was, or she had kept it from Heller, or she had told him but certainly didn’t intend to let us in on it. It went on and on, with her concentrating hard on remembering her conversations with Heller and all the data she had given him for factors of his formulas, and with Cramer playing her back and forth until she was so tied up in contradictions that it would have taken a dozen mathematical wizards to make head or tail of it.
Wolfe finally intervened. He glanced up at the wall clock, shifted in his chair to get his seventh of a ton bearing on another spot, and announced, “It’s after midnight. Thank heaven you have an army to start sorting this out and checking it. If your Lieutenant Rowcliff is still here, let him have her, and let’s have some cheese. I’m hungry.”
Cramer, as ready for a recess as anybody, had no objection. Purley Stebbins removed Mrs. Tillotson. The stenographer went on a private errand. I went to the kitchen to give Fritz a hand, knowing that he was running himself ragged furnishing trays of sandwiches to flocks of Homicide personnel distributed all over the premises. When I returned to the office with a supply of provender, Cramer was riding Wolfe, pouring it on, and Wolfe was leaning back in his chair with his eyes shut. I passed around plates of Fritz’s il pesto and crackers, with beer for Wolfe and the stenographer, coffee for Cramer and Stebbins, and milk for me.
In four minutes Cramer inquired, “What is this stuff?”
Wolfe told him. “ Il pesto.”
“What’s in it?”
“Canestrato cheese, anchovies, pig liver, black walnuts, chives, sweet basil, garlic, and olive oil.”
“Good God.”
In another four minutes Cramer addressed me in the tone of one doing a gracious favor. “I’ll take some more of that, Goodwin.”
But while I was gathering the empty plates he started in on Wolfe again. Wolfe didn’t bother to counter. He waited until Cramer halted for breath and then growled, “It’s nearly one o’clock, and we have three more.”