He left me to squint at Wolfe, and after another chew he nodded. “Okay, but no lousy ten bucks a day. Twenty.”
As I mentioned, the offer of two Cs had been a mistake. Delusions of grandeur. Wolfe, being in a pickle, would probably have stood for it, but I put in. “Nothing doing,” I said firmly. “Ten a day and found, and wait till you taste the found.” I touched his elbow. “Come on and I’ll show you your room.”
Chapter 3
Five hours later, at seven-eighteen that evening, I went to answer the doorbell and found Inspector Cramer on the stoop. Since Lon Cohen had phoned around four o’clock to say that Mrs. Bynoe had been murdered, and to ask for copy, which he didn’t get, I had expected company sooner, but of course it had taken a little time for them to get a line on the photographers who had had box seats, or stands, in front of the church.
Tabby had chosen to lunch in his room from a tray instead of joining us in the dining room, but afterward he had relaxed enough to go with me to the basement to shoot some pool, and I spent the rest of the afternoon there with him, with time out for answering three phone calls and for performing a chore I thought advisable, namely, taking the roll of film from the Centrex and locking it in a desk drawer. We were in the basement when the doorbell rang, and I took Tabby up with me and sent him on upstairs before I opened up. Also, seeing Inspector Cramer through the one-way glass panel, I stepped into the office to see that the spray of Vanda wasn’t on view and to tell Wolfe who the caller was. He put down the book he was reading and growled.
After letting me take his hat and coat in the hall, which showed that he didn’t intend merely to fire a couple of shots and go, Cramer tramped ahead into the office, and when I entered he was seated in the red leather chair near the end of Wolfe’s desk and was declining an invitation to have some beer; and as I crossed to my desk he spoke to my back.
“You, Goodwin. I want information, and I want it straight and fast. What were you doing in front of Saint Thomas’s today?”
I sat and raised my brows. “Why start there? Take the whole day. I woke up at eight o’clock, realized it was not only Sunday but also Easter Sunday, and decided to enjoy—”
“Stop clowning and answer my question!”
“Pfui,” Wolfe muttered.
I shook my head at Cramer. “You know better than that. Even when you’re worked up, as I can see you are, you still know better. What’s the ground?”
His keen blue-gray eyes, looking smaller than they were on account of his big round face, were hard at me. “Damn you,” he said, “I’m in a hurry, but I ought to know you by this time. A woman named Mrs. Millard Bynoe left that church today while you were there at the curb taking pictures. Her husband and a man named Frimm were with her. They crossed the avenue and walked east on Fifty-fourth Street, and in the middle of the block she suddenly collapsed and had convulsions, and she died there on the sidewalk. The body was taken to the morgue, and the preliminary report says there are signs of strychnine, and a needle was found in her abdomen. Details of the needle are being withheld, except that it is hollow and it had contained strychnine, and from its size and shape it could have been shot at her by a spring mechanism from a range up to twenty feet, maybe more, depending on the mechanism.”
Cramer’s eyes darted to Wolfe and back to me. “You want ground. It was approximately twelve minutes — say ten to fifteen — after she left the church that she collapsed on the sidewalk. As she was leaving the church there were at least five cameras aimed at her, five that I know about, and you were aiming one of them. What for?”
I was meeting his eyes. “You’ve got ground, all right,” I conceded. “You asked what I was doing in front of Saint Thomas’s today, and you sure have a right to know, so I’ll tell you.”
I did so, with all details of my words and actions, except that I didn’t mention Tabby or Mrs. Bynoe or orchids, and I didn’t include the fact that I had been present when Mrs. Bynoe collapsed. My finale was merely that I had strolled away from the church, to Madison Avenue, and taken a taxi home.
I leaned back. “That’s it,” I said. “I understand now why you came instead of inviting me down. Naturally you want the camera, and under the circumstances I don’t blame you.” I swiveled and got the Centrex, in its leather case with the strap, from the desk, and swiveled back. “Here it is. If you want to take it along I’d like a receipt.”
He said he certainly wanted to take it along, and I got at the typewriter and wrote a receipt, and he signed it. As I dropped it in a drawer he said that my signed statement should include a declaration that the camera I had given him was the one I had used in front of the church, and I said it would. When I turned back his eyes were leveled at me again.
“How well do you know Joseph Herrick?” he demanded.
“Not very well. I know he’s been a Gazette photographer for several years. I’ve met him around a few times, that’s all.”
“Do you know the other two men there with cameras? Or the girl?”
“No. Never saw any of them before. I don’t know their names.”
“Did you know Mrs. Bynoe?”
“No. Never saw her either.”
“You weren’t there for the purpose of aiming a camera at her?”
“At her? No.”
“What were you there for?”
I waved a hand. “To take pictures. Like ten thousand of my fellow citizens.”
“They weren’t all there in front of that church. You understand, Goodwin, the way it looks now, that needle was fired with some kind of a mechanism in one of those cameras that were focused on Mrs. Bynoe. You see things. Did you see anything peculiar about one of those cameras?”
“No. I’ll give it a thought, but I’m sure I didn’t.”
“Or anything peculiar about the manner or actions of any of those four people with cameras?”
“No. Again I’ll give it a thought, but no. Of course I was taking pictures myself and I wasn’t interested in them or their cameras.”
Cramer grunted. He regarded me for a long moment and then transferred to Wolfe. “I’ll tell you,” he said. “I’ll just tell you why I came here instead of sending for Goodwin and the camera. Mrs. Bynoe was wearing a bunch of orchids, and her husband says they were very special orchids. There is only one plant in the world, and he has it. While she was lying on the sidewalk, in convulsion, a man darted in from the crowd and snatched the orchids off her and ran. Frimm grabbed his arm but he jerked away. Of course he didn’t stick the needle in her then, she was already dying, but that’s not the point. The point is that I know how you are on orchids, and that Goodwin was around. The orchids alone, or Goodwin alone, I might pass, but the two together — that’s why I’m here. I want to know if you have anything to say, and if so what, and I want to ask some questions.”
Wolfe’s lips had tightened. “Is it possible,” he inquired, “that you are intimating that it was Mr. Goodwin who took the orchids?”
“No. I know he didn’t. I have a description of the man who did. But you know damn well how it is when there’s a smell of either you or Goodwin within a mile of a murder, and here is Goodwin and orchids. Have you anything to say?”
“Yes. I request you to leave my house.”
“After you answer some questions.” Cramer leaned forward. “Have you any knowledge of the man who took the orchids from Mrs. Bynoe?”
Wolfe put his hands on the edge of his desk, pushed his chair back, and got his bulk upright, on his feet. “Mr. Cramer,” he said coldly, “your talent for making yourself offensive is extraordinary. Presumably investigating a murder, you invade my privacy in my home with the preposterous intent of involving me in the theft of a bunch of flowers.” He moved, walked halfway to the door, stopped, and turned. “If you wished to question me about your murder I would listen, and would even answer. I know nothing whatever about it. I know nothing about Mrs. Bynoe and I know no one who does, and I have no inkling of any information that could possibly be relevant to her murder. Since you assume that the needle was propelled by a mechanism concealed in one of the cameras, I will add that I also know nothing of any of the persons who were there with cameras, except Mr. Goodwin, and he has told you what he saw and did. If you want to nag him about it, and he cares to submit, there he is.”