The Golden Spiders (Crime Line)

“Crossed off, nobody. Of course there are complications. For instance, Mrs. Horan says that Friday night her husband returned to the apartment ten minutes after he left with Mrs. Fromm to take her down to her car, and he went to bed and stayed there, but that’s a wife corroborating a husband. If you’re ready to nominate a candidate don’t let me stop you. Have you got one?”

“Yes.”

“The hell you have. Name him.”

“The question was, have I a candidate, not am I ready to nominate. I may be ready in an hour, or in a week, but not now.”

Cramer grunted. “Either you’re grandstanding, which would be nothing new, or you’re holding out. I admit you’ve made a haul-this racket, and Egan, and, by luck, Horan too-and much obliged. Okay. None of that names the murderer. What else? If you’re after a deal, here I am. I’ll give you anything and everything we’ve got, ask me anything you want to-of course that’s what you’re after-if you’ll reciprocate and give me all you’ve got.”

Stebbins made a noise and then tried to look as if he hadn’t.

“That,” Wolfe said, “is theoretically a fair and forthright proposal, but practically it’s pointless. Because first, I’ve given you all I’ve got; and second, you have nothing I want or need.”

Cramer and Stebbins gawked at him, both surprised and suspicious.

“You’ve already told me,” Wolfe went on, “that no one has been eliminated, more than three days since Mrs. Fromm was killed. That will do for me. By now you have tens of thousands of words of reports and statements, and I admit it’s possible that buried somewhere in them is a fact or a phrase I might think cogent, but even if you cart it all up here I don’t intend to wade through it. For example, how many pages have you on the background and associates and recent comings and goings of Miss Angela Wright?”

“Enough,” Cramer growled.

“Of course. I don’t decry it. Such lines of inquiry often get you an answer, but manifestly in this case they haven’t even hinted at one or you wouldn’t be here. Would I find in your dossier the answer to this question: Why did the man who killed the boy in broad daylight, with people around on the street, dare to run the risk of later identification by one or more onlookers? Or to this one: How to account for the log of the earrings-bought by Mrs. Fromm on May eleventh, worn by another woman on May nineteenth, and worn by Mrs. Fromm on May twenty-second? Have you found any trace of the earrings beyond that? Worn by anyone at any time?”

“No.”