Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 31 by Champagne for One Page B

discuss the possibility that you’re wrong.”
    “That, no. You wouldn’t expect me to discuss the possibility that I’m wrong in thinking you’re Inspector Cramer, you’re Willie Mays.”
    He regarded me a long moment with narrowed eyes, then moved to his normal position in the red leather chair, confronting Wolfe. “I’m going to tell you,” he said, “exactly what I think.”
    Wolfe grunted. “You often have.”
    “I know I have, but I hoped it wouldn’t come to this. I hoped Goodwin had realized that it wouldn’t do. I think I know what happened. Rose Tuttle told him that Faith Usher had a bottle of cyanide in her bag, and that she was afraid she might use it right there, and Goodwin told her to forget it, that he would see that nothing happened, and from then on he kept surveillance on both Faith Usher and the bag. That is admitted.”
    “It is stated.”
    “Okay, stated. When he sees her drink champagne and collapse and die, and smells the cyanide, what would his reaction be? You know him and so do I. You know how much he likes himself. He would be hit where it hurts. He would hate it. So, without stopping to consider, he tells them that he thinks she was murdered. When the police come, he knows that what he said will be reported, so he repeats it to them, and then he’s committed, and when Sergeant Stebbins and I arrive he repeats it to us. But to us he has to give a reason, so he has one, and a damn good one, and as long as there was a decent possibility that she
was
murdered we gave it full weight. But now—You heard me explain how it is. I was hoping that when heheard me and realized the situation he would see that his best course is to say that maybe he has been a little too positive. That he can’t absolutely swear that she didn’t put something in the champagne. He has had time to think it over, and he is too intelligent not to see that. That’s what I think. I hope you will agree.”
    “It’s not a question of agreement, it’s a question of fact.” Wolfe turned to me. “Archie?”
    “No, sir. Nobody likes me better than I do, but I’m not that far gone.”
    “You maintain your position?”
    “Yes. He contradicts himself. First he says I acted like a double-breasted sap and then he says I’m intelligent. He can’t have his suicide and eat me too. I stand pat.”
    Wolfe lifted his shoulders an eighth of an inch, lowered them, and turned to Cramer. “I’m afraid you’re wasting your time, Mr. Cramer. And mine.”
    I was yawning.
    Cramer’s red face was getting redder, a sure sign that he had reached the limit of something and was about to cut loose, but a miracle happened: he put on the brake in time. It’s a pleasure to see self-control win a tussle. He moved his eyes to me.
    “I’m not taking this as final, Goodwin. Think it over. Of course, we’re going on with the investigation. If we find anything at all that points to homicide we’ll follow it up. You know that. But it’s only fair to warn you. If our final definite opinion is that it was suicide, and we say so, and you give your friend Lon Cohen of the
Gazette
a statement for publication saying that you know it was murder, you’ll regret it. That, or anything like it. Why in hell it had to be that
you
werethere, God only knows. Such a statement from you, as an eye-witness—”
    The doorbell rang. I arose, asked Cramer politely to excuse me, stepped to the hall, and through the one-way glass saw a recent social acquaintance, though it took me a second to recognize him because his forty-dollar fedora covered the uncombed hair. I went and opened the door, confronted him, said, “Ssshhh,” patted my lips with a forefinger, backed up, and beckoned him in. He hesitated, looking slightly startled, then crossed the threshold. I shut the door and, without stopping to relieve him of his hat and coat, opened the door to the front room, which is on the same side of the hall as the office, motioned him in, followed him, and