At two-thirty-three I turned to Wolfe. “Okay, they’ll all be here. Now what?”
“Get Mr. Cramer on the line.”
I had expected that order, of course. As often happens when I call Cramer, the flunky who answered the phone wasn’t cooperative and started grilling me about what Wolfe wanted. “I think the inspector will want to take this call,” I said curtly. “Mr. Wolfe has information on a pending case.”
“You can give it to me,” the flunky said.
“Good-bye, pal,” I told him, as both Wolfe and I cradled our receivers. “I’ve got a sawbuck says Cramer’ll call in less than ten minutes,” I said to Wolfe, whose face was set in a scowl.
“That was the correct handling of the situation,” he said grudgingly. “I won’t take the wager.”
Three minutes and seventeen seconds later, the phone rang, and we lifted our instruments simultaneously. “Wolfe!” Cramer bellowed. “What’s going on?”
“Sir, you need to instruct your servitors as to the proper telephone etiquette,” Wolfe replied.
“That’s not why you called.”
“Correct. My client, Miss James, will be here tonight at nine o’clock, as will her mother, father, and brother, in addition to three other persons: Edward Pamsett, Douglas Rojek, and Polly Mars. I will be making a significant announcement concerning Barton Linville’s death, and you also might wish to be present.”
“Wolfe, given the circumstances, to say nothing of the families involved, I don’t have a lot of patience on this one. If you’ve got something to say about the Linville murder, tell me now.” Cramer was still bellowing.
“No, sir. You know that won’t work.”
“All right, then I’ll come right over and you can tell me all about it.”
“No again. If you come, you will be refused admittance and the offer to attend tonight’s gathering will be withdrawn.”
There was exhaling on the other end that sounded as if it had the force to blow over a bookcase. “All right, nine o’clock?” I could tell Cramer was struggling to keep himself under control.
“Correct. Sergeant Stebbins or some other associate also will be welcome.”
Cramer grumbled something that sounded like he’d bring Stebbins, and slammed down the phone.
“All right,” I said to Wolfe. “Now, give me a fill-in.” He did, and I have to admit I hadn’t seen it, although I probably should have. He sketched out the evening and told me to reach Saul and Fred. “We could get by with only one of them,” Wolfe said, “but both would be preferable.”
My luck held. Saul had just come in from a job and Fred was at home and of course happy to get the call to action. Less than an hour later they were seated in the office, Fred with beer, which he drinks to please Wolfe, and Saul with Scotch, which he drinks to please himself. Wolfe gave them a quick fill-in on their roles, then excused himself and moved rapidly out of the office, a rare occurrence. At that, he was four minutes late for his afternoon appointment with the orchids.
Twenty-Two
Saul and Fred finished their drinks and left, and I went out to the kitchen to fill in Fritz in a general way about the plans for the evening. Fritz isn’t big on knowing the details anyway; he’s mainly just glad when a case ends. To him, that means we will be receiving the balance of whatever money Wolfe is owed and that he will again be eating normally. I never notice anything wrong with Wolfe’s eating habits during a case, but Fritz insists that all the worrying he does over a solution has an extremely detrimental effect on his appetite and digestion.
In any event, when I left the kitchen Fritz was smiling. I then went back to the office and began setting it up for the evening, bringing in extra chairs and stocking the small serving table in the corner as a bar. I then tried to concentrate on getting some paperwork done at my desk, but as always happens when Wolfe is about to wrap up a case, I couldn’t keep my mind focused. I finally gave up, told Fritz I was going out, and walked for more than an hour, turning the events of the day over in my mind and trying to anticipate what might go wrong tonight. Okay, so I’m a worrier by nature.
When I got home, Wolfe was back behind his desk, reading and drinking beer. I went up to my room, took a short nap, washed up, changed into a fresh shirt and tie, and came down just in time for dinner, which was beef braised in red wine and squash with sour cream. Wolfe’s dinner-conversation was the new growth of racism in Europe, which he said could have been predicted twenty-five years ago by any clear-thinking sociologist. As usual, I mainly listened, most of my mind being on the activities that lay ahead.
After dinner, back in the office, I found myself looking at my watch every few minutes. Wolfe, on the other hand, was immersed in his book and seemed totally unconcerned about the time. At eight-fifty-two the doorbell rang and I went to answer it, seeing Doyle James through the one-way glass. “Come in,” I said politely. “You’re number one.”
He saluted me with an index finger, smiled, and walked in. We went down the hall to the office, where he and Wolfe exchanged formal greetings. I directed him to a chair in the second row as the doorbell rang again. This was the big James contingent: Noreen, Michael, and Megan, along with Pamsett. None of them appeared to be particularly happy, although Michael was the glummest of the lot, which, given his current status, was understandable. Megan, dressed in basic black, was frowning, Pamsett looked puzzled, and Noreen gave me a tight, nervous smile. “This better be good — bloody damn good,” Megan hissed under her breath as she went by me.
I ushered them into the office, steering Noreen to the red leather chair, placing Michael beside her and Megan next to her son, filling out the front row. I introduced Pamsett to Wolfe and directed him to a second-row spot beside Doyle James, who already had said hellos to his son and daughter and grunted at his ex-wife. He shook hands noncommittally with Pamsett.
The bell rang again, and this time Fritz got it, letting in Polly Mars, who was wearing a white blouse and a plaid wrap skirt that showed off her legs. She nodded grimly to me, still irked that she was missing a shooting session. I took her to the office, making introductions once again and pointing her at a second-row chair next to Pamsett, who nodded in her direction and fingered the knot of his blue-and-yellow-striped tie. By the time I went back to the hall, the bell had sounded yet again, this time rung by Rojek. When I opened the door, I found that Cramer and Stebbins were parked on the stoop too. As I was in the process of greeting them, Lily got out of a cab and, after tipping the driver, sashayed up the steps, acting as if everyone else had arrived unfashionably early.
I introduced her and the police to Rojek in the hall, and then steered everyone to the office, where I did still another round of name exchanges. Rojek, first looking at Noreen with a half-smile that got returned in kind, took one of the two remaining second-row seats, next to Polly, while Cramer and Stebbins, as they had so often in the past, settled into the two third-row chairs. Not surprisingly, the unexpected presence of the constabulary caused a hubbub among the others.
“Mr. Wolfe,” Megan said, shaking a finger ornamented by a walnut-sized gem, “before another word is spoken in this room, I insist on an explanation as to why members of the police department are present. I understood this was a private investigation, initiated at the request of my daughter.”