Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 25 by Before Midnight Page A

seamy face has gone almost white, and his burly broad shoulders have seemed to shrink, under the strain. I can always tell what the tone is going to be, at least for the kickoff, by the way he greets me when I let him in. If he calls me Archie, which doesn’t happen often, he wants something he can expect to get only as a favor and has determined to forget old sores and keep it friendly. If he calls me Goodwin and asks how I am, he still is after a favor but thinks he is entitled to it. If he calls me Goodwin but shows no interest in my health, he has come for what he would call co-operation and intends to get it. If he calls me nothing at all, he’s ready to shoot from the hip and look out.
    That time it wasn’t Archie, but he asked how I was, and after he got into the red leather chair he accepted an offer of beer from Wolfe, and apologized for coming so late without phoning. As Fritz served the beer I went to the kitchen to get a glass of milkfor myself. When I returned Cramer had a half-empty glass in his hand and was licking foam from his lips.
    “I hope,” he said, “that I didn’t interrupt anything important.” He was gruff, but he would be gruff saying his prayers.
    “I’m on a case,” Wolfe said, “and I was working.”
Beauty for Ashes
, by Christopher La Farge, is a novel written in verse, the scene of the action being Rhode Island. I don’t read novels in verse, but I doubt if there’s anything in it about perfume contests, or even any kind of cosmetics. If it were
Ashes for Beauty
that might have been different.
    “Yeah,” Cramer said. “The Dahlmann murder.”
    “No, sir.” Wolfe poured beer. “I’m aware of your disapproval of private detectives concerning themselves with murders in your jurisdiction—heaven knows I should be—and it pleases me to know that I’m not incurring it. I am not investigating a murder.”
    “That’s fine. Would you mind telling me who your client is? This case you’re on?”
    “As a boon?”
    “I don’t care what you call it, just tell me.”
    “There’s no reason why I shouldn’t, in confidence of course. A firm, an advertising agency, called Lippert, Buff and Assa.”
    I raised my brows. Evidently Cramer wasn’t the only one in favor of favors. Wolfe was being almost neighborly.
    “I’ve heard of them,” Cramer said. “Just today, in fact. That’s the firm Louis Dahlmann was with.”
    “That’s right.”
    “When did they hire you?”
    “Today.”
    “Uh-huh. And also today four people have come to see you, not counting your clients, who were at a dinnermeeting with Dahlmann last night, and Goodwin has called on another one at his hotel. But you’re not investigating a murder?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Nuts.”
    It looked as if the honeymoon was over and before long fur would be flying, but Cramer took the curse off his lunge with a diversion. He drank beer, and put his empty glass down. “Look,” he said, “I’ve heard you do a lot of beefing about people being rational. Okay. If anyone who knew you, and knew who has been coming here today—if he didn’t think you were working on the murder would he be rational? You know damn well he wouldn’t. I’m being rational. If you want to try to talk me out of it, go ahead.”
    Wolfe made a noise which he may have thought was a friendly chuckle. “That would be a new experience, Mr. Cramer. There have been times when I have tried to talk you
into
being rational. I can only tell you, also in confidence, what my job is. Of course you know about the perfume contest, and about the wallet that was missing from Mr. Dahlmann’s pocket. I’m going to provide for a satisfactory settlement of the contest by learning who took the wallet, and what was in it, to demonstrate that none of its contents had any bearing on the contest. I’m also going to arrange that certain events, especially the detention of four of the contestants in New York, shall not prevent the fair and equitable distribution of the