Over My Dead Body

"I knew it the minute I learned Goodwin had been there and gone off to chase a cat. It had already begun to look like a first-class headache, and when I heard about Goodwin that clinched it. So you've got a client! And sure enough, by God, it has to be your client that was in that room fencing with him! It would be!" He rescued the cigar from his teeth with his left hand and hit the desk with his right fist, simultaneously. "Understand this, Wolfe! I came here in a mood of co-operation, in spite of Goodwin's tricky getaway! And what am I getting? Now you try to tell me that in the space of ten seconds, just like that, your man accepted a murder case for you! Nuts!" He hit the desk again. "I know what your abilities are-no one knows that better than I do! And like a fool I come here expecting a little disinterested discussion and you tell me you've got a client! Why have you always got to have a goddam client? Naturally from now on I can't believe a single solitary thing-"

My waving paw finally stopped his bellowing; the phone had rung and I couldn't hear. It was a request for him. With a grunt he got up and came to my desk for it, and I made way for him. For several minutes his part of it was mostly listening, and then apparently he was told something disagreeable, judging from the way he violated the law against the use of profanity on the telephone. He gave some instructions, banged the thing into its cradle, and said in a quiet but very sarcastic voice, "That's nice, now."

He went back to his chair and sat there a minute chewing his lip. "That's just fine," he said. "The case is as good as solved. I won't have to go to any bother about it."

"Indeed," Wolfe murmured.

"Yes indeed. Three Federals have blown in up there. Anybody might suppose that a murder in Manhattan is the business of the homicide squad of which I happen to be the head, but who am I compared with a G-man? If we throw them out on their tail, the commissioner will say tut-tut, we've got to co-operate. It has two pleasant aspects. First, it means an entirely new angle we haven't even suspected, and that's a cheerful idea. Second, whoever solves it and however and whenever, the G-men will grab the credit. They always do."

"Now, Inspector," I remonstrated. "A G-man is the representative of the American people, in fact it would hardly be going too far to say that a G-man is America-"

"Shut up. I wish you'd get an F.B.I. job yourself and they'd send you to Alaska. I can pull you in, you know."