The Doorbell Rang (The Rex Stout Library)

"She did, after she saw the three men leaving, but the door was locked and she had no key, and her knock or ring wasn't answered. Anyway, I am only answering your question does she lie. She does."

"Then we need the truth. Get it."

That was par. He does not believe that I can take a girl to the Flamingo and dance a couple of hours and end up with all her deepest secrets, but he pretends he does because he thinks it makes me try harder.

"I'll consider it," I said. "I'll sleep on it-on the couch. May I change the subject? Last night you asked me if I could contrive any maneuver that would help to make Wragg believe that one of his men killed Althaus, and I said I couldn't. But I have. They have an open tail on Sarah Dacos, so they know she was here, and almost certainly they know you are. Also they know she lives at Sixty-three Arbor Street, and they do not know what she saw or heard that night. Therefore they don't know what she might have told you here tonight, but they'll assume it was something about that night. That should help."

"Possibly. Satisfactory."

"Yeah. But. If we take a taxi, now, to Cramer's home and spend an hour with him, they will absolutely assume that we have got something hot regarding his unsolved homicide, and that we got it from Sarah Dacos. That would help."

He shook his head. "You gave Mr Cramer our word of honor."

"Only about his seeing me and telling me. We go to him because in trying to dig up something on the FBI we got interested in Morris Althaus because he was working on them, and he was murdered, and Sarah Dacos tells us something about the murder that we think Cramer should know. Our word of honor is good as gold."

"What time is it?"

I looked. "Three minutes to ten."

"Mr Cramer would be in bed, and we have nothing for him."

"The hell we haven't. We have someone who had some reason for thinking they were G-men and is saving it. That will be pie for Cramer."

"No. It's our pie. We'll give Mr Cramer Miss Dacos only when we have her ourselves, if at all." He pushed his chair back. "Get it out of her. Tomorrow. I'm tired. We're going home and to bed."

10

At 10:35 Saturday morning I used a key on the door of 63 Arbor Street, ascended two flights of wooden stairs, used another key, and entered the apartment that had been Morris Althaus's.