The Father Hunt

When I arrived at the headquarters of Homicide South on West Twentieth Street at a quarter to nine Tuesday morning, I was on the fence. I wanted the cartons to get to Cramer as soon as possible, but if he was there I didn't want to deliver them to him myself, because as soon as he read the letter I would be stuck. He would hold me until the prints had been lifted and compared, and if they matched I would be held tighter and longer. So I was just as well pleased that he hadn't come yet. Neither had Purley Stebbins, but I got a sergeant I knew named Ber-man. When he saw the six cartons, one big enough to hold a wastebasket, which was one of the items Saul had brought from 490 Lexington Avenue, he said he hoped it wasn't all bombs and I said no, only one was, and the trick was to guess which. He put the letter in his pocket and promised to give it to Cramer as soon as he came.

It would be instructive to report how Saul got a big wastebasket out of that office building at ten o'clock at night, but it would take a page.

Home again, having had only orange juice before leaving, I ate breakfast, tried to find something in the Times

that deserved attention, and expected. The trouble with expecting is that you always jump the gun. It could take anywhere from one to eight hours for them to get the prints lifted and compared, but as I went to the office to dust and tear pages from desk calendars and put fresh water in the vase on Wolfe's desk and open the mail, I was expecting the phone to ring any minute. You simply can't help it, especially when you have no good reason to bet a dime either way on what you're expecting. If the