Before Midnight

He looked at Wolfe. "I'll tell you. I have never yet bumped into you in the course of my duties without conflict before I was through, but I don't say it couldn't possibly happen. As it stands now, if I take you at your word --I say if--I think we might get along. I think your clients are holding out on us. I think they're worried more about what happens to their goddam contest than what happens to a murderer, and that's why I'm willing to believe your job is what you say it is. I think they have probably given it to you straight, and I'd like to know exactly what they've told you, but I certainly don't expect you to tell me. I think that on the contest part, especially the paper Dahlmann had in his wallet, you're on the inside track, and you know things or you'll learn things we don't know and maybe can't learn. God knows I don't expect to pump them out of you, but I do expect you to realize that it won't hurt you a damn bit to loosen up with anything I could use."

"It's a pity," Wolfe said.

"What's a pity?"

"That you choose this occasion for an appeal instead of the usual bludgeon, because this time I'm armored. Mr. Rudolph Hansen, who is a member of the bar, made our conversation a privileged communication by taking a dollar from me as a retainer. I'm his client. It's a pity you don't give me a chance to raise my shield."

Cramer snorted. "A lot you need it. I've had enough goes at you without a shield. But this is a new one. You can't tell me anything because it's all privileged, huh?"

"No, sir." Wolfe was a little hurt. "I acquiesced in Mr. Hansen's subterfuge only to humor him. What I was told under the cloak of privilege may be of help in connection with the contest, but it wouldn't help you to find the murderer--since you know about the wallet and the paper. The same is true of my conversations with the contestants, except to add that I have not been led to conclude that any one of them did not take the wallet. I think any one of them might have done so, and, as a corollary, might have killed Dahlmann to get it. Beyond that I have nothing but a medley of conjectures which I was sorting out when you interrupted me. None of them is worth discussing--at least not until I look them over. I'll make this engagement: when I reach an assumption I like you'll hear from me before I act on it. Meanwhile, it would simplify matters if I knew a few details."

"Yeah. You haven't even read the papers?"

"No, sir."