Before Midnight

Chapter 10

Wolfe and Inspector Cramer of Manhattan Homicide West have never actually come to blows, though there have been times when Cramer’s big red seamy face has gone almost white, and his burly broad shoulders have seemed to shrink, under the strain. I can always tell what the tone is going to be, at least for the kickoff, by the way he greets me when I let him in. If he calls me Archie, which doesn’t happen often, he wants something he can expect to get only as a favor and has determined to forget old sores and keep it friendly. If he calls me Goodwin and asks how I am, he still is after a favor but thinks he is entitled to it. If he calls me Goodwin but shows no interest in my health, he has come for what he would call co-operation and intends to get it. If he calls me nothing at all, he’s ready to shoot from the hip and look out.

That time it wasn’t Archie, but he asked how I was, and after he got into the red leather chair he accepted an offer of beer from Wolfe, and apologized for coming so late without phoning. As Fritz served the beer I went to the kitchen to get a glass of milk for myself. When I returned Cramer had a half-empty glass in his hand and was licking foam from his lips.

“I hope,” he said, “that I didn’t interrupt anything important.” He was gruff, but he would be gruff saying his prayers.

“I’m on a case,” Wolfe said, “and I was working.” Beauty for Ashes, by Christopher La Farge, is a novel written in verse, the scene of the action being Rhode Island. I don’t read novels in verse, but I doubt if there’s anything in it about perfume contests, or even any kind of cosmetics. If it were Ashes for Beauty that might have been different.

“Yeah,” Cramer said. “The Dahlmann murder.”

“No, sir.” Wolfe poured beer. “I’m aware of your disapproval of private detectives concerning themselves with murders in your jurisdiction — heaven knows I should be — and it pleases me to know that I’m not incurring it. I am not investigating a murder.”

“That’s fine. Would you mind telling me who your client is? This case you’re on?”

“As a boon?”

“I don’t care what you call it, just tell me.”

“There’s no reason why I shouldn’t, in confidence of course. A firm, an advertising agency, called Lippert, Buff and Assa.”

I raised my brows. Evidently Cramer wasn’t the only one in favor of favors. Wolfe was being almost neighborly.

“I’ve heard of them,” Cramer said. “Just today, in fact. That’s the firm Louis Dahlmann was with.”

“That’s right.”

“When did they hire you?”

“Today.”

“Uh-huh. And also today four people have come to see you, not counting your clients, who were at a dinner meeting with Dahlmann last night, and Goodwin has called on another one at his hotel. But you’re not investigating a murder?”

“No, sir.”

“Nuts.”

It looked as if the honeymoon was over and before long fur would be flying, but Cramer took the curse off his lunge with a diversion. He drank beer, and put his empty glass down. “Look,” he said, “I’ve heard you do a lot of beefing about people being rational. Okay. If anyone who knew you, and knew who has been coming here today — if he didn’t think you were working on the murder would he be rational? You know damn well he wouldn’t. I’m being rational. If you want to try to talk me out of it, go ahead.”

Wolfe made a noise which he may have thought was a friendly chuckle. “That would be a new experience, Mr. Cramer. There have been times when I have tried to talk you into being rational. I can only tell you, also in confidence, what my job is. Of course you know about the perfume contest, and about the wallet that was missing from Mr. Dahlmann’s pocket. I’m going to provide for a satisfactory settlement of the contest by learning who took the wallet, and what was in it, to demonstrate that none of its contents had any bearing on the contest. I’m also going to arrange that certain events, especially the detention of four of the contestants in New York, shall not prevent the fair and equitable distribution of the prizes. If you ask why I’m being so outspoken with you, it’s because our interests touch but do not conflict. If and when I get anything you might need you shall have it.”

“Quite a job.” Cramer was eying him, not as a neighbor. “How are you going to learn who took the wallet without tagging the murderer?”

“Perhaps I can’t. That’s where our interests touch. But the murder is not my concern.”

“I see. Just a by-product. And you say that the paper Dahlmann showed them and put back in his wallet didn’t have the answers on it.”

