Champange for One

Rex Stout

Champagne For One by Rex Stout
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17

Champagne For One by Rex Stout

Chapter 1

   If it hadn’t been raining and blowing that raw Tuesday morning in March I would have been out, walking to the bank to deposit a couple of cheques, when Austin Byne phoned me, and he might have tried somebody else. But more likely not. He would probably have rung again later, so I can’t blame all this on the weather. As it was, I was there in the office, oiling the typewriter and the two Marley .38’s, for which we had permits, from the same can of oil, when the phone rang and I lifted it and spoke.
   “Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking.”
   “Hello there. This is Byne. Dinky Byne.”
   There it is in print for you, but it wasn’t for me, and I didn’t get it. It sounded more like a dying bullfrog than a man.
   “Clear your throat,” I suggested, “or sneeze or something, and try again.”
   “That wouldn’t help. My tubes are all clogged. Tubes. Clogged. Understand? Dinky Byne—B-Y-N-E.”
   “Oh, hallo. I won’t ask how you are, hearing how you sound. My sympathy.”
   “I need it. I need more than sympathy, too.” It was coming through slightly better. “I need help. Will you do me a hell of a favour?”
   I made a face. “I might. If I can do it sitting down and it doesn’t cost me any teeth.”
   “It won’t cost you a thing. You know my Aunt Louise. Mrs Robert Robilotti.”
   “Only professionally. Mr Wolfe did a job for her once, recovered some jewellery. That is, she hired him and I did the job—and she didn’t like me. She resented a remark I made.”
   “That won’t matter. She forgets remarks. I suppose you know about the dinner party she gives every year on the birthday date of my Uncle Albert, now resting in peace perhaps?”
   “Sure. Who doesn’t?”
   “Well, that’s it. Today. Seven o’clock . And I’m to be one of the chevaliers, and listen to me, and I’ve got some fever. I can’t go. She’ll be sore as the devil if she has to scout around for a fill-in, and when I phone her I want to tell her she won’t have to, that I’ve already got one. Mr Archie Goodwin. You’re a better chevalier than me any day. She knows you, and she has forgotten the remark you made, and anyhow she has resented a hundred remarks I’ve made, and you’ll know exactly how to treat the lady guests. Black tie, seven o’clock , and you know the address. After I phone her, of course she’ll ring you to confirm it. And you can do it sitting down, and I’ll guarantee nothing will be served that will break your teeth. She has a good cook. My God, I didn’t think I could talk so long. How about it, Archie?”
   “I’m chewing on it,” I told him.” You waited long enough.”
   “Yeah, I know, but I kept thinking I might be able to make it, until I pried my eyes open this morning. I’ll do the same for you some day.”
   “You can’t. I haven’t got a billionaire aunt. I doubt if she has forgotten the remark I made because it was fairly sharp. What if she vetoes me? You’d have to ring me again to call it off, and then ring someone else, and you shouldn’t talk that much, and besides, my feelings would be hurt.”
   I was merely stalling, partly because I wanted to hear him talk some more. It sounded to me as if his croak had flaws in it. Clogged tubes have no effect on your eases, as in “seven” and “sitting”, but he was trying to produce one, and he turned “long” into “lawd” when it should have been more like “lawg”. So I was suspecting that the croak was a phoney. If I hadn’t had my full share of ego I might also have been curious as to why he had picked on me, since we were not chums, but of course that was no problem. If your ego is in good shape you will pretend you’re surprised if a National Chairman calls to tell you his party wants to nominate you for President of the United States , but you’re not really surprised.
   I only stalled him long enough to be satisfied that the croak was a fake before I agreed to take it on. The fact was that the idea appealed to me. It would be a new experience and should increase my knowledge of human nature. It might also be a little ticklish, and even dismal, but it would be interesting to see how they handled it. Not to mention how I would handle it myself. So I told him I would stand by for a call from his Aunt Louise.
   It came in less than half an hour. I had finished the oiling job and was putting the guns in their drawer in my desk when the phone rang. A voice I recognized said she was Mrs Robilotti’s secretary and Mrs Robilotti wished to speak with me, and I said, “Is it jewellery again, Miss Fromm?” and she said, “She will tell you what it is, Mr Goodwin.”
   Then another voice, also recognized. “Mr Goodwin?”
   “Speaking.”
   “My nephew Austin Byne says he phoned you.”
   “I guess he did.”
   “You guess he did?”
   “The voice said it was Byne, but it could have been a seal trying to bark.”
   “He has laryngitis. He told you so. Apparently you haven’t changed any. He says that he asked you to take his place at dinner at my home this evening, and you said you would if I invited you. Is that correct?”
   I admitted it.
   “He says that you are acquainted with the nature and significance of the affair.”
   “Of course I am. So are fifty million other people—or more.”
   “I know. I regret the publicity it has received in the past, but I refuse to abandon it. I owe it to my dear first husband’s memory. I am inviting you, Mr Goodwin.”
   “Okay. I accept the invitation as a favour to your nephew. Thank you.”
   “Very well.” A pause. “Of course it is not usual, on inviting a dinner guest, to caution him about his conduct, but for this occasion some care is required. You appreciate that?”
   “Certainly.”
   “Tact and discretion are necessary.”
   “I’ll bring mine along,” I assured her.
   “And of course refinement.”
   “I’ll borrow some.” I decided she needed a little comfort. “Don’t worry, Mrs Robilotti, I understand the set-up and you can count on me clear through to the coffee and even after. Relax. I am fully briefed. Tact, discretion, refinement, black tie, seven o’clock .”
   “Then I’ll expect you. Please hold the wire. My secretary will give you the names of those who will be present. It will simplify the introductions if you know them in advance.”
   Miss Fromm got on again. “Mr Goodwin?”
   “Still here.”
   “You should have paper and pencil.”
   “I always have. Shoot.”
   “Stop me if I go too fast. There will be twelve at table. Mr and Mrs Robilotti. Miss Celia Grantham and Mr Cecil Grantham. They are Mrs Robilotti’s son and daughter by her first husband.”
   “Yeah, I know.”
   “Miss Helen Yarmis. Miss Ethel Varr. Miss Faith Usher. Am I going too fast?”
   I told her no.
   “Miss Rose Turtle. Mr Paul Schuster. Mr Beverly Kent. Mr Edwin Laidlaw. Yourself. That makes twelve. Miss Varr will be on your right and Miss Turtle will be on your left.”
   I thanked her and hung up. Now that I was booked, I wasn’t so sure I liked it. It would be interesting, but it might also be a strain on the nerves. However, I was booked, and I rang Byne at the number he had given me and told him he could stay home and gargle. Then I went to Wolfe’s desk and wrote on his calendar Mrs Robilotti’s name and phone number. He wants to know where to reach me when I’m out, even when we have nothing important on, in case someone yells for help and will pay for it. Then I went to the hall, turned left, and pushed through the swinging door to the kitchen. Fritz was at the big table, spreading anchovy butter on shad roes.
   “Cross me off for dinner,” I told him.” I’m doing my good deed for the year and getting it over with.”
   He stopped spreading to look at me. “That’s too bad. Veal birds in casserole. You know, with mushrooms and white wine.”
   “I’ll miss it. But there may be something edible where I’m going.”
   “Perhaps a client?”
   He was not being nosy. Fritz Brenner does not pry into other people’s private affairs, not even mine. But he has a legitimate interest in the welfare of that establishment, of the people who live in that old brownstone on West Thirty-fifth Street , and he merely wanted to know if my dinner engagement was likely to promote it. It took a lot of cash. I had to be paid. He had to be paid. Theodore Horstmann, who spent all his days and sometimes part of his nights with the ten thousand orchids up in the plant rooms, had to be paid. We all had to be fed, and with the kind of grub that Wolfe preferred and provided and Fritz prepared. Not only did the orchids have to be fed, but only that week Wolfe had bought a Coelogyne from Burma for eight hundred bucks, and that was just routine. And so on and on and on, and the only source of current income was people with problems who were able and willing to pay a detective to handle them. Fritz knew we had no case going at the moment, and he was only asking if my dinner date might lead to one.
   I shook my head.” Nope, not a client.” I got on a stool.” A former client, Mrs Robert Robilotti—someone swiped a million dollars’ worth of rings and bracelets from her a couple of years ago and we got them back—and I need some advice. You may not be as great an expert on women as you are on food, but you have had your dealings, as I well know, and I would appreciate some suggestions on how I act this evening.”
   He snorted. “Act with women? You? Ha! With your thousand triumphs! Advice from me? Archie, that is upside down!”
   “Thanks for the plug, but these women are special.” With a fingertip I wiped up a speck of anchovy butter that had dropped on the table and licked it off. “Here’s the problem. This Mrs Robilotti’s first husband was Albert Grantham, who spent the last ten years of his life doing things with part of the three or four hundred million dollars he had inherited—things to improve the world, including the people in it. I assume you will admit that a girl who has a baby but no husband needs improving.”
   Fritz pursed his lips.” First I would have to see the girl and the baby. They might be charming.”
   “It’s not a question of charm, or at least it wasn’t with Grantham.
   His dealing with the problem of unmarried mothers wasn’t one of his really big operations, but he took a personal interest in it. He would rarely let his name be attached to any of his projects, but he did with that one. The place he built for it up in Dutchess County was called Grantham House and still is. What’s that you’re putting in?”
   “Marjoram. I’m trying it.”
