Murder by the Book

"Yeah, I know. Saturday you called it a focus of interest. I had Stebbins handle it himself, with instructions to make it good, and he did. Besides, look at it. Say you're Kustin or Briggs, going there as a guest to eat with Corrigan. Say you use that typewriter for that particular purpose. You can't do it, you can't even get in that room, without either Corrigan or an attendant knowing about it, probably both of them, and that would be pretty damn dumb. Wouldn't it?"

"Yes."

"So it looks as if Corrigan did inform on his partner. That alone makes the confession a lot easier to buy, signed or unsigned, and the DA's office feels the same way about it. Isn't that practically what you said Saturday? Is there anything wrong with that argument?"

"No." Wolfe made a noise that could have been a chuckle. "I will accept an apology."

"The hell you Will. For what?"

"You accused me, or Mr. Goodwin, of making that cryptic notation on Dykes's letter of resignation. Well?"

Cramer picked up his glass and drank, in no hurry. He set the glass down. "Uh-huh," he conceded. "I still say it looked like a typical Wolfe stunt, and I'm not apologizing. That's

the one detail in that confession that it's hard to dope. The confession says he made the notation in December, so of course it wasn't there when they all saw the letter last summer, that's all right, but it must have been there a week ago Saturday when the letter was sent to you. Yet three of them say it wasn't. Phelps asked his secretary, a girl named Don-dero, to see if it was in the files, and she dug it out and took it to him. O'Malley had come to the office that morning, for a conference at Corrigan's request, and was with Phelps in his room when the girl brought the letter in, and they both looked at it. They won't swear the notation wasn't on it, but they both think they would have noticed it if it had been, and they didn't notice it. Not only that, the girl says she would testify under oath that there was no such notation on the letter. She says she would positively have noticed it if it had been. Phelps dictated his letter to you, and she typed it, and Phelps signed it, and she put it and Dykes's letter of resignation, and the other material written by Dykes, into an envelope addressed to you, and sent for a messenger and took the envelope to the anteroom and left it with the switchboard girl to be given to the messenger when he came. So how do I dope it?"