“Well.” Wolfe pursed his lips. “Not categorically. On that point I am restrained. That is what my clients have told you, and it would be uncivil for me to contradict them. In any case, that illustrates the difference between your objective and mine. Since one of my purposes is to achieve a fair and satisfactory distribution of the prizes, the contents of that paper are of the first importance to me. But to you, that is of no importance at all. What matters to you is not whether the paper contained the answers, but whether the contestants thought it did. If you had good evidence that one of them thought that Dahlmann was only hoaxing them, you’d have to eliminate him as a suspect. By the way, have you any such evidence?”

“No. Have you?”

“No, sir. I have no evidence of anything whatever.”

“Do you believe that one of the contestants killed him?”

Wolfe shook his head. “I’ve told you, I’m not working on a murder. I think it likely that one of them took the wallet — only a conjecture, not a belief.”

“Are you saying there might have been two of them — one killed him and one took the wallet?”

“Not at all. Of course my information is scanty. I haven’t even read the account in the evening paper, knowing it couldn’t be relied on. Have you reason to think there were two?”

“No.”

“You are assuming that whoever killed him took the wallet?”

“Yes.”

“Then so am I. As I said, there’s no conflict. You agree?”

There was some beer left in Cramer’s bottle, and he poured it, waited a little for the foam to go down, drank, put the glass down, and licked his lips.

He looked at Wolfe. “I’ll tell you. I have never yet bumped into you in the course of my duties without conflict before I was through, but I don’t say it couldn’t possibly happen. As it stands now, if I take you at your word — I say if — I think we might get along. I think your clients are holding out on us. I think they’re worried more about what happens to their goddam contest than what happens to a murderer, and that’s why I’m willing to believe your job is what you say it is. I think they have probably given it to you straight, and I’d like to know exactly what they’ve told you, but I certainly don’t expect you to tell me. I think that on the contest part, especially the paper Dahlmann had in his wallet, you’re on the inside track, and you know things or you’ll learn things we don’t know and maybe can’t learn. God knows I don’t expect to pump them out of you, but I do expect you to realize that it won’t hurt you a damn bit to loosen up with anything I could use.”

“It’s a pity,” Wolfe said.

“What’s a pity?”

“That you choose this occasion for an appeal instead of the usual bludgeon, because this time I’m armored. Mr. Rudolph Hansen, who is a member of the bar, made our conversation a privileged communication by taking a dollar from me as a retainer. I’m his client. It’s a pity you don’t give me a chance to raise my shield.”

Cramer snorted. “A lot you need it. I’ve had enough goes at you without a shield. But this is a new one. You can’t tell me anything because it’s all privileged, huh?”

“No, sir.” Wolfe was a little hurt. “I acquiesced in Mr. Hansen’s subterfuge only to humor him. What I was told under the cloak of privilege may be of help in connection with the contest, but it wouldn’t help you to find the murderer — since you know about the wallet and the paper. The same is true of my conversations with the contestants, except to add that I have not been led to conclude that any one of them did not take the wallet. I think any one of them might have done so, and, as a corollary, might have killed Dahlmann to get it. Beyond that I have nothing but a medley of conjectures which I was sorting out when you interrupted me. None of them is worth discussing — at least not until I look them over. I’ll make this engagement: when I reach an assumption I like you’ll hear from me before I act on it. Meanwhile, it would simplify matters if I knew a few details.”

“Yeah. You haven’t even read the papers?”

“No, sir.”

“I’ll be glad to save you the trouble and maybe throw in a few extras. He was killed between eleven-thirty and three o’clock, shot once from behind, with a cushion for a muffler, with a .32 revolver. That’s from the bullet; we haven’t found the gun. The building has a self-service elevator and no doorman, and we haven’t dug up anyone who saw Dahlmann come home or saw anyone else coming to see him. Do you want all the negatives?”

“I like positives better.”

“So do I, but we haven’t got any, or damn few. No fingerprints that have helped so far, no other clues from the premises, nothing in his papers or other effects, no hackie that took somebody there, no phone call to that number from the hotel, and so on right through the routine. But you already knew that. If routine had got us anywhere I wouldn’t be here keeping you from your work.”