   “Don’t tell himandsee ifhespotsit. When the improved mothers were graduated from Grantham House they were financed until they got jobs or husbands, and even then they were not forgotten. One way of keeping in touch was started by Grantham himself a few years before he died. Each year on his birthday he had his wife invite four of them to dinner at his home on Fifth Avenue , and also invite, for their dinner partners, four young men. Since his death, five years ago, his wife has kept it up. She says she owes it to his memory—though she is now married to a specimen named Robert Robilotti who has never been in the improving business. Today is Grantham’s birthday, and that’s where I’m going for dinner. I am one of the four young men.”
   “No!” Fritz said.
   “Why no?”
   “You, Archie?”
   “Why not me?”
   “It will ruin everything. They will all be back at Grantham House in less than a year.”
   “No,” I said sternly. “I appreciate the compliment, but this is a serious matter and I need advice. Consider: these girls are mothers, but they are improved mothers. They are supposed to be trying to get a toehold on life. Say they are. Inviting them to dinner at that goddam palace, with four young men from the circle that woman moves in as table partners, whom they have never seen before and don’t expect ever to see again, is one hell of a note. Okay, I can’t help that; I can’t improve Grantham, since he’s dead, and I would hate to undertake to improve Mrs Robilotti, dead or alive, but I have my personal problem: how do I act? I would welcome suggestions.”
   Fritz cocked his head.” Why do you go?”
   “Because a man I know asked me to. That’s another question, why he picked me, but skip it. I guess I agreed to go because I thought it would be fun to watch, but now I realize it may be pretty damn grim. However, I’m stuck, and what’s my programme? I can try to make it gay, or clown it, or get one of them talking about the baby, or get lit and the hell with it, or shall I stand up and make a speech about famous mothers like Venus and Mrs Shakespeare and that Roman woman who had twins?”
   “Not that. No.”
   “Then what?”
   “I don’t know. Anyway, you are just talking.”
   “All right, you talk a while.”
   He aimed a knife at me.” I know you so well, Archie. As well as you know me, maybe. This is just talk and I enjoy it. You need no suggestions. Programme?” He slashed at it with the knife. “Ha! You will go there and look at them and see, and act as you feel. You always do. If it is too painful you will leave. If one of the girls is enchanting and the men surround her, you will get her aside and tomorrow you will take her to lunch. If you are bored you will eat too much, no matter what the food is like. If you are offended—There’s the elevator!” He looked at the clock.” My God, it’s eleven! The larding!” He headed for the refrigerator.
   I didn’t jump. Wolfe likes to find me in the office when he comes down, and if I’m not there it stirs his blood a little, which is good for him, so I waited until the elevator door opened and his footsteps came down the hall and on in. I have never understood why he doesn’t make more noise walking. You would think that his feet, which are no bigger than mine, would make quite a business of getting along under his seventh of a ton, but they don’t. It might be someone half his weight. I gave him enough time to cross to his desk and get himself settled in his custom-built oversize chair, and then went. As I entered he grunted a good morning at me and I returned it. Our good mornings usually come then, since Fritz takes his breakfast to his room on a tray, and he spends the two hours from nine to eleven, every day including Sunday, up in the plant rooms with Theodore and the orchids.
   When I was at my desk I announced, “I didn’t deposit the cheques that came yesterday on account of the weather. It may let up before three.”
   He was glancing through the mail I had put on his desk. “Get Dr Vollmer,” he commanded.
   The idea of that was that if I let a little thing like a cold gusty March rain keep me from getting cheques to the bank I must be sick. So I coughed. Then I sneezed. “Nothing doing,” I said firmly. “He might put me to bed, and in all this bustle and hustle that wouldn’t do. It would be too much for you.”
   He shot me a glance, nodded to show that he was on but was dropping it, and reached for his desk calendar. That always came second, after the glance at the mail.
   “What is this phone number?” he demanded. “Mrs Robilotti? That woman?”
   “Yes, sir. The one who didn’t want to pay you twenty grand but did.”
   “What does she want now?”
   “Me. That’s where you can get me this evening from seven o’clock on.”
   “Mr Hewitt is coming this evening to bring a Dendrobium and look at the Renanthera. You said you would be here.”
   “I know, I expected to, but this is an emergency. She phoned me this morning.”
   “I didn’t know she was cultivating you, or you her.”
   “We’re not. I haven’t seen her or heard her since she paid that bill. This is special. You may remember that when she hired you and we were discussing her, I mentioned a piece about her I had read in a magazine, about the dinner party she throws every year on her first husband’s birthday. With four girls and four men as guests? The girls are unmarried mothers who are being rehabil—”
   “I remember, yes. Buffoonery. A burlesque of hospitality. Do you mean you are abetting it?”
   “I wouldn’t say abetting it. A man I know named Austin Byne phoned and asked me to fill in for him because he’s in bed with a cold and can’t go. Anyhow, it will give me a fresh outlook. It will harden my nerves. It will broaden my mind.”
   His eyes had narrowed. “Archie.”
   “Yes, sir.”
   “Do I ever intrude in your private affairs?”
   “Yes, sir. Frequently. But you think you don’t, so go right ahead.”
   “I am not intruding. If it is your whim to lend yourself to that outlandish performance, very well. I merely suggest that you demean yourself. Those creatures are summoned there for an obvious purpose. It is hoped that they, or at least one of them, will meet a man who will be moved to pursue the acquaintance and who will end by legitimating, if not the infant already in being, the future produce of the womb. Therefore your attendance there will be an imposture, and you know it. I begin to doubt if you will ever let a woman plant her foot on your neck, but if you do she will have qualities that would make it impossible for her to share the fate of those forlorn creatures. You will be perpetrating a fraud.”
   I was shaking my head. “No, sir. You’ve got it wrong. I let you finish just to hear it. If that were the purpose, giving the girls a chance to meet prospects, I would say hooray for Mrs Robilotti, and I wouldn’t go. But that’s the hell of it, that’s not it at all. The men are from her own social circle, the kind that wear black ties six. nights a week, and there’s not a chance. The idea is that it will buck the girls up, be good for their morale, to spend an evening with the cream and get a taste of caviar and sit on a chair made by Congreve. Of course—”
   “Congreve didn’t make chairs.”
   “I know he didn’t, but I needed a name and that one popped in. Of course that’s a lot of hooey, but I won’t be perpetrating a fraud. And don’t be too sure I won’t meet my doom. It’s a scientific fact that some girls are more beautiful, more spiritual, more fascinating, after they have had a baby. Also it would be an advantage to have the family already started.”
   “Pfui. Then you’re going.”
   “Yes, sir. I’ve told Fritz I won’t be here for dinner.” I left my chair. “I have to see to something. If you want to answer letters before lunch I’ll be down in a couple of minutes.”
   I had remembered that Saturday evening at the Flamingo someone had spilled something on die sleeve of my dinner jacket, and I had used cleaner on it when I got home, and hadn’t examined it since. Mounting the two flights to my room, I took a look and found it was okay.

Chapter 2

   I was well acquainted with the insides of the Grantham mansion, now inhabited by Robilottis, on Fifth Avenue in the Eighties, having been over every inch of it, including the servant’s quarters, at the time of the jewellery hunt; and, in the taxi on my way uptown, preparing my mind for the scene of action, I had supposed that the pre-dinner gathering would be on the second floor in what was called the music room. But no. For the mothers, the works.
   Hackett, admitting me, did fine. Formerly his manner with me as a hired detective had been absolutely perfect; now that I was an invited guest in uniform he made the switch without batting an eye. I suppose a man working up to butler could be taught all the ins and outs of handling the hat-and-coat problem with different grades of people, but it’s so darned tricky that probably it has to be born in him. The way he told me good evening, compared with the way he had formerly greeted me, was a lesson in fine points.
   I decided to upset him. When he had my hat and coat I inquired with my nose up,” How’s it go, Mr Hackett?”
   It didn’t faze him. That man had nerves of iron. He merely said, “Very well, thank you, Mr Goodwin, Mrs Robilotti is in the drawing-room.”
   “You win, Hackett. Congratulations.” I crossed the reception hall, which took ten paces, and passed through the arch.
   The drawing-room had a twenty-foot ceiling and could dance fifty couples easily, with an alcove for the orchestra as big as my bedroom. The three crystal chandeliers that had been installed by Albert Grantham’s mother were still there, and so were thirty-seven chairs—I had counted them one day—of all shapes and sizes, not made by Congreve, I admit, but not made in Grand Rapids either. Of all the rooms I had seen, and I had seen a lot, that was about the last one I would pick as the place for a quartet of unwed mothers to meet a bunch of strangers and relax. Entering and casting a glance around, I took a walk—it amounted to that—across to where Mrs Robilotti was standing with a group near a portable bar. As I approached she turned to me and offered a hand.
   “Mr Goodwin. So nice to see you.”
   She didn’t handle the switch as perfectly as Hackett had, but it was good enough. After all, I had been imposed on her. Her pale grey eyes, which were set in so far that her brows had sharp angles, didn’t light up with welcome, but it was a question whether they ever had lit up for anyone or anything. The angles were not confined to the brows. Whoever had designed her had preferred angles to curves and missed no opportunities, and the passing years, now adding up to close to sixty, had made no alterations. At least they were covered below the chin, since her dress, pale grey like her eyes, had sleeves above the elbows and reached up to the base of her corrugated neck. During the jewellery business I had twice seen her exposed for the evening, and it had been no treat. The only jewellery tonight was a string of pearls and a couple of rings.
