“Thank you for your forbearance,” Wolfe said drily. “But why must the meeting be called off?”
“Because it can’t do any good and may do harm. What good can it do?”
Wolfe’s eyes were still half closed. “It can help me to earn a fee. I accepted Mr. Hansen’s definition of my job: ‘to find out who took the wallet and got the paper.’ It remains to be performed.”
“It doesn’t have to be performed, not now, since the contest problem is solved. You’ve earned your fee and you’ll get it.”
“You’ve admitted, Mr. Assa, that you’re speaking only for yourself.”
The red tip of his tongue showed again, flicking his lips. “I’ll guarantee the fee,” he said.
Wolfe shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s not acceptable. My responsibility is to my client, and his reciprocal responsibility, to pay me, is not transferable. As for canceling the meeting, that’s out of the question. If such a request came unanimously from Messrs. Buff, O’Garro, Hansen, Heery—and you, and cogent reasons were given, I might consider it, but would probably refuse. As it is,—I won’t even consider it.”
Assa looked at me. He glanced at the refreshment table, came back to me, and said, “There’s a bottle of Pernod there. That’s my drink. Could I have some?”
I said certainly and asked if he wanted ice, and he said no. I took him the Pernod and an Old-Fashioned glass, and he poured two fingers as plump as his own, and darned if he didn’t toss it off as if it were a jigger of bourbon. I’m not a Pernod drinker, but there is such a thing as common sense. Not only that, he poured again, this time only one finger, and then, without taking a sip, put the glass down on the little table at his elbow, beside the bottle.
He swallowed a couple of times for a chaser. “That’s a highhanded attitude, Mr. Wolfe,” he said. He paused to collect more words. “Frankly, I don’t see what you expect to accomplish. You’ll get your fee, and from our standpoint, as far as the contest is concerned, it no longer matters who got the wallet. Of course it may still be a factor in the murder, but you weren’t hired to investigate the murder. That’s up to the police. Why do you insist on this meeting?”
“To finish my job. What I engaged to do.”
“But you’re more apt to undo what you’ve already done. The police know now—they were told on your advice—that you have had a copy of the answers in your possession since last Wednesday. How far the discretion of the police can be trusted I don’t know, but it’s conceivable that one or more of the contestants have learned about it, and if so, God only knows what would happen at the meeting. You might even find yourself backed into a corner where you had to admit you had mailed the answers to them, and LBA would be responsible, and we’d be in a deeper hole than ever.”
“You would indeed,” Wolfe conceded. “But if that’s your fear, dismiss it There will be no such admission by me.”
“What will there be?”
“I couldn’t tell you if I would. I have formed certain conjectures and I intend to explore them. That’s what the meeting is for, and I shall not abandon it.”
Assa regarded him in silence, steadily, for a full half a minute. At length he broke it. “When your man Goodwin came to our oflice on Friday and got the word for you to go ahead, he wanted it unanimous. He polled us, and I voted yes with the others. Now I don’t, so it’s no longer unanimous. I ask you to suspend operations until I have conferred with my associates—say until tomorrow noon. I not only ask you, I direct you.”
Wolfe was shaking his head. “I’m afraid I can’t oblige you, Mr. Assa. Time’s important now, now that the spark has been struck and the fire started. It’s too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“To stop.”
Assa’s eyes dropped. He gazed at his right palm, saw nothing there to encourage him, tried the left, and there was nothing there either. “Very well,” he said, and arose, in no haste, and started for the door. Considering the turn things had taken, I wouldn’t have been astonished if Wolfe had told me to fasten onto him and lock him in the front room until nine o’clock, but he didn’t, so I got up and followed the guest into the hall. I didn’t resent his not thanking me for holding his topcoat and opening the door, since he was obviously preoccupied.
Back in the office, I stood and looked down at Wolfe. “I suppose,” I observed, “it doesn’t matter who struck the spark as long as it caught.”
“Yes. Get Mr. Cramer.”