“Your routine is impeccable,” Wolfe said politely.

“Much obliged. As for alibis, nobody is out completely. Getting out of a big hotel, and back in again, without being observed, isn’t hard to do if you’ve got a good reason for it. The Tescher woman says that after the meeting she went to the library of a friend of hers and worked there on the contest until four o’clock, but nobody was in the room with her and everyone in the house was asleep. This leads to the point that really brought me here — the chief point. We’re finding out that there were quite a few people around town who had it in for Louis Dahlmann — three or more women for personal reasons, two or three men for personal reasons, and several of both sexes for business reasons. Even some of his own business associates. We’re looking into them, checking on where they were last night and so on, but the fact that his wallet was taken, and nothing else, may mean that it’s a waste of time and talent. There was no money in the wallet; he carried bills in a roll in another pocket. The wallet was more of a card case, driver’s license and so on.”

Speaking of pockets must have reminded him. He reached to his breast pocket and took out a cigar, and wrapped his fingers around it. “So,” he said, “I thought you might answer a question. Now that you’ve told me what you’re after, I think so even more. Was he killed in order to get the wallet, or not? If so, it was one of the contestants and we can more or less forget the others, for now anyway, and it was on account of the contest, and as I said, you’ve got the inside track on that. I’m not asking for Goodwin’s notes of your talk with your clients and that lawyer. I’m only asking your opinion, if he was killed to get the wallet.”

“I repeat, Mr. Cramer, I am not investigating the murder.”

“Damn it, who said you were? How do you want me to put it?”

Wolfe’s shoulders went up and down. “It doesn’t matter. You only want my opinion. I am strongly inclined to think that your man, the murderer, and my man, the thief, are one and the same. It would seem to follow, therefore, that the answer to your question is yes. Does that satisfy you?”

From the look on Cramer’s face, it didn’t. “I don’t like that ‘strongly inclined,”’ he objected. “You know damn well what’s on my mind. And this privileged communication dodge. Why couldn’t it be like this: after the meeting last night Dahlmann’s associates talked it over, and they decided it was dangerous for him to have that paper in his wallet, and one of them went to his place to get it or destroy it. When he got there the door wasn’t locked, and he went in and found Dahlmann on the floor, dead. He took the wallet from his pocket and beat it. Don’t ask me why he didn’t notify the police, ask him; he could have thought he would be suspected. Anyhow he didn’t, but of course he had to tell his associates, and they all got hold of their lawyer and told him, and after talking it over they decided to hire you.”

“To do what?”

“To figure out a way of handling it so the contest wouldn’t blow them all sky high. Of course the contestants would learn not only that Dahlmann had been killed but also that the wallet was missing, and they would suspect each other of getting the answers, and it would be a hell of a mess. But I’m not going to try to juggle that around, that’s their lookout, and yours. My lookout is that if it happened that way the contestants are not my meat at all because he wasn’t killed to get the wallet. And can you give me a reason why it couldn’t have happened that way?”

“No, sir.”

“And the lawyer fixing it so that what he told you was privileged — wouldn’t that fit in?”

“Yes,” Wolfe conceded. “But it is a fact, not an opinion, that if it did happen that way I am not privy to it. I have been told that none of Mr. Dahlmann’s associates went to his apartment last night, and have had no reason to suspect that they were gulling me. If they were they’re a pack of fools.”

“You state that as a fact.”

“I do.”

“Well,” Cramer allowed, “it’s not your kind of a lie.” He was suddenly flustered, realizing that wasn’t the way to keep it clean. He blurted, “You know what I mean.” He stuck the cigar between his teeth and chewed on it. If he couldn’t chew Wolfe the cigar would have to do. I’ve never seen him light one.

“Yes,” Wolfe said indulgently, “I know what you mean.”