   I was introduced around and was served a champagne cocktail. The first sip of the cocktail told me something was wrong, and I worked closer to the bar to find out what. Cecil Grantham, the son of the first husband, who was mixing, was committing worse than murder. I saw him. Holding a glass behind and below the bar top, he put in a half-lump of sugar, a drop or two of bitters, and a twist of lemon peel, filled it half full of soda water, set it on the bar, and filled it nearly to the top from a bottle of Cordon Rouge. Killing good champagne with junk like sugar and bitters and lemon peel is of course a common crime, but the soda water was adding horror to homicide. The motive was pure, reducing the voltage to protect the guests of honour, but faced with temptation and given my choice of self-control or soda water in champagne, I set my jaw. I was going to keep an eye on Cecil to see if he did to himself as he was doing to others, but another guest arrived and I had to go to be introduced. He made up the dozen.
   By the time our hostess led the way through the arch and up the broad marble stairs to the dining-room on the floor above, I had them sorted out, with names fitted to faces. Of course I had previously met Robilotti and the twins, Cecil and Celia. Paul Schuster was the one with the thin nose and quick dark eyes. Beverly Kent was the one with the long narrow face and big ears. Edwin Laidlaw was the little guy who hadn’t combed his hair, or if he had, it refused to oblige.
   I had had a sort of an idea that with the girls the best way would be as an older brother who liked sisters and liked to kid them, of course with tact and refinement, and their reactions had been fairly satisfactory. Helen Yarmis, tall and slender, a little too slender, with big brown eyes and a wide curved mouth that would have been a real asset if she had kept the corners up, was on her dignity and apparently had some. Ethel Varr was the one I would have picked for my doom if I had been shopping. She was not a head-turner, but she carried her own head with an air, and she had one of those faces that you keep looking back at because it changes as it moves and catches different angles of light and shade.
   I would have picked Faith Usher, not for my doom, but for my sister, because she looked as if she needed a brother more than the others. Actually she was the prettiest one of the bunch, with a dainty little face and greenish flecks in her eyes, and her figure, also dainty, was a very nice job, but she was doing her best to cancel her advantages by letting her shoulders sag and keeping her face muscles so tight she would soon have wrinkles. The right kind of brother could have done wonders with her, but I had no chance to get started during the meal because she was across the table from me, with Beverly Kent on her left and Cecil Grantham on her right.
   At my left was Rose Tuttle, who showed no signs of needing a brother at all. She had blue eyes in a round face, a pony tail, and enough curves to make a contribution to Mrs Robilotti and still be well supplied; and she had been born cheerful and it would take more than an accidental baby to smother it. In fact, as I soon learned, it would take more than two of them. With an oyster balanced on her fork, she turned her face to me and asked, “Goodwin? That’s your name?”
   “Right. Archie Goodwin.”
   “I was wondering,” she said, “because that woman told me I would sit between Mr Edwin Laidlaw and Mr Austin Byne, but now your name’s Goodwin. The other day I was telling a friend of mine about coming here, this party, and she said there ought to be unmarried fathers here too, and you seem to have changed your name—are you an unmarried father?”
   Remember the tact, I warned myself. “I’m half of it,” I told her. “I’m unmarried. But not, as far as I know, a father. Mr Byne has a cold and couldn’t come and asked me to fill in for him. His bad luck and my good luck.”
   She ate the oyster, and another one—she ate cheerfully too—and turned again. “I was telling this friend of mine that if all society men are like the ones that were here the other time, we weren’t missing anything, but I guess they’re not. Anyway, you’re not. I noticed the way you made Helen laugh—Helen Yarmis. I don’t think I ever did see her laugh before. I’m going to tell my friend about you if you don’t mind.”
   “Not at all.” Time out for an oyster. “But I don’t want to mix you up. I’m not society. I’m a working man.”
   “Oh!” She nodded. “That explains it. What kind of work?”
   Remember the discretion, I warned myself. Miss Tuttle should not be led to suspect that Mrs Robilotti had got a detective there to keep an eye on the guests of honour. “You might,” I said, “call it trouble-shooting. I work for a man named Nero Wolfe. You may have heard of him.”
   “I think I have.” The oysters gone, she put her fork down.” I’m pretty sure… Oh, I remember, that murder, that woman, Susan somebody. He’s a detective.”
   “That’s right. I work for him. But I—”
   “You too. You’re a detective!”
   “I am when I’m working, but not this evening. Now I’m playing. I’m just enjoying myself—and I am, too. I was wondering what you meant—”
   Hackett and two female assistants were removing the oyster service, but it wasn’t that that stopped me. The interruption was from Robert Robilotti, across the table, between Celia Grantham and Helen Yarmis, who was demanding the general ear; and as other voices gave way, Mrs Robilotti raised hers. “Must you, Robbie? That flea again?”
   He smiled at her. From what I had seen of him during the jewellery hunt I had not cottoned to him, smiling or not. I’ll try to be fair to him, and I know there is no law against a man having plucked eyebrows and a thin moustache and long polished nails, and my suspicion that he wore a girdle was merely a suspicion, and if he had married Mrs Albert Grantham for her money I freely admit that no man marries without a reason and with her it would have been next to impossible to think up another one, and I concede that he may have had hidden virtues which I had missed. One thing sure, if my name were Robert and I had married a woman fifteen years older than me for a certain reason and she was composed entirely of angles, I would not let her call me Robbie.
   I’ll say this for him: he didn’t let her gag him. What he wanted all ears for was the story about the advertising agency executive who did a research job on the flea, and by gum he stuck to it. I had heard it told better by Saul Panzer, but he got the point in, with only fair audience response. The three society men laughed with tact, discretion, and refinement. Helen Yarmis let the corners of her mouth come up. The Grantham twins exchanged a glance of sympathy. Faith Usher caught Ethel Varr’s eye across the table, shook her head, just barely moving it, and dropped her eyes. Then Edwin Laidlaw chipped in with a story about an author who wrote a book in invisible ink, and Beverly Kent followed with one about an army general who forgot which side he was on. We were all one big happy family—well, fairly happy—by the time the squabs were served. Then I had a problem. At Wolfe’s table we tackle squabs with our ringers, which is of course the only practical way, but I didn’t want to wreck the party. Then Rose Tuttle got her fork on to hers with one hand, and with the other grabbed a leg and yanked, which settled it.
   Miss Tuttle had said something that I wanted to go into, tactfully, but she was talking with Edwin Laidlaw, on her left, and I gave Ethel Varr, on my right, a look. Her face was by no means out of surprises. In profile, close up, it was again different, and when it turned and we were eye to eye, once more it was new.
   “I hope,” I said,” you won’t mind a personal remark.”
   “I’ll try not to,” she said.” I can’t promise until I hear it.”
   “I’ll take a chance. In case you have caught me staring at you I want to explain why.”
   “I don’t know.” She was smiling.” Maybe you’d better not. Maybe it would let me down. Maybe I’d rather think you stared just because you wanted to.”
   “You can think that too. If I hadn’t wanted to I wouldn’t have stared. But the idea is, I was trying to catch you looking the same twice. If you turn your head only a little one way or the other it’s a different face. I know there are people with faces that do that, but I’ve never seen one that changes as much as yours. Hasn’t anyone ever mentioned it to you?”
   She parted her lips, closed them, and turned right away from me. All I could do was turn back to my plate, and I did so, but in a moment she was facing me again. “You know,” she said, “I’m only nineteen years old.”
   “I was nineteen once,” I assured her.” Some ways I liked it, and some ways it was terrible.”
   “Yes, it is,” she agreed.” I haven’t learned how to take things yet, but I suppose I will. I was silly—just because you said that. I should have just told you yes, someone did mention that to me once. About my face. More than once.”
   So I had put my foot in it. How the hell are you going to be tactful when you don’t know what is out of bounds and what isn’t? Merely having a face that changes isn’t going to get a girl a baby. I flopped around. “Well,” I said,” I know it was a personal remark, and I only wanted to explain why I had stared at you. I wouldn’t have brought it up if I had known there was anything touchy about it. I think you ought to get even. I’m touchy about horses because once I caught my foot in the stirrup when I was getting off, so you might try that. Ask me something about horses and my face will change.”
   “I suppose you ride in Central Park . Was it in the park?”
   “No, it was out West one summer. Go ahead. You’re getting warm.”
   We stayed on horses until Paul Schuster, on her right, horned in. I couldn’t blame him, since he had Mrs Robilotti on his other side. But Edwin Laidlaw still had Rose Tuttle, and it wasn’t until the dessert came, cherry pudding topped with whipped cream, that I had a chance to ask her about the remark she had made.
   “Something you said,” I told her. “Maybe I didn’t hear it right.”
   She swallowed pudding. “Maybe I didn’t say it right. I often don’t.” She leaned to me and lowered her voice. “Is this Mr Laidlaw a friend of yours?”
   I shook my head.” Never saw him before.”
   “You haven’t missed anything. He publishes books. To look at me, would you think I was dying to know how many books were published last year in America and England and a lot of other countries?”
   “No, I wouldn’t. I would think you could make out all right without it.”
   “I always have. What was it I said wrong?”
   “I didn’t say you said it wrong. I understood you to say something about the society men that were here the other time, and I wasn’t sure I got it. I didn’t know whether you meant another party like this one.”
   She nodded. “Yes, that’s what I meant. Three years ago. She throws one every year, you know.”
   “Yes, I know.”
   “This is my second one. This friend of mine I mentioned, she says the only reason I had another baby was to get invited here for some more champagne, but believe me, if I liked champagne so much I could get it a lot quicker and oftener than that, and anyway, I didn’t have the faintest idea I would be invited again. How old do you think I am?”
   I studied her. “Oh—twenty-one.”
