Death of a Demon

Chapter 7

I squeezed my eyes shut because if I had kept them open they would have popped, and I didn’t want to give Cramer that satisfaction. But I am supposed to help Wolfe when he needs it, and right then he sure could use a few seconds to arrange his mind, so I opened my eyes and asked Cramer, just curious, “What kind of a gun?”

He ignored it. He was having too good a time looking at Wolfe to bother with me. Wolfe was paying me another compliment. I was responsible for our assumption that Mrs. Hazen was innocent, but he didn’t glance at me. He lowered his chin, scratched the tip of his nose, regarded Cramer for ten seconds, and then turned to me.

“Archie. It may be desirable to have a record of what Mr. Cramer just said. Type it. Verbatim. Double-spaced, one carbon.”

As I got at the typewriter Cramer said, “I don’t object. Naturally you’ve got to stall while you try to figure a way to climb down without breaking your neck.”

No comment from Wolfe. I put in paper and hit the keys. Since I had had years of practice reporting long and involved conversations that had had time to fade, that one was no trick at all. As I rolled the paper out Wolfe said, “Initial the original,” and I did so, and handed it to him. He read it through, in no hurry, took his pen and initialed it, handed it back to me, and turned to Cramer.

“I’m not stalling,” he said. “If what you just told me is true, your demand for information is warranted. If it isn’t true you’re gulling me into disclosing a confidential communication from a client, and I want a record—”

“Then she’s your client?”

“She is now. She wasn’t when you were here yesterday, but she hired me later through Mr. Parker. I want a record of your words, and I have it. I also want more facts, to make sure that those you have given me are not qualified by others. That’s a reasonable precaution, I think. What time did Mr. Hazen take his car from the garage Monday evening?”

“A little after eleven o’clock.”

“That was after the dinner guests left?”

“Yes. They left at a quarter to eleven.”

“Was anyone with him at the garage?”

“No.”

“Was anyone else with him anywhere, out of the car or in it, after a quarter to eleven?”

“No.”

“Is it assumed that he was shot in that alley where the body was found?”

“No. He was shot in the car.”

“Have you any additional facts implicating Mrs. Hazen, of any kind? Not conjectures, facts. For example, was she seen in or near the car, driving it, or when it was parked on Twenty-first Street dining the night, or when — as you have it — she went there yesterday to put the gun in the dashboard compartment?”

“No. No more facts. I expect to get some from you.”

“You will. Naturally, when you learned that Mrs. Hazen had been to see me you focused on her, but surely not exclusively. Have you inquired into the movements of the dinner guests after they left?”

“Yes.”

“Have any of them been conclusively eliminated?”

“No. Not conclusively.”

Wolfe closed his eyes. In a moment he opened them. “That seems to cover it.” He took a breath. “Of course I don’t like this. And you’re not squeezing it out of me, though you think you are. I would tell you nothing and take the consequences if it weren’t that I need some information that I can get only from you. I have to know where the gun came from that Mrs. Hazen left with me yesterday. If you’ll agree—”

“She left a gun with you?”

“Yes. I’ll tell you about it, and give it to you, if you will give me its history at the earliest possible moment. I want your word.”

“You won’t get it. Mrs. Hazen is charged with murder. If she left a gun with you it’s evidence in a murder investigation.”

Wolfe shook his head. “No. It’s evidence in my investigation, but not in yours. You have your gun, the one the murderer used. How can it embarrass you to tell me about this one?”

Cramer considered it. “You’re going to tell me what she said about it.”

“I am.”

“Okay. Go ahead.”

“I have your word?”

“Yes.”

“Get the gun, Archie.”

I went to the safe and squatted to twirl the knob. Ordinarily I leave it unlocked when I’m in the office, but with that box in it I was taking no chances, so after I had worked the combination and got the gun I shut the door and turned the knob. As I crossed to Cramer I spoke. “By the way, I asked a question that wasn’t answered. What make is your gun? The one that killed him.”

“Drexel thirty-two.”

“So’s this.” I handed it to him. “Of course there are millions of Drexel thirty-twos.”

He gave it a look, and darned if he didn’t sniff it. As I said, that’s automatic. Also he flipped the cylinder open for a glance.

“It was fired yesterday,” Wolfe said, “by Mr. Goodwin, to get a bullet. The bullet I gave you.”

Cramer nodded. “Yeah. There’s nothing on God’s earth you wouldn’t do. It could have been... What the hell, it wasn’t. Okay, let’s hear you.”

Wolfe unloaded. He didn’t enjoy it and neither did I, spilling it, but we had to know about the gun and it might have taken us days. He skipped the details, including no quotes, but gave it straight, both parts, before the news came over the radio and after. He didn’t include my reasons for deciding that she hadn’t shot her husband, but I didn’t mind; it might have got Cramer confused and that would have been a pity. He was a little confused anyhow; toward the end he was frowning, pulling at his lip now and then, a wary look in his eyes. When Wolfe finished he sat looking at it before he spoke.

“What have you left out?” he demanded.

Wolfe shook his head. “Nothing material. You said you wanted the substance; you have it. How long will it take to trace the gun?”

“I don’t get it. After she came to you with that fairy tale, and the news came about her husband, and you learned that we were holding her, you took her for a client? I don’t get it. I have never known you to take a murderer for a client. Whether it’s just your goddamn luck, or what, I don’t know, but you haven’t. Why did you take her?”

A corner of Wolfe’s mouth turned up. “I asked Mr. Goodwin’s opinion and he said she was innocent. His judgment of women under thirty is infallible. How long will it take to trace the gun?”

“Nuts.” Cramer stood up. “Maybe an hour, maybe a week. I’m taking Goodwin. They’ll take his statement at the District Attorney’s office, a complete report of the conversation. I’ll have a man here at two o’clock to take yours. If I took you down you’d only—”

“I shall sign no statement. I am not obliged to. If you send a man he won’t be admitted. If you have questions, ask them.”

Cramer’s round red face got redder. But that was as far as it went; his memory of what had happened on the three occasions he had taken Wolfe downtown was presumably what stopped him. He stuck the gun in his pocket and turned to me. “Come on, Goodwin. We’ll see.”

As I arose the phone rang and I reached to get it. It was Nathaniel Parker. He was upset. “Archie? Nat Parker. Mrs. Hazen is being held on a charge of homicide, of course without bail. I want to see Wolfe before I see her. I have to know what she told him yesterday. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Fine,” I said. “He’s in a perfect mood for it. Come ahead.” I hung up, told Wolfe, “Parker will be here in twenty minutes,” and went to the hall for my coat and hat, with Cramer at my heels.