Murder by the Book

"I was on my way uptown and dropped in to show it to you." Cramer folded the sheet and put it in the envelope. "Not so much to get help, it probably has nothing to do with the homicide, but it's got me irritated and I wondered what you'd say, so I dropped in. A list of fifteen names written by Dykes on a piece of his scratch paper, and not one of them can be found in any phone directory in the metropolitan area! Or anywhere else. We can find no record anywhere of a man with any of those names. None of Dykes's friends or associates ever heard of a man with one of those names, so they say. I mean, taking the first and last names together, as they are on that list. Of course we haven't checked the whole damn country, but Dykes was a born and bred New Yorker, with no particular connections elsewhere that we know of. What the hell kind of a list of names is that?"

Wolfe grunted. "He made them up. He was considering an alias, for himself or someone else."

"We thought of that, naturally. If so, no one ever used it that we can find."

"Keep trying if you think it's worth it."

"Yeah. But we're only human. I just thought I'd show it to a genius and see what happened. With a genius you never know."

Wolfe shrugged. "I'm sorry. Nothing has happened."

"Well, by God, I hope you'll excuse me"-Cramer got up. He was sore, and you couldn't blame him-"for taking up your time and no fee. Don't bother, Goodwin."

He turned and marched out. Wolfe bent over his crossword puzzle, frowned at it, and picked up his pencil.

2

CRAMER'S crack about no fee had of course been deserved. Wolfe hated to start his brain going on what he called work, and during the years I had been on his payroll the occa-sions had been rare when anything but a substantial retainer had jarred him into it. But he is not a loafer. He can't be, since