   She was pleased.” Of course you took off five years to be polite, so you guessed it exactly. I’m twenty-six. So it isn’t true that having babies makes a girl look older. Of course, if you had a lot of them, eight or ten, but by that time you would be older. I just don’t believe I would look younger if I hadn’t had two babies. Do you?”
   I was on a spot. I had accepted the invitation with my eyes and ears open. I had told my hostess that I was acquainted with the nature and significance of the affair and she could count on me. I had on my shoulders the responsibility of the moral and social position of the community, some of it anyhow, and here this cheerful unmarried mother was resting the whole problem on the single question, had it aged her any? If I merely said no, it hadn’t, which would have been both true and tactful, it would imply that I agreed that the one objection to her career was a phoney. To say no and then proceed to list other objections that were not phonies would have been fine if I had been ordained, but I hadn’t, and anyway she had certainly heard of them and hadn’t been impressed. I worked it out in three seconds, on the basis that while it was none of my business if she kept on having babies, I absolutely wasn’t going to encourage her. So I lied to her.
   “Yes,” I said.
   “What?” She was indignant. “You do?”
   I was firm. “I do. You admitted that I took you for twenty-six and deducted five years to be polite. If you had had only one baby I might have taken you for twenty-three, and if you had had none I might have taken you for twenty. I can’t prove it, but I might. We’d better get on with the pudding. Some of them have finished.”
   She turned to it, cheerfully.
   Apparently the guests of honour had been briefed on procedure, for when Hackett, on signal, pulled back Mrs Robilotti’s chair as she arose, and we chevaliers did likewise for our partners, they joined the hostess as she headed for the door. When they were out we sat down again.
   Cecil Grantham blew a breath, a noisy gust, and said, “The last two hours are the hardest.”
   Robilotti said, “Brandy, Hackett.”
   Hackett stopped pouring coffee to look at him. “The cabinet is locked, sir.”
   “I know it is, but you have a key.”
   “No, sir, Mrs Robilotti has it.”
   It seemed to me that that called for an embarrassed silence, but Cecil Grantham laughed and said, “Get a hatchet.”
   Hackett poured coffee.
   Beverly Kent, the one with a long narrow face and big ears, cleared his throat. “A little deprivation will be good for us, Mr Robilotti. After all, we understood the protocol when we accepted the invitation.”
   “Not protocol,” Paul Schuster objected. “That’s not what protocol means. I’m surprised at you, Bev. You’ll never be an ambassador if you don’t know what protocol is.”
   “I never will anyway,” Kent declared.” I’m thirty years old, eight years out of college, and what am I? An errand boy in the Mission to the United Nations. So I’m a diplomat? But I ought to know what protocol is better than a promising young corporation lawyer. What do you know about it?”
   “Not much.” Schuster was sipping coffee. “Not much about it, but I know what it is, and you used it wrong. And you’re wrong about me being a promising young corporation lawyer. Lawyers never promise anything. That’s about as far as I’ve got, but I’m a year younger than you, so there’s hope.”
   “Hope for who?” Cecil Grantham demanded. “You or the corporations?”
   “About that word ‘protocol’,” Edwin Laidlaw said, “I can settle that for you. Now that I’m a publisher I’m the last word on words. It comes from two Greek words, prхtos , meaning ‘first’, and kolla , meaning ‘glue’. Now why glue? Because in ancient Greece a prхtokollon was the first leaf, containing an account of the manuscript, glued to a roll of papyrus. Today a protocol may be any one of various kinds of documents—an original draft of something, or an account of some proceeding, or a record of an agreement. That seems to support you, Paul, but Bev has a point, because a protocol can also be a set of rules of etiquette. So you’re both right. This affair this evening does require a special etiquette.”
   “I’m for Paul,” Cecil Grantham declared.” Locking up the booze doesn’t come under etiquette. It comes under tyranny.”
   Kent turned to me. “What about you, Goodwin? I understand you’re a detective, so maybe you can detect the answer.”
   I put my coffee cup down. “I’m a little hazy,” I said, “as to what you’re after. If you just want to decide whether you used the word ‘protocol’ right, the best plan would be to get the dictionary. There’s one upstairs in the library. But if what you want is brandy, and the cabinet is locked, the best plan would be for one of us to go to a liquor store. There’s one at the corner of Eighty-second and Madison. We could toss up.”
   “The practical man,” Laidlaw said. “The man of action.”
   “You notice,” Cecil told them, “that he knows where the dictionary is and where the liquor store is. Detectives know everything.” He turned to me.” By the way, speaking of detectives, are you here professionally?”
   Not caring much for his tone, I raised my brows. “If I were, what would I say?”
   “Why—I suppose you’d say you weren’t.”
   “And if I weren’t what would I say?”
   Robert Robilotti let out a snort. “Touchй , Cece. Try another one.” He pronounced it “Seese”. Cecil’s mother called him “Sessel”, and his sister called him “Sesse”.
   Cecil ignored his father-in-law. “I was just asking,” he told me. “I shouldn’t ask?”
   “Sure, why not? I was just answering.” I moved my head right and left.” Since the question has been asked, it may be in all your minds. If I were here professionally I would let it stand on my answer to Grantham, but since I’m not, you might as well know it. Austin Byne phoned this morning and asked me to take his place. If any of you are bothered enough you can check with him.”
   “I think,” Robilotti said, “that it is none of our business. I know it is none of my business.”
   “Nor mine,” Schuster agreed.
   “Oh, forget it,” Cecil snapped. “What the hell, I was just curious. Shall we join the mothers?”
   Robilotti darted a glance at him, not friendly. After all, who was the host? “I was about to ask,” he said, “if anyone wants more coffee. No?” He left his chair. “We will join them in the music room and escort them downstairs and it is understood that each of us will dance first with his dinner partner. If you please, gentlemen?”
   I got up and shook my pants legs down.

Chapter 3

   I’ll be darned if there wasn’t a live band in the alcove—piano, sax, two violins, clarinet, and traps. A record player and speaker might have been expected, but for the mothers, spare no expense. Of course, in the matter of expense, the fee for the band was about balanced by the saving on liquids—the soda water in the cocktails, the pink stuff passing for wine at the dinner table, and the brandy ban—so it wasn’t too extravagant. The one all-out splurge on liquids came after we had been dancing an hour or so, when Hackett appeared at the bar and began opening champagne, Cordon Rouge, and poured it straight, no dilution or adulteration. With only an hour to go, apparently Mrs Robilotti had decided to take a calculated risk.
   As a dancing partner Rose Tuttle was not a bargain. She was equipped for it physically and she had some idea of rhythm, that wasn’t it; it was her basic attitude. She danced cheerfully, and of course that was no good. You can’t dance cheerfully. Dancing is too important. It can be wild or solemn or gay or lewd or art for art’s sake, but it can’t be cheerful. For one thing, if you’re cheerful you talk too much. Helen Yarmis was better, or would have been if she hadn’t been too damn solemn. We would work into the rhythm together and get going fine, when all of a sudden she would stiffen up and was just a dummy making motions. She was a good size for me, too, with the top of her head level with my nose, and the closer you get to her wide, curved mouth the better you liked it—when the corners were up.
   Robilotti took her for the next one, and a look around showed me that all the guests of honour were taken, and Celia Grantham was heading for me. I stayed put and let her come, and she stopped at arm’s length and tilted her head back.
   “Well?” she said.
   The tact, I figured, was for the mothers, and there was no point in wasting it on the daughter. So I said,” But is it any better?”
   “No,” she said, “and it never will be. But how are you going to avoid dancing with me?”
   “Easy. Say my feet hurt, and take my shoes off.”
   She nodded.” You would, wouldn’t you?”
   “I could.”
   “You really would. Just let me suffer. Will I never be in your arms again? Must I carry my heartache to the grave?”
   But I am probably giving a false impression, though I am reporting accurately. I had seen the girl—I say “girl” in spite of the fact that she was perhaps a couple of years older than Rose Tuttle, who was twice a mother—I had seen her just four times. Three of them had been in that house during the jewellery hunt, and on the third occasion, when I had been alone with her briefly, the conversation had somehow resulted in our making a date to dine and dance at the Flamingo, and we had kept it. It had not turned out well. She was a good dancer, very good, but she was also a good drinker, and along towards midnight she had raised an issue with another lady, and had developed it to a point where we got tossed out. In the next few months she had phoned me off and on, say twenty times, to suggest a rerun, and I had been too busy. For me the Flamingo has the best band in town and I didn’t want to get the cold stare for good. As for her persisting, I would like to think that, once she had tasted me, no other flavour would do, but I’m afraid she was just too pigheaded to drop it. I had supposed that she had long since forgotten all about it but here she was again.
   “It’s not your heart,” I said. “It’s your head. You’re too loyal to yourself. We’re having a clash of wills, that’s all. Besides, I have a hunch that if I took you in my arms and started off with you, after one or two turns you would break loose and take a swing at me and make remarks, and that would spoil the party. I see the look in your eye.”
   “The look in my eye is passion. If you don’t know passion when you see it you ought to get around more. Have you got a Bible?”
   “No, I forgot to bring it. There’s one in the library.” From my inside breast pocket I produced my notebook, which is always with me. “Will this do?”
   “Fine. Hold it flat.” I did so and she put her palm on it.” I swear on my honour that if you dance with me I will be your kitten for better or for worse and will do nothing that will make you wish you hadn’t.”
   Anyway, Mrs Robilotti, who was dancing with Paul Schuster, was looking at us. Returning the notebook to my pocket, I closed with her daughter, and in three minutes had decided that every allowance should be made for a girl who could dance like that.
