Murder by the Book

I lifted a brow. "Do you think Dykes was Baird Archer?" "I don't know. He wrote that list of names, obviously inventions. He certainly wasn't Baird Archer on February second, since he had been dead five weeks. You will also go to Scholl and Hanna. In spite of what Miss Wellman wrote her parents, it's possible that someone else read that manuscript, or at least glanced through it. Or Miss Wellman may have said something about it to one of her associates. Or, less likely, Baird Archer may have delivered the manuscript in person and be remembered-of course that was last fall, months ago." Wolfe heaved a sigh and reached for his glass. "I suggest that you extend the deadline beyond sundown tomorrow." "What the hell," I said generously, "I'll give you till Friday." It was just as well I didn't say what Friday.

4

WHAT with getting Saul and Fred and Orrie sicked onto the typing services, and dealing with the morning mail, and going to the bank to deposit Wellman's check, it was well after ten o'clock Tuesday when I got to Cramer's office on Twentieth Street. He wasn't there but had left instructions with Sergeant Purley Stebbins. I am one of the few people Purley knows that he has not completely made up his mind about. Since I'm a private detective, the sooner I die, or at least get lost outside the city limits, the better-of course that's basic, but he can't quite get rid of the suspicion that I might have made a good cop if I had been caught in time.

I not only got a look at the files, I even got to talk with two of the help who had worked on Dykes and one from the Bronx who had worked on Joan Wellman. By the time I left, a little before three, I had a lot in my notebook and more in my head.