Cramer took the cigar from his mouth. “You asked me a while ago if I assumed that whoever killed him took the wallet, and I said yes, but I should have said maybe. This other angle has got a bite. If I got some grounds to believe that one or more of Dahlmann’s associates went to his place last night that would make it a different story entirely, because that would account for the missing wallet, and I could stop concentrating on the contestants. I tell you frankly I have no such grounds. None of them — Buff, O’Garro, Assa, Heery, Hansen the lawyer — no one of that bunch can prove he didn’t go down to Perry Street some time last night, but I haven’t got anything to back up a claim that one of them did. You understand I’m not itching to slap a murder charge on him; as I said, he could have found Dahlmann dead and took the wallet. In that case he would be the one you’re interested in, and I’d have an open field to find the murderer.”

“Satisfactory all around,” Wolfe said drily.

“Yeah. You say if one of them went there last night you know nothing about it, and I believe you, but what if they held that out on you? Wouldn’t they? Naturally?”

“Not if they expected me to earn my fee.” Wolfe looked up at the clock. “It’s midnight. Mr. Cramer. I can only say that I reject your theory utterly. Not only for certain reasons of my own — as you say, I’m on the inside track on the contest — but also from other considerations. If one of those men went there last night and found Dahlmann dead, why was he ass enough to take the wallet, when he knew it would be missed, and that that would make a botch of the contest? He had to have the paper, of course, since if it were left on the corpse it would be seen by policemen, and possibly by reporters too, but why didn’t he just take the paper and leave the wallet?”

“By God,” Cramer said, “you were lying after all.”

“Yes? Why?”

“Because that’s dumb and you’re not dumb. He goes in and finds a corpse, and he’s nervous. It makes people nervous to find a corpse. He wants to turn and run like hell, they all do, especially if there’s the slightest reason for them to be suspected, but he makes himself get the wallet from the corpse’s pocket. He may even intend to take the paper and put the wallet back and start looking for the paper, but he thinks of fingerprints. Maybe he can wipe the wallet off before he puts it back, but he might miss one. Even so, he might try, if he calmly considered all the consequences of taking the wallet, but he’s not calm and there’s no time and he has to get out of there. So he gets, with the wallet. Excuse me for taking up your valuable time with kindergarten stuff, but you asked for it.”

He stood up, looked at the cigar in his hand, threw it at my wastebasket, and missed. He glared at it and then at Wolfe. “If that’s the best you can do I’ll be going.” He turned.

“Manifestly,” Wolfe said, “you don’t believe Mr. Hansen and the others when they profess their conviction that Mr. Dahlmann’s display of the paper was only a hoax?”

Cramer turned at the door long enough to growl, “Nuts. Do you?”

When I returned to the office after seeing him out Wolfe was still at his desk, pinching the lobe of his ear with a thumb and forefinger, staring at nothing. I put my empty milk glass on one of the beer trays, took them to the kitchen, washed and wiped the glasses, disposed of the bottles, and put the trays away. Fritz goes to bed at eleven unless he has been asked not to. Back in the office, the ear massage was still under way. I spoke. “I can finish the typing tonight if there are other errands for the morning. Have I got a program?”

“No.”

“Oh well,” I said cheerfully, “there’s no rush. April twentieth is a week off. You can read twenty books in a week.”

He grunted. “Get Saul and ask him to breakfast with me in my room at eight o’clock. Give me two hundred dollars for him — no, make it three hundred — and lock the safe and go to bed. I want some quiet.”

I obeyed, of course, but I wondered. Could he be tossing a couple of C’s — no, three — of LBA money to the breeze just to make me think he had hatched something? Saul Panzer was the best man in the city of New York for any kind of a job, but what was it? Tailing five people, hardly. If tailing one, who and why? If not tailing, then what? For me, nothing we had heard or seen had pointed in anyone’s direction. For him, I didn’t believe it. He wanted company for breakfast, and not me. Okay.

I got Saul at his apartment on East Thirty-eighth Street, signed him up for the morning, got the money from the cash drawer in the safe and locked the safe, gave Wolfe the dough, and asked him, “Then I don’t do the typing tonight?”

“No. Go to bed. I have work to do.”

I went. Up one flight I stopped on the landing, thinking it might help if I tiptoed back down and went in and caught him with his book up, but decided it would only make him so stubborn he’d read all night.