   The band had stopped for breath, and I had taken Celia to a chair, and was considering whether it would be tactful to have another round with her, when Rose Tuttle approached, unaccompanied, and was at my elbow. Celia spoke to her, woman to woman.
   “If you’re after Mr Goodwin I don’t blame you. He’s the only one here that can dance.”
   “I’m not after him to dance,” Rose said. “Anyway I wouldn’t have the nerve because I’m no good at it. I just want to tell him something.”
   “Go ahead”, I told her.
   “It’s private.”
   Celia laughed. “That’s the way to do it.” She stood up. “That would have taken me at least a hundred words, and you do it in two.” She moved off towards the bar, where Hackett had appeared and was opening champagne.
   “Sit down,” I told Rose.
   “Oh, it won’t take long.” She stood. “It’s just something I thought you ought to know because you’re a detective. I know Mrs Robilotti wouldn’t want any trouble, and I was going to tell her, but I thought it might be better to tell you.”
   “I’m not here as a detective, Miss Tuttle. As I told you. I’m just here to enjoy myself.”
   “I know that; but you are a detective, and you can tell Mrs Robilotti if you think you ought to. I don’t want to tell her because I know how she is, but if something awful happened and I hadn’t told anybody I would think maybe I was to blame.”
   “Why should something awful happen?”
   She had a hand on my arm.” I don’t say it should, but it might. Faith Usher still carries that poison around, and she has it with her. It’s in her bag. But of course you don’t know about it.”
   “No, I don’t. What poison?”
   “Her private poison. She told us girls at Grantham House it was cyanide, and she showed it to some of us, in a little bottle. She always had it, in a little pocket she made in her skirt, and she made pockets in her dresses. She said she hadn’t made up her mind to kill herself, but she might, and if she did she wanted to have that poison. Some of the girls thought she was just putting on, and one or two of them used to kid her, but I never did. I thought she might really do it, and if she did and I had kidded her I would be to blame. Now she’s away from there and she’s got a job, and I thought maybe she had got over it, but upstairs a while ago Helen Yarmis was with her in the powder room, and Helen saw the bottle in her bag and asked her if the poison was still in it, and she said yes.”
   She stopped. “And?” I asked.
   “And what?” she asked.
   “Is that all?”
   “I think it’s enough. If you knew Faith like I do. Here in this grand house, and the butler, and the men dressed up, and that powder room, and the champagne—this is where she might do it if she ever does.” All of a sudden she was cheerful again.” So would I,” she declared. “I would drop the poison in my champagne and get up on a chair with it and hold it high, and call out ‘Here goes to all our woes’—that’s what one of the girls used to say when she drank a Coke—and drink it down, and throw the glass away and get off the chair, and start to sink down to the floor, and the men would rush to catch me—how long would it take me to die?”
   “A couple of minutes, or even less if you put enough in.” Her hand was still on my arm and I patted it. “Okay, you’ve told me. I’d forget it if I were you. Did you ever see the bottle?”
   “Yes, she showed it to me.”
   “Did you smell the stuff in it?”
   “No, she didn’t open it. It had a screw top.”
   “Was it glass? Could you see the stuff?”
   “No, I think it was some kind of plastic.”
   “You say Helen Yarmis saw it in her bag. What kind of a bag?”
   “Black leather.” She turned for a look around. “It’s there on a chair. I don’t want to point—”
   “You’ve already pointed with your eyes. I see it. Just forget it. I’ll see that nothing awful happens. Will you dance?”
   She would, and we joined the merry whirl, and when the band paused we went to the bar for champagne. Next I took Faith Usher.
   Since Faith Usher had been making her play for a year or more, and the stuff in the plastic bottle might be aspirin or salted peanuts, and even if it were cyanide I didn’t agree with Rose Tuttle’s notion of the ideal spot for suicide, the chance of anything happening was about one in ten million, but even so, I had had a responsibility wished on me, and I kept an eye both on the bag and on Faith Usher. That was simple when I was dancing with her, since I could forget the bag.
   As I said, I would have picked her for my sister because she looked as if she needed a brother, but her being the prettiest one of the bunch may have been a factor. She had perked up some too, with her face muscles relaxed, and, in spite of the fact that she got off the beat now and then, it was a pleasure to dance with her. Also now and then, when she liked something I did, there would be a flash in her eyes with the greenish flecks, and when we finished I wasn’t so sure that it was a brother she needed. Maybe cousin would be better.
   However, it appeared that she had ideas of her own, if not about brothers and cousins, at least about dancing partners. We were standing at a window when Edwin Laidlaw, the publisher, came up and bowed to her and spoke.
   “Will you dance with me, Miss Usher?”
   “No”, she said.
   “I would be honoured.”
   “No.”
   Naturally I wondered why. He had only a couple of inches on her in height, and perhaps she liked them taller—me, for instance. Or perhaps it was because he hadn’t combed his hair, or if he had it didn’t look it. If it was more personal, if he had said something that offended her, it hadn’t been at the table, since they hadn’t been close enough, but of course it could have been before or after. Laidlaw turned and went, and as the band opened up I was opening my mouth to suggest that we try an encore, when Cecil Grantham came and got her. He was about my height and every hair on his head was in place, so that could have been it. I went and got Ethel Varr and said nothing whatever about her face changing. As we danced I tried not to keep twisting my head around, but I had to maintain surveillance on Faith Usher and her bag, which was still on the chair.
   When something awful did happen I hadn’t the slightest idea that it was coming. I like to think that I can count on myself for hunches, and often I can, but not that time, and what makes it worse is that I was keeping an eye on Faith Usher as I stood talking with Ethel Varr. If she was about to die, and if I am any damn good at hunches, I might at least have felt myself breathing a little faster, but not even that. I saw her escorted to a chair by Cecil Grantham, fifteen feet away from the chair the bag was on, and saw her sit, and saw him go and return in a couple of minutes with champagne and hand her hers, and saw him raise his glass and say something. I had been keeping her in the corner of my eye, not to be rude to Ethel Varr, but at that point I had both eyes straight at Faith Usher. Not that I am claiming a hunch; it was simply that Rose Tuttle’s idea of poison in champagne was fresh in my mind and I was reacting to it. So I had both eyes on Faith Usher when she took a gulp and went stiff, and shook all over, and jerked halfway to her feet, and made a noise that was part scream and part moan, and went down. Going down, she teetered on the edge of the chair for a second and then would have been on the floor if Cecil hadn’t grabbed her.
   When I got there he was trying to hold her up. I said to let her down, took her shoulders, and called out to get a doctor. As I eased her to the floor she went into convulsion, her head jerking and her legs thrashing, and when Cecil tried to catch her ankles I told him that was no good and asked if someone was getting a doctor, and someone behind me said yes. I was on my knees, trying to keep her from banging her head on the floor, but managed a glance up and around, and saw that Robilotti and Kent and the band leader were keeping the crowd back. Pretty soon the convulsions eased up, and then stopped. She had been breathing fast in heavy gasps, and when they slowed down and weakened, and I felt her neck getting stiff, I knew the paralysis was starting, and no doctor would make it in time to help.
   Cecil was yapping at me, and there were other voices, and I lifted my head to snap, “Will everybody please shut up? There’s nothing I can do or anyone else.” I saw Rose Turtle. “Rose, go and guard that bag. Don’t touch it. Stick there and don’t take your eyes off it.” Rose moved.
   Mrs Robilotti took a step towards me and spoke. “You are in my house, Mr Goodwin. These people are my guests. What’s the matter with her?”
   Having smelled the breath of her gasps, I could have been specific, but that could wait until she was dead, not long, so I skipped it and asked,” Who’s getting a doctor?”
   “Celia’s phoning”, someone said.
   Staying on my knees, I turned back to her. A glance at my wristwatch showed me five past eleven . She had been on the floor six minutes. There was foam on her mouth, her eyes were glassy, and her neck was rigid. I stayed put for two minutes, looking at her, ignoring the audience participation, then reached for her hand and pressed hard on the nail of the middle finger. When I removed my fingers the nail stayed white; in thirty seconds there was no sign of returning pink.
   I stood up and addressed Robilotti. “Do I phone the police or do you?”
   “The police?” He had trouble getting it out.
   “Yes. She’s dead. I’d rather stick here, but you must phone at once.”
   “No,” Mrs Robilotti said. “We have sent for a doctor. I give the orders here. I’ll phone the police myself when I decide it is necessary.”
   I was sore. Of course that was bad; it’s always a mistake to get sore in a tough situation, especially at yourself; but I couldn’t help it. Not more than half an hour ago I had told Rose to leave it to me, I would see that nothing awful happened, and look. I glanced around. Not a single face, male or female, looked promising. The husband and the son, the two guests of honour, the butler, the three chevaliers—none of them was going to walk over Mrs Robilotti. Celia wasn’t there. Rose was guarding the bag. Then I saw the band leader, a guy with broad shoulders and a square jaw, standing at the entrance to the alcove with his back to it, surveying the tableau calmly, and called to him.
   “My name’s Goodwin. What’s yours?”
   “Johnson.”
   “Do you want to stay here all night, Mr Johnson?”
   “No.”
   “Neither do I. I think this woman was murdered, and if the police do too you know what that means, so the sooner they get here the better. I’m a licensed private detective and I ought to stay with the body. There’s a phone on a stand in the reception hall. The number is Spring seven-three-one-hundred.”
   “Right.” He headed for the arch. When Mrs Robilotti commanded him to halt and moved to head him off he just side-stepped her and went on, not bothering to argue, and she called to her men, “Robbie! Cecil! Stop him!”
   When they failed to react she wheeled to me. "Leave my house!”