I sat at my desk and dialed. It was a bad time of day to get Cramer ordinarily, but when something big was stirring, or refusing to stir, he sometimes ate at his desk instead of going home for what he called supper. That was one of the times. From the way he growled at me, it was very much one of the times.
Wolfe took it. “Mr. Cramer? I thought you might be interested in a meeting at my office this evening. We’re going to discuss the Dahlmann case. It will—”
“Who’s going to discuss it?”
“Everyone concerned—that is, everyone I know about. It will of course be confined to the theft of the wallet, since that’s what I’m investigating, but it will inevitably touch upon points that affect you, so I’m inviting you to come—as an observer.”
Silence. Cramer could have been chewing a bite of a corned beef sandwich, or he could have been chewing what he had heard.
“What have you got?” he demanded.
“For myself, a reasonable expectation. For you, the possibility of a suitable disclosure. Have I ever wasted your time on frivolity?”
“No. Not on frivolity. There’s no use asking you on the phone. . .. Stebbins will be there in ten minutes.”
“No, sir. Nor you. I need a little time to arrange the inside of my head, and my dinner will be ready shortly. The meeting will be at nine o’clock.”
“I’ll bring Stebbins with me.”
“By all means. Do so.”
We hung up.
“You know darned well,” I said, “that Purley will bring handcuffs, and he hates to take them back empty—”
I stopped because he was leaning back and closing his eyes, and his lips were starting to move, pushing out and then in, out and in. … He was working at last I went across the hall for two more chairs.
Chapter 18
If a successful party is one where everybody comes, there was no question about that one. In fact, some came too early. Gertrude Frazee showed up at eight-thirty-five, when Wolfe and I were still in the dining room, and I was having coffee in the office with her when Philip Younger arrived, and a minute later Talbott Heery. Patrick O’Garro and Oliver Buff came together, and almost on their heels Professor Harold Rollins. When Inspector Cramer and Sergeant Stebbins got there it was still ten minutes short of nine. They wanted to see Wolfe immediately, of course, and I took them to the dining room and shut them in there with him. Back at the front door, I opened it for Vernon Assa, who was still in no frame of mind to thank anybody for anything, and then for Susan Tescher, of Clock magazine. I had been sort of hoping to see Mr. Tite himself, but all she had along was Mr. Hibbard, the tall and skinny one. It was nine on the dot when Mrs. Wheelock appeared, and not more than thirty seconds later here came Rudolph Hansen. Not only did everybody come, they all beat the bell except Hansen, and he just shaved it.
I went to glance in at the office door and saw that Fritz had things under control at the refreshment table. Evidently they had all been thirsty, or else they didn’t want to talk and were drinking instead. Pleased that the party was starting well, I crossed to the dining room to tell Wolfe we had a full house and were set for his entrance, but, entering, I shut the door and stood. Cramer, sitting with his big rough fist tapping the table, was reading Wolfe the riot act, with Purley standing behind bis shoulder looking satisfied. I approached. What seemed to be biting Cramer was that he did not intend to let Wolfe call a meeting of murder suspects and expect him, Cramer, to sit and take it in like a goddam stenographer (Cramer’s words, not mine; I have known at least three stenographers who were absolutely—anyway, I have known stenographers).
I had heard Cramer lose that argument with Wolfe some twenty times. What he wanted was the moon. He wanted, first, to know in advance exactly what Wolfe was going to say, which was ridiculous because most of the time Wolfe didn’t know himself. Second, he wanted it understood that he would be free to take over at any point, bound by no commitment, whereas Wolfe demanded a pledge that the proceedings would be left to him short of extreme provocation, such as gunplay or hair pulling. Since it was a cinch that Cramer wouldn’t have been there at all if he hadn’t thought Wolfe had something he badly needed, he might as well have given up on that one for good, but he never did. All he accomplished that Monday evening was holding up the start of the meeting by a quarter of an hour. I cut in on the squabble to announce that the audience was ready and waiting, and then went to the office.