Will you do it?”
I just shook my head.
He walked around the desk to his chair and sat down.
He looked at me as if he regretted something. Finally he said,
“It’s too much, Goodwin.
This time it’s too much.
I’m going to have to put it on to you and Wolfe both for obstructing justice.
It’s all set for a charge.
Even if I hated to worse than I do, I’ve got upstairs to answer to.”
He pushed a button on his desk.
I said,
“Go ahead.
Then, pretty soon, go ahead and regret it for a year or two and maybe longer.”
The door opened and a gumshoe came in.
Cramer turned to him.
“You’ll have to turn ‘em loose. Nick.
Put shadows on all of them except the kid that goes to N. Y. U. and the radio singer.
They’re out.
Take good men.
If one of them gets lost you’ve got addresses to pick him up again.
Any more they pick up, I’ll see them after you’ve got a record down.”
“Yes, sir. The one from Brooklyn, the McGrue Club guy, is raising hell.”
“All right.
Let him out.
I’ll phone McGrue later.”
The gumshoe departed.
Cramer tried to get his cigar lit.
I said,
“And as far as upstairs is concerned, to hell with the Commissioner.
How does he know whether or not it’s justice that Wolfe’s obstructing?
How about that cripple Paul Chapin and that bird Bowen?
Did he obstruct justice that time?
If you ask me, I think you had a nerve to ask me to come down here. Are we interfering with your legal right to look for these babies?
You even looked for one of them under Wolfe’s bed and under my bed.
Do Wolfe and I wear badges, and do we line up on the first and fifteenth for a city check?
We do not.”
Cramer puffed.
“I ought to charge you.”
I lifted the shoulders and let them drop.
“Sure.
You’re just sore.
That’s one way cops and newspaper reporters are all alike, they can’t bear to have anyone know anything they won’t tell.” I looked at my wrist watch and saw it was nearly two o’clock. “I’m hungry.
Where do I eat, inside or out?”
Cramer said,
“I don’t give a damn if you never eat.
Beat it.”
I floated up and out, down the hall, down in the elevator, and back to the roadster.
I looked around comprehensively, reflecting that within a radius of a few blocks eight Mike Walshes were scattering in all directions, six of them with tails, and that I would give at least two bits to know where one of them was headed for.
But even if he had gone by my elbow that second I wouldn’t have dared to take it up, since that would have spotted him for them, so I hopped in the roadster and swung north.
When I got back to the house Wolfe and Clara Fox were in the dining room, sitting with their coffee.