He flattened his palms on his desk and stared into space. That didn’t look promising. It didn’t mean he was using his mind; when he uses his mind he leans back and closes his eyes, and when he’s hard at it his lips go in and out. So he wasn’t working. He was merely getting set to swallow a pill that would taste bad even after it was down and dissolved. It took him a full three minutes.
Then he transferred his palms to the chair arms and spoke. “Very well. Your notebook. A letter to Mr. Jarrell, to be delivered at once by messenger. It might be best to take it yourself, to make sure he gets it without delay.”
He took a breath. “Dear Mr. Jarrell. I enclose herewith my check for ten thousand dollars, returning the retainer you paid me in that amount for which I gave you a receipt. My outlay for expenses has not been large and I shall not bill you.
“Paragraph. A circumstance has transpired which makes it necessary for me to report to the proper authority some of the information I have acquired while acting on your behalf, particularly the disappearance of your Bowdoin thirty-eight revolver. Not being at liberty to specify the circumstance, I will say only that it compels me to take this step in spite of my strong inclination against it. I shall take it later this afternoon, after you have received this letter and the enclosure.
“Paragraph. I assume, naturally, that in this situation you will no longer desire my services and that our association ceases forthwith. In the unlikely event that you-”
He stopped short and I raised my eyes from the notebook. His lips were clamped tight and a muscle at the side of his neck was twitching. He was having a fit.
“No,” he said. “I will not. Tear it up.”
I hadn’t cared much for it myself. I put the pen down, ripped two pages from the notebook, tore them across three times, and dropped them in the wastebasket.
“Get Mr. Cramer,” he said.
I cared for that even less. Apparently he had decided it was too ticklish to wait even a few hours and was going to let go even before notifying the client. Of course that wasn’t unethical, with two murders sizzling, but it was rather unindomitable. I would have liked to take a stand, but in the first place he was in no mood for one of my stands, and in the second place the only alternative was the letter to Jarrell and that had been torn up. So I got Cramer, who, judging from his tone, was in a mood too. He told Wolfe he could give him a minute.