   “I would love to,” I told her.” If I did, the cops would soon bring me back. Nobody is going to leave your house for a while.”
   Robilotti was there, taking her arm. “It’s no use, Louise. It’s horrible, but it’s no use. Come and sit down.” He looked at me. “Why do you think she was murdered? Why do you say that?”
   Paul Schuster, the promising young lawyer, spoke up. “I was going to ask that, Goodwin. She had a bottle of poison in her bag.”
   “How do you know she did?”
   “One of the guests told me. Miss Varr.”
   “One of them told me too. That’s why I asked Miss Turtle to guard the bag. I still think she was murdered, but I’ll save my reason for the police. You people might—”
   Celia Grantham came running in, calling, “How is she?” and came on, stopping beside me, looking down at Faith Usher. “My God,” she said, whispered, and seized my arm and demanded, “Why don’t you do something?” She looked down again, her mouth hanging open, and I put my hands on her shoulders and turned her around. “Thanks,” she said. “My God, she was so pretty. Is she dead?”
   “Yes. Did you get a doctor?”
   “Yes, he’s coming. I couldn’t get ours. I got—What good is a doctor if she’s dead?”
   “Nobody is dead until a doctor says so. It’s a law.” Some of the others were jabbering, and I turned and raised my voice. “You
   people might as well rest your legs and there are plenty of chairs, but stay away from the one the bag is on. If you want to leave the room I can’t stop you, but I advise you not to. The police might misunderstand it, and you’d only have more questions to answer.” A buzzer sounded and Hackett was going, but I stopped him. “No, Hackett, you’d better stay, you’re one of us now. Mr Johnson will let them in.”
   He was doing so. There was no sound of the door opening because doors on mansions do not make noises3 but there were voices in the reception hall, and everybody turned to face the arch. In they came, a pair, two precinct men in uniform. They marched in and stopped, and one of them asked,” Mr Robert Robilotti?”
   “I’m Robert Robilotti,” he said.
   “This your house? We got—”
   “No,” Mrs Robilotti said.” It’s my house.”

Chapter 4

   When I mounted the seven steps of the stoop of the old brownstone at twelve minutes after seven Wednesday morning and let myself in, I was so pooped that I was going to drop my topcoat and hat on the hall bench, but breeding told, and I put the coat on a hanger and the hat on a shelf and went to the kitchen.
   Fritz, at the refrigerator, turned and actually left the refrigerator door open to stare at me.
   “Behold!” he said. He had told me once that he had got that out of his French-English dictionary, many years ago, as a translation
   of voila.
   “I want,” I said, “a quart of orange juice, a pound of sausage, six eggs, twenty griddle cakes, and a gallon of coffee.”
   “No doughnuts with honey?”
   “Yes. I forgot to mention them.” I dropped on to the chair I occupy at breakfast, groaning.” Speaking of honey, if you want to make a friend who will never fail you, you might employ the eggs in a hedgehog omelet, with plenty– No. It would take too long. Just fry ‘em.”
   “I never fry eggs.” He was stirring a bowl of batter. “You have had a night?”
   “I have. A murder with all the trimmings.”
   “Ah! Terrible! A client, then?”
   I do not pretend to understand Fritz’s attitude towards murder. He deplores it. To him the idea of one human being killing another io insupportable; he has told me so, and he meant it. But he never has the slightest interest in the details, not even who the victim was, or the murderer, and if I try to tell him about any of the fine points it just bores him. Beyond the bare fact that again a human being has done something insupportable, the only question he wants answered is whether we have a client.
   “No client,” I told him.
   “There may be one, if you were there. Have you had nothing to eat?”
   “No. Three hours ago they offered to get me a sandwich at the District Attorney’s office, but my stomach said no. It preferred to wait for something that would stay down.” He handed me a glass of orange juice.” Many, many thanks. That sausage smells marvellous.”
   He didn’t like to talk or listen when he was actually cooking, even something as simple as broiling sausage, so I picked up the Times, there on my table as usual, and gave it a look. A murder has to be more than run-of-the-mill to make the front page of the Times, but this one certainly qualified, having occurred at the famous unmarried-mothers party at the home of Mrs Robert Robilotti, and it was there, with a three-column lead on the bottom half of the page, carried over to page 23. But the account didn’t amount to much, since it had happened so late, and there were no pictures, not even of me. That settled, I propped the paper on the reading rack and tackled a sausage and griddle cake.
   I was arranging two poached eggs on the fourth cake when the house phone buzzed, and I reached for it and said good morning and had Wolfe’s voice.
   “So you’re here. When did you get home?”
   “Half an hour ago. I’m eating breakfast. I suppose it was on the seven-thirty newscast.”
   “Yes. I just heard it. As you know, I dislike the word ‘newscast’. Must you use it?”
   “Correction. Make it the seven-thirty radio news broadcast. I don’t feel like arguing, and my cake is getting cold.”
   “You will come up when you have finished.”
   I said I would. When I had cradled the phone Fritz asked if he was in humour, and I said I didn’t know and didn’t give a damn. I was still sore at myself.
   I took my time with the meal, treating myself to three cups of coffee instead of the usual two, and was taking the last swallow when Fritz returned from taking up the breakfast tray. I put the cup down, got up, had a stretch and a yawn, went to the hall, mounted the flight of stairs in no hurry, turned left, tapped on a door, and was told to come in.
   Entering, I blinked. The morning sun was streaking in and glancing off the vast expanse of Wolfe’s yellow pyjamas. He was seated at a table by a window, barefooted, working on a bowl of fresh figs with cream. When I was listing the cash requirements of the establishment I might have mentioned that fresh figs in March, by air from Chile , are not hay.
   He gave me a look. “You are dishevelled,” he stated.
   “Yes, sir. Also disgruntled. Also disslumbered. Did the broadcast say she was murdered?”
   “No. That she died of poison and the police are investigating. Your name was not mentioned. Are you involved?”
   “Up to my chin. I had been told by a friend of hers that she had a bottle of cyanide in her bag, and I was keeping an eye on her. We were together in the drawing-room, dancing, all twelve of us, not counting the butler and the band, when a man brought her a glass of champagne, and she took a gulp, and in eight minutes she was dead. It was cyanide, that’s established, and the way it works it had to be in the champagne, but she didn’t put it there. I was watching her, and I’m the one that says she didn’t. Most of the others, maybe all of them, would like to have it that she did. Mrs Robilotti would like to choke me, and some of the others would be glad to lend a hand. A suicide at her party would be bad enough, but a homicide is murder. So I’m involved.”
   He swallowed a bite of fig. “You are indeed. I suppose you considered whether it would be well to reserve your conclusion.”
   I appreciated that—his not questioning my eyesight or my faculty of attention. It was a real tribute, and the way I felt, I needed one. I said,” Sure I considered it. But I had to include that I had been told she had cyanide in her bag, since the girl who told me would certainly include it, and Cramer and Stebbins and Rowcliff would know damn well that in that case I would have had my eyes open, so I had no choice. I couldn’t tell them yes, I was watching her and the bag, and yes, I was looking at her when Grantham took her the champagne and she drank it, and yes, she might have put something in the champagne before she drank when I was absolutely certain she hadn’t.”
   “No,” he agreed. He had finished the figs and taken one of the ramekins of shirred eggs with sausage from the warmer. “Then
   35
   you’re in for it. I take it that we expect no profitable engagement.”
   “We do not. God knows, not from Mrs Robilotti.”
   “Very well.” He put a muffin in the toaster. “You may remember my remarks yesterday.”
   “I do. You said I would demean myself. You did not say I would get involved in an unprofitable homicide. I’ll deposit the cheques this morning.”
   He said I should go to bed, and I said if I did it would take a guided missile to get me up again.
   After a shower and shave and tooth brush, and clean shirt and socks, and a walk to the bank and back, I began to think I might last the day out. I had three reasons for making the trip to the bank: first, people die, and if the signer of a cheque dies before the cheque reaches his bank the bank won’t pay it; second, I wanted air; and third, I had been told at the District Attorney’s office to keep myself constantly available, and I wanted to uphold my constitutional freedom of movement. However, the issue wasn’t raised, for when I returned Fritz told me that the only phone call had been from Lon Cohen of the Gazette.
   Lon has done us various favours over the years, and besides, I like him, so I gave him a ring. What he wanted was an eye-witness story of the last hours of Faith Usher, and I told him I’d think it over and let him know. His offer was five hundred bucks, which would have been not for Nero Wolfe but for me, since my presence at the party had been strictly personal, and of course he pressed—journalists always press—but I stalled him. The bait was attractive, five C’s and my picture in the paper, but I would have to include the climax, and if I reported that exactly as it happened, letting the world know that I was the one obstacle to calling it suicide, I would have everybody on my neck from the District Attorney to the butler. I was regretfully deciding that I would have to pass when the phone rang, and I answered it and had Celia Grantham’s voice. She wanted to know if I was alone. I told her yes but I wouldn’t be in six minutes, when Wolfe would descend from the plant rooms.
   “It won’t take that long.” Her voice was croaky, but not necessarily from drink. Like all the rest of them, including me, she had done a lot of talking in the past twelve hours. “Not if you’ll answer a question. Will you?”
   “Ask it.”
   “Something you said last night when I wasn’t there—when I was phoning for a doctor. My mother says that you said you thought Faith Usher was murdered. Did you?”
   “Yes.”
   “Why did you say it? That’s the question.”
   “Because I thought it.”
   “Please don’t be smart, Archie. Why did you think it?”
