As stubborn as Cramer was, he never did learn why Wolfe went to get a haircut that day. Eventually he stopped trying.
He learned plenty about Jimmie Kirk. Kirk was wanted as a bail-jumper, under another name, in Wheeling, West Virginia, on an old charge as a car stealer, with various fancy complications such as slugging a respected citizen who had surprised him in the act. Apparently he had gone straight in New York for a couple of years and had then resumed his former avocation. Unquestionably he had been fortified with liquids that Monday evening. Driving a stolen car while drunk is a risky operation, especially with a stolen magazine in your pocket.
As for Carl and Tina, I took a strong position on them Tuesday evening in the office after they had been sent up to the south room to bed.
“You know damn well what will happen,” I told Wolfe. “They won’t go to Ohio or anywhere else, they’ll stay here. Some day, maybe next week, maybe next year, they’ll be confronted and they’ll be in trouble. Being in trouble, they will come to me, because Carl likes me and because I rescued them this time—”
Wolfe snorted. “You did!”
“Yes, sir. I had already noticed that magazine there several times, and it just happened to catch your eye. Anyhow, I am secretly infatuated with Tina so I’ll try to help them and will get my finger caught, and you’ll have to butt in again because you can’t get along without me. It will go on like that year after year. Why not take care of it now and live in peace? There are people in Washington who owe you something, for instance Carpenter. Start him working on it. Do you want them hanging in the air on a thread over your head the rest of your life? I don’t. It will cost a measly buck for a phone call, and I can get that from the fifty they have earmarked for us. I have Carpenter’s home number, and I might as well get him right now.”
No comment.
I put my hand on the phone. “Person to person, huh?”
Wolfe grunted. “I got my naturalization papers twenty-four years ago.”
“I wasn’t discussing you. You’ve caught it from Janet,” I said coldly and lifted the phone and dialed.