Over My Dead Body

"From old Ireland," I slipped in.

"Shut up. You know what I mean. I don't care if the background is wop or mick or kike or dago or yankee or square-head or dutch colonial, so long as it's American. Give me an American murder with an American motive and an American weapon, and I'll deal with it. But these damn alien trimmings, йpйes and culdymores and consuls calling up about their damn subjects-and moreover, why I was fool enough to expect anything here is beyond me. I should have had you tagged and hauled in and let you wait in a cold hall until sunrise."

He appeared to be preparing to leave his chair. Wolfe displayed a palm.

"Please, Mr Cramer. Good heavens, the corpse is barely cooled off. Would you mind telling me how Mr Faber made himself responsible for the fact that there's been no arrest? I think that was how you put it."

"I might and I might not. Do you know Faber?"

"I've said all those people are strangers to me. I tell only useful lies, and only those not easily exposed."

"Okay. I would have arrested your client-I'm pretty sure I would-if it hadn't been for Faber."

"Then I'm in debt to him."

"You sure are. Except for lack of motive, which might have been supplied and still may be, it looked like Miss Tormic. She admitted she was in there fencing with Ludlow. There was no evidence of anyone else having entered the room, though of course someone could have done so unobserved. Miss Tormic said that when she left the room Ludlow said he would stay and fool with the dummy a while. A dummy is a thing fastened to the wall with a mechanical arm that you can hook a sword on to. She said she went to the locker room and left her pad and glove and mask, and then-"

"What about her йpйe?"