   “Because I had to. I was forced to by circumstances. If you think I’m dodging, I am. I would like to oblige a girl who dances as well as you do, but I’m not going to answer your question—not now. I’m sorry, but nothing doing.”
   “Do you still think she was murdered?”
   “Yes.”
   “But why ?”
   I don’t hang up on people. I thought I might have to that time, but she finally gave up, just as Wolfe’s elevator jolted to a stop at the bottom. He entered, crossed to his chair behind his desk, got his bulk arranged in it to his satisfaction, glanced through the mail, looked at his calendar, and leaned back to read a three-page letter from an orchid-hunter in New Guinea. He was on the third page when the doorbell rang. I got up and stepped to the hall, saw, through the one-way glass panel of the front door, a burly frame and a round red face, and went and opened the door.
   “Good Lord,” I said,” don’t you ever sleep?”
   “Not much,” he said, crossing the sill.
   I got the collar of his coat as he shed it. “This is an honour, since you must be calling on me. Why not invite me down—Cramer!”
   He had headed for the office. My calling him “Cramer“ instead of “Inspector“ was so unexpected that he stopped and about-faced. “Why,” I demanded, “don’t you ever learn? You know damn well he hates to have anyone march in on him, even you, or especially you, and you only make it harder. Isn’t it me you want?”
   “Yes, but I want him to hear it.”
   “That’s obvious, or you would have sent for me instead of coming. If you will kindly—”
   Wolfe’s bellow came out to us.” Confound it, come in here!”
   Cramer wheeled and went, and I followed. Wolfe’s only greeting was a scowl. “I cannot,“ he said coldly, “read my mail in an uproar.”
   Cramer took his usual seat, the red leather chair near the end of Wolfe’s desk.” I came,” he said, “to see Goodwin, but I—”
   “I heard you in the hall. You would enlighten me? That’s why you want me present?”
   Cramer took a breath. “The day I try to enlighten you they can send me to the loony house. It’s just that I know Goodwin is your man and I want you to understand the situation. I thought the best way would be to discuss it with him with you present. Is that sensible?”
   “It may be. I’ll know when I hear the discussion.”
   Cramer aimed his sharp grey eyes at me. “I don’t intend to go all over it again, Goodwin. I’ve questioned you twice myself, and I’ve read your statement. I’m only after one point, the big point. To begin with, I’ll tell you something that is not to be repeated. There is not a thing, not a word, in what any of the others have said that rules out suicide. Not a single damn thing. And there’s a lot that makes suicide plausible, even probable. I’m saying that if it wasn’t for you suicide would be a reasonable assumption, and it seems likely, I only say likely, that that would be the final verdict. You see what that means.”
   I nodded. “Yeah. I’m the fly in the soup. I don’t like it any better than you do. Flies don’t like being swamped in soup, especially when it’s hot.”
   He got a cigar from a pocket, rolled it in his palms, put it between his teeth, which were white and even, and removed it. “I’ll start at the beginning,” he said. “Your being there when it happened. I know what you say, and it’s in your statement—the phone call from Austin Byne and the one from Mrs Robilotti. Of course that happened. When you say anything that can be checked it will always check. But did you or Wolfe help it to happen? Knowing Wolfe, and knowing you, I have got to consider the possibility that you wanted to be there, or Wolfe wanted you to, and you made arrangements. Did you?”
   I was yawning and had to finish it. “I beg your pardon. I could just say no, but let’s cover it. How and why I was there is fully explained in my statement. Nothing related to it was omitted. Mr Wolfe thought I shouldn’t go because I would demean myself.”
   38
   “None of the people who were there was or is Wolfe’s client?”
   “Mrs Robilotti was a couple of years ago. The job was finished in nine days. Except for that, no.”
   His eyes went to Wolfe. “You confirm that?”
   “Yes. This is gratuitous, Mr Cramer.”
   “With you and Goodwin it’s hard to tell what is and what isn’t.” He came back to me. “I’m going to tell you how it stands up to now. First, it was cyanide. That’s settled. Second, it was in the champagne. It was in what spilled on the floor when she dropped the glass, and anyway it acts so fast it must have been. Third, a two-ounce plastic bottle in her bag was half full of lumps of sodium cyanide. The laboratory calls them amorphous fragments; I call them lumps. Fourth, she had shown that bottle to various people and told them she wanted to kill herself; she had been doing that for more than a year.”
   He shifted in the chair. He always sat so as to have Wolfe head on, but now he was at me.” Since the bag was on a chair fifteen feet away from her, and the bottle was in it, she couldn’t have taken a lump from it when Grantham brought her the champagne, or just before, but she could have taken it any time during the preceding hour or so and had it concealed in her handkerchief. Testing the handkerchief for traces is out because she dropped it and it fell in the spilled champagne—or rather, it’s not out but it’s no help. So that’s the set-up for suicide. Do you see holes in it?”
   I killed a yawn. “Certainly not. It’s perfect. I don’t say she mightn’t have committed suicide, I only say she didn’t. As you know, I have good eyes, and she was only twenty feet from me. When she took the champagne from Grantham with her right hand her left hand was on her lap, and she didn’t lift it. She took the glass by the stem, and when Grantham raised his glass and said something she raised hers a little higher than her mouth and then lowered it and drank. Are you by any chance hiding an ace? Does Grantham say that when he handed her the glass she dropped something in it before she took hold of it?”
   “No. He only says she might have put something in it before she drank; he doesn’t know.”
   “Well, I do. She didn’t.”
   “Yeah. You signed your statement.” He pointed the cigar at me.
   “Look, Goodwin. You admit there are no holes in the set-up for suicide; how about the set-up for murder? The bag was there on the chair in full view. Did someone walk over and pick it up and open it and take out the bottle and unscrew the cap and shake out a lump and screw the cap back on and put the bottle back in the bag and drop it on the chair and walk away? That must have taken nerve.”
   “Nuts. You’re stacking the deck. All someone had to do was get the bag—of course I started watching it—and take it to a room that could be locked on the inside—there was one handy—and get a lump and conceal it in his or her handkerchief—thank you for suggesting the handkerchief—and return the bag to the chair. That would take care, but no great nerve, since if he had any reason to think he had been seen taking the bag or returning it he wouldn’t use the lump. He might or might not have a chance to use it, anyway.” A yawn got me.
   He pointed the cigar again. “And that’s the next point, the chance to use it. The two glasses of champagne that Grantham took were poured by the butler, Hackett; he did all the pouring. One of them had been sitting on the bar for four or five minutes, and Hackett poured the other one just before Grantham came. Who was there, at the bar, during those four or five minutes? We haven’t got that completely straight yet, but apparently everybody was, or nearly everybody. You were. By your statement, and Ethel Varr agrees, you and she went there and took two glasses of champagne of the five or six that were there waiting, and then moved off and stood talking, and soon after—you say three minutes—you saw Grantham bring the two glasses to Faith Usher. So you were there. So you might have dropped cyanide in one of the glasses? No. Even granting that you are capable of poisoning somebody’s champagne, you would certainly make sure that the right one got it. You wouldn’t just drop it in one of the glasses on the bar and walk away, and that applies to all the others, except Edwin Laidlaw, Helen Yarmis, and Mr and Mrs Robilotti. They hadn’t walked away. They were there at the bar when Grantham came and got the two glasses. But he took two glasses. If one of those four people saw him coming and dropped the cyanide in one of the glasses, you’ve got to assume that he or she didn’t give a damn whether Grantham got it or Faith Usher got it, which is too much for me. But not for you?” He clamped his teeth on the cigar. He never lit one.
   “As you tell it,” I conceded, “I wouldn’t buy it. But I have two comments. The first one is that there is one person who did know which glass Faith Usher would get. He handed it to her.”
   “Oh? You put it on Grantham?”
   “I don’t put it on anybody. I merely say that you omitted a detail.”
   “Not an important one. If Grantham dropped the poison in at the bar before he picked up the glasses, there were five people right there, and that did take nerve. If he dropped it in while he was crossing to Faith Usher it was quite a trick, with a glass in each hand. If he dropped it in after he handed her the glass you would have seen him. What’s your second comment?”
   “That I have not implied, in my sessions with you and the others, that I have the slightest notion who did it, or how or why. What you have just told me was mostly news to me. My attention was divided between my companion, Ethel Varr, and the bag, and Faith Usher. I didn’t know who was at the bar when Grantham came and got the champagne, or who had been there since Hackett poured the glasses that Grantham took. And I still have no notion who did it, or why or how. I only know that Faith Usher put nothing whatever in the champagne before she drank it, and therefore if it was poison in the champagne that killed her she did not commit suicide. That’s the one thing I know.”
   “And you won’t discuss it.”
   “I won’t? What are we doing?”
   “I mean you won’t discuss the possibility that you’re wrong.”
   “That, no. You wouldn’t expect me to discuss the possibility that I’m wrong in thinking you’re Inspector Cramer you’re Willie Mays.”
   He regarded me a long moment with narrowed eyes, then moved to his normal position in the red leather chair, confronting Wolfe. “I’m going to tell you,” he said,” exactly what I think.”
   Wolfe grunted. “You often have.”
   “I know I have, but I hoped it wouldn’t come to this. I hoped Goodwin had realized that it wouldn’t do. I think I know what happened. Rose Tuttle told him that Faith Usher had a bottle of cyanide in her bag, and that she was afraid she might use it right there, and Goodwin told her to forget it, that he would see that nothing happened, and from then on he kept surveillance on both Faith Usher and the bag. That is admitted.”
   “It is stated.”
   “Okay, stated. When he sees her drink champagne and collapse and die, and smells the cyanide, what would his reaction be? You know him and so do I. You know how much he likes himself. He would be hit where it hurts. He would hate it. So, without stopping to consider, he tells them that he thinks she was murdered. When the police come, he knows that what he said will be reported, so he repeats it to them, and then he’s committed, and when Sergeant Stebbins and I arrive he repeats it to us. But to us he has to give a reason, so he has one, and a damn good one, and as long as there was a decent possibility that she was murdered we gave it full weight. But now—You heard me explain how it is. I was hoping that when he heard me and realized the situation he would see that his best course is to say that maybe he has been a little too positive. That he can’t absolutely swear that she didn’t put something in the champagne. He has had time to think it over, and he is too intelligent not to see that. That’s what I think. I hope you will agree.”
   “It’s not a question of agreement, it’s a question of fact.” Wolfe turned to me. “Archie?”
   “No, sir. Nobody likes me better than I do, but I’m not that far gone.”
   “You maintain your position?”
   “Yes. He contradicts himself. First he says I acted like a double-breasted sap and then he says I’m intelligent. He can’t have his suicide and eat me too. I stand pat.”
   Wolfe lifted his shoulders an eighth of an inch, lowered them, and turned to Cramer. “I’m afraid you’re wasting your time, Mr Cramer. And mine.”
   I was yawning.
   Cramer’s red face was getting redder, a sure sign that he had reached the limit of something and was about to cut loose, but a miracle happened: he put on the brake in time. It’s a pleasure to see self-control win a tussle. He moved his eyes to me.
   “I’m not taking this as final, Goodwin. Think it over. Of course, we’re going on with the investigation. If we find anything at all that points to homicide we’ll follow it up. You know that. But it’s only fair to warn you. If our final definite opinion is that it was suicide, and we say so, and you give your friend Lon Cohen of the Gazette a statement for publication saying that you know it was murder, you’ll regret it. That, or anything like it. Why in hell it had to be that you were there, God only knows. Such a statement from you, as an eye-witness—”
   The doorbell rang. I arose, asked Cramer politely to excuse me, stepped to the hall, and through the one-way glass saw a recent social acquaintance, though it took me a second to recognize him because his forty-dollar fedora covered the uncombed hair. I went and opened the door, confronted him, said, “Ssshhh,” patted my lips with a forefinger, backed up, and beckoned him in. He hesitated, looking slightly startled, then crossed the threshold. I shut the door and, without stopping to relieve him of his hat and coat, opened the door to the front room, which is on the same side of the hall as the office, motioned him in, followed him, and shut the door.
   “It’s all right here,” I told him.” Soundproofed, doors and all.”
   “All right for what?” Edwin Laidlaw asked.
   “For privacy. Unless you came to see Inspector Cramer of Homicide?”
   “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I came to see you.”
   I thought you might have, and I also thought you might prefer not to collide with Cramer. He’s in the office chatting with Mr Wolfe, and is about ready to go, so I shunted you in here.”
   “I’m glad you did. I’ve seen all I want of policemen for a while.” He glanced around. “Can we talk here?”
   “Yes, but I must go and see Cramer off. I’ll be back soon. Have a chair.”
   I went to the door to the hall and opened it, and there was Cramer heading for the front. He didn’t even look at me, let alone speak. I thought if he could be rude I could too, so I let him get his own hat and coat and let himself out. When the door had closed behind him I went to the office and crossed to Wolfe’s desk. He spoke.
   “I will make one remark, Archie. To bedevil Mr Cramer for a purpose is one thing; to do so merely for pastime is another.”
   “Yes, sir. I wouldn’t dream of it. You’re asking me if my position with you, privately, is the same as it was with him. The answer is yes.”
   “Very well. Then he’s in a pickle.”
   “That’s too bad. Someone else is too, apparently. Yesterday when I was invited to the party and given the names of the male guests, I wanted to know who they were and phoned Lon Cohen. One of them, Edwin Laidlaw, is a fairly important citizen for a man his age. He used to be pretty loose around town, but three years ago his father died and he inherited ten million dollars, and recently he bought a controlling interest in the Malvin Press, book publishers, and apparently he intends to settle down and—”
   “Is this of interest?”
   “It may be. He’s in the front room. He came to see me, and since my only contact with him was last night it could be of interest. I can talk with him there, but I thought I should tell you because you might possibly want to sit in—or stand in. At the hole. In case I need a witness.”
   “Pfui.”
   “Yeah, I know. I don’t want to shove, but we haven’t had a case for two weeks.”
   He was scowling at me. It wasn’t so much that he would have to leave his chair and walk to the hall and on to the alcove, and stand at the hole—after all, that amount of exercise would be good for his appetite—as it was that the very best that could come of it, getting a client, would also be the worst, since he would have to work. He heaved a sigh, not letting it interfere with the scowl, muttered,” Confound it,” put his palms on the desk rim to push his chair back, and got up and went.
   The hole was in the wall, at eye level, eight feet to the right of Wolfe’s desk. On the office side it was covered by a picture of a pretty waterfall. On the other side, in a wing of the hall across from the kitchen, it was covered by nothing, and you could not only see through but also hear through. I had once stood there for four solid hours, waiting for someone to appear from the front room to snitch something from my desk. I allowed Wolfe a minute to get himself posted and then went and opened the door to the front room and spoke.
   “In here, Laidlaw. It’s more comfortable.” I moved one of the yellow chairs around to face my desk.

Chapter 5

   Laidlaw sat and looked at me. Three seconds. Six seconds. Evidently he needed priming, so I obliged.
   “I thought it was a nice party up to a point, didn’t you? Even with the protocol.”
   “I can’t remember that far back.” He leaned forward. His hair was still perfectly uncombed. “Look, Goodwin. I want to ask you a straight question, and I hope you’ll answer it. I don’t see why you shouldn’t.”
   “I may not either. What?”
   “About what you said last night, that you thought that girl was murdered. You said it not only to us, but to the police and the District Attorney. I can tell you confidentially that I have a friend, it doesn’t matter who or where, who has given me a little information. I understand that they would be about ready to call it suicide and close the investigation if it weren’t for you, so your reason for thinking it was murder must be a pretty good one. That’s my question. What is it?”
   “Your friend didn’t tell you that?”
   “No. Either he wouldn’t, or he couldn’t because he doesn’t know. He says he doesn’t know.”
   I crossed my legs. “Well, I can’t very well say that. So I’ll say that I have told only the police and the D.A.’s office and Mr Wolfe, and for the present that’s enough.”
   “You won’t tell me?”
   “At the moment, no. Rules of etiquette.”
   “Don’t you think the people who are involved just because they were there—don’t you think they have a right to know?”
   “Yes, I do. I think they have a right to demand that the police tell them exactly why they are going ahead with a homicide investigation when everything seems to point to suicide. But they have no right to demand that I tell them.”
   “I see.” He considered that. “But the police refuse to tell us.”
   “Yeah, I know. I’ve had experiences with them. I’ve just had one with Inspector Cramer.”
   He regarded me. Four seconds. “You’re in the detective business, Goodwin. People hire you to get information for them, and they pay for it. That’s all I want, information, an answer to my question. I’ll give you five thousand dollars for it. I have it in my pocket in cash. Of course, I would expect a definitive answer.”
   “You would deserve one, for five grand,” I was finding that meeting his eyes halfway, not letting them come on through me, took a little effort.” Five grand in cash would suit me fine, since the salary Mr Wolfe pays me is far from extravagant. But I’ll have to say no even if you double it. This is how it is. When the police make up their minds about it one way or the other, that I’m right or I’m wrong, no matter which, I’ll feel free to tell you or anybody else. But if I go spreading it around before then they will say I am interfering with an official investigation, and they will interfere with me. If I lost my licence as a private detective your five grand wouldn’t last long.”
   “Ten would last longer.”
   “Not much.”
   “I own a publishing business. I’d give you a job.”
   “You’d soon fire me. I’m not a very good speller.”
   His eyes were certainly straight and steady. “Will you tell me this? How good is your reason for thinking it was murder? Is it good enough to keep them on it the whole way, in spite of the influence of a woman in Mrs Robilotti’s position?”
   I nodded. “Yes, I’ll answer that. It was good enough to bring Inspector Cramer here when he hadn’t had much sleep. In my opinion it is good enough to keep them from crossing it off as suicide until they have dug as deep as they can go.”
   I see.” He rubbed his palms together. Then he rubbed them on the chair arms. He had transferred his gaze to a spot on the rug, which was a relief. It was a full minute before he came back to me. “You say you have told only the police, the District Attorney, and Nero Wolfe. I want to have a talk with Wolfe,”
   I raised my brows.” I don’t know.”
   “You don’t know what?”
   “Whether…” I let it trail, screwing my lips. “He doesn’t like to mix in when I’m involved personally. Also he’s pretty busy. But I’ll see.” I arose. “With him you never can tell.” I moved.
   As I turned left in the hall Wolfe appeared at the corner of the wing. He stood there until I had passed and pushed the swing door, and then followed me into the kitchen. When the door had swung shut I spoke.
   “I must apologize for that crack about salary. I forgot you were listening.”
   He grunted. “Your memory is excellent and you shouldn’t disparage it. What does that man want of me?”
   I covered a yawn. “Search me. If I had had some sleep I might risk a guess, but it’s all I can do to get enough oxygen for my lungs so my brain’s doing without. Maybe he wants to publish your autobiography. Or maybe he wants you to make a monkey of me by proving it was suicide.”
   “I won’t see him. You have supplied a reason: that you are involved personally.”
   “Yes, sir. I