Cramer’s head jerked around. Donald gawked, and some of the color leaving his face made him look a little less fierce. John P. betrayed no sign whatever of having heard anything more provocative than a remark about the weather. But he clipped off words and lunged with them:
“That’s worse than ridiculous. And more dangerous. That’s actionable.”
“So it is.” Wolfe’s tone sharpened. “I’m coming right out with it, Mr. Barrett. My dinner’s in an hour, and I don’t want to waste time flopping around in a mire of inanities. I hold the cards and I don’t have to finesse. Your deal with the Donevitch gang is done for. Accept that. Swallow it. I want to go on from that –”
“I’d like to see you alone.” John P. stood up. “Get them out of here or take me –”
“No. Sit down.”
“Sit down for what? You say the deal’s done for. Whether it is or isn’t, I’m not talking on that basis. There’s nothing to talk about. Come, Donald.”
He started off. Wolfe’s words hit him in the back:
“Within an hour a warrant will issue charging your son with murder! It will be too late to talk to me then!”
Donald was up and following his leader. But his leader suddenly wheeled, strode back to confront Cramer, and demanded:
“You’re a responsible police officer. This blackmailing threat is made in your presence. Do you know who I am? … Well?”
That was a fizzle, in spite of the fact that Cramer hadn’t the faintest idea of what was going on. I wouldn’t have given an unconditioned guarantee on his brains, but there was nothing wrong with his guts.
“Yeah, I know who you are,” he said calmly. “Sit down and give him rope. He owns this house and about a million dollars’ worth of orchids. It’s a good thing you’ve got me here as a witness in case you try for damages.”
Wolfe snorted irritably. “Get out if you want to and take the consequences. You’re acting like a schoolgirl in a pet. Can’t you see I’ve got something to say and the best of your alternatives is to sit down and listen to it? Do you take me for a maudlin blatherskite?”
Donald blurted, “He’s a goddam bluffer –”
A look from his father cut him off, and a jerk of his father’s head ordered him back to his chair. Donald sat down. John P. did the same and told Wolfe curtly:
“Say it.”
“That’s better.” Wolfe got his finger tips together again. “I’ll make it as brief as I can since you already know it and all Mr. Cramer needs at present is the outline.” He gave the inspector his eyes. “You might as well have the name of the murderer to begin with. I promised you that. The Princess Vladanka Donevitch.”
Cramer grunted. “I don’t know her.”
“Yes you do. We’ll get to that. Her home is in Zagreb, Croatia – Yugoslavia. She is the wife of young Prince Stefan. They like the Nazis. Most Croats don’t. The Donevitch family agree with other Croats in their hatred of Belgrade. Belgrade is trying to make up its mind whether to be dominated by Germany, Italy, France, or England. Germany, Italy, France, and England are doing all they can to hasten the process. The attitude of the Croats is Germany’s biggest obstacle. She is trying to buy them, with the Donevitch gang as selling agents. The other countries are competing –”
Cramer growled, “I’m a New York cop.”
“I know, and most of the money in the world is in New York, or controlled from here. That’s why people come here from all directions with things like this.” Wolfe reached in to his breast pocket, pulled out a paper and extended it to Cramer. “Keep that; it’s evidence. You can’t read it. It is signed by Prince Stefan Donevitch and it empowers the princess, his wife, to conclude certain transactions in his name –”
John P.’s lips twitched. “Where did you get that?”
“That doesn’t matter, Mr. Barrett. Not now.” Wolfe went on to Cramer, “Specifically, transactions regarding concessions of Bosnian forests and the transfer of credits held by a firm of international bankers, Barrett & De Russy. The princess came to New York incognito, under an alias, and started negotiations. Because secrecy was essential on account of American restrictions regarding the export of capital in the form of loans, and I suspect other skullduggery besides the violation of those restrictions, she even went to the trouble of pretending to be an immigrant and getting a job in a fencing school. I don’t suppose many persons were aware of her true identity, but certainly three were: Mr. Barrett here and his son, and a man named Rudolph Faber who was assisting in the negotiations as a secret agent of the Nazi government. You see, Barrett & De Russy have financial relations with the Nazis,”
Donald began explosively, “We merely act –” but a glance from his father shut him up again.
Wolfe nodded. “I know. Money and morals don’t speak … But a British agent named Ludlow got onto it. He not only got onto the princess and what she was up to, he even threatened – I don’t know how, but possibly by informing the American government – to ruin the deal. And that just at the moment when all details had been decided and it was ready for consummation. So she killed Ludlow. I want to make it plain that the princess did that herself. A friend, another young woman, had come from Zagreb with her, also under an alias, but she had no part in the murder. You understand that, Mr. Cramer?”
Cramer muttered, “Go on.”
“There isn’t a lot to go on with. Rudolph Faber knew what the princess had done and he blackmailed her. Up to last evening he had been merely a negotiator, a bidder; that made him boss. He imposed terms on her, and I imagine they weren’t generous; he didn’t strike me as a generous man. He forced her to tell where that paper was and he tried to get it. The paper was of course vital. I presume, Mr. Barrett, it was to be attached to the agreement you were drawing up, to validate it?”
John P. didn’t answer.
Wolfe shrugged. “So she killed Faber. She made an appointment to meet him in her own apartment and stabbed him. God only knows what she thought she was going to do next. There is no way of telling what goes on in that kind of a head. She seems to be as heedless and harebrained as a lunatic. She may have counted on the taciturnity of governments and international financiers regarding their privy intrigues, but what the devil did she take me for, a goat on a chain? A creature like that is outside the realm of calculation. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had tried to stab me. Were you able to deal with her on a rational basis, Mr. Barrett?”
John P. was regarding him steadily. “I’m waiting for you to say something.”
“That’s about all there is.”
“Bah. You’ve made a lot of loose accusations, with nothing to support them.”
“There’s that paper.”
“You stole it.”
“I didn’t, but what if I did? There it is, for evidence.”
“Damn flimsy evidence for two murders.”
“I know.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “See here, Mr. Barrett, you’re making a blunder. I made a serious threat. I said that a warrant would issue charging your son with murder. I meant, of course, as accessory, which is the same thing. It’s obvious that he knew the Princess Vladanka had killed Ludlow. You probably knew it too, but I have no proof that you tried actively to cheat the law. I have got proof that your son did, and three witnesses: Belinda Reade, Madame Zorka, and Mr. Goodwin, my assistant.”
“That was only –”
“Quiet, son.” John P. didn’t move his eyes from Wolfe. “What else?”
“Nothing to stun you with, I’m afraid. Frankly, sir, I have no bomb to explode under you. But the point is this. Mr. Cramer here doesn’t like murder. He doesn’t like to see it practiced with impunity under any circumstances whatever, but in this case he was impeded by a wall of reluctance which he couldn’t possibly have breached. By luck I had made a hole in the wall and I’ve let him through, and if you knew him as I do you would realize that he can’t be chased out again. He has it now and he’ll hang onto it, unless you can get him ditched, which I doubt. He has that paper and he’ll arrest the princess, so your deal’s off anyway.
He has enough to take your son as a material witness. With that paper, he can get a court order to examine your records and correspondence. But you know as well as I do what this will mean if you try to fight it. If you try to shield a murderer from the penalty she has earned. The fact is –”