Rex Stout_Nero Wolfe 07 by Over My Dead Body Page A

reply is that I wished to get his complete report without interruption and that I abhor any disturbance during the dinner hour; further, that you had a large number of people up there to deal with and Archie could tell you nothing that you couldn’t learn from them.”
    Fritz came with a tray, and Wolfe uncapped a bottle and poured. “Next? I suppose, why Archie was sent there? Because a girl named Carla Lovchen, whom we have never seen before, came this afternoon to engage me in the interest of a friend of hers named Neya Tormic, who had been accused of theft. That matter was cleared up by a statement from Mr. Driscoll, who appears to be a blundering ass. Next, you will doubtless ask, after that affair had been settled and Mr. Goodwin had departed, why did he return? Because he phoned me and I told him to. As you know, when I accept a commission I like to get paid. I try to stop this side of rapacity, but I like tocollect, even when, as in this case, I have furnished more will than wit. I sent him back to see Miss Tormic. He was waiting for her in the office when the porter’s yells were heard.”
    Cramer was slowly rubbing at his chin, looking stubborn and unconvinced. He watched Wolfe swallow the glass of beer and wipe his lips, and then turned to me:
    “You’re not bughouse, you know. Someday when I’m not busy I’d like to tell you what you are, but you’re not bughouse. Now suppose you tell me a little story.”
    “Sure, I’ll even tell you a big one. I was in the office talking with Mr. and Mrs. Miltan when we heard the yelling—”
    “Oh, no. Back up. From the time you got there. I want the works.”
    I gave it to him, in my best style. I knew from the tone Wolfe had taken that the program was eagerness to oblige in inessentials, so I skipped none of the unimportant details. I covered the route. One of the little cuts I made was the brief passage between the Balkans and me while I was standing guard at the front door. When I got through Cramer asked me some questions that offered no difficulty, ending with a few more jabs regarding what had happened between the time when this and the time when that. My only addition to my former explanation was that I had started to get hungry.
    He sat a minute and chewed his cigar, frowning, and switched to Wolfe.
    “I don’t believe it,” he said flatly.
    “No? What is it you don’t believe, Mr. Cramer?”
    “I don’t believe that Goodwin’s bughouse. I don’t believe he left like that because he was homesick andhungry. I don’t believe he went back there to collect a fee from Miss Tormic. I don’t believe that as far as you’re concerned it’s washed up and you’re not interested in the murder.”
    “I haven’t said I’m not interested in the murder.”
    “Ho! Haven’t you? Well, are you?”
    “Yes.” Wolfe grimaced. “Apparently I am. While Archie was on guard at the door Miss Tormic approached and asked him—me—to act in the matter in her interest. He accepted. I am committed, and the amount of profit that may be expected …” He shrugged. “I am committed. That was what happened that made Archie feel he should communicate with me promptly and privately. As you are aware, Mr. Cramer, I am quite capable of candor when the occasion presents—”
    The inspector clamped his teeth on his cigar and said through them savagely, “I knew it!”
    Wolfe’s brows went up a millimeter. “You knew? …”
    “I knew it the minute I learned Goodwin had been there and gone off to chase a cat. It had already begun to look like a first-class headache, and when I heard about Goodwin that cinched it. So you’ve got a client! And sure enough, by God, it has to be your client that was in that room fencing with him! It would be!” He rescued the cigar from his teeth with his left hand and hit the desk with his right fist, simultaneously. “Understand this, Wolfe! I came here in a mood of cooperation, in spite of Goodwin’s tricky getaway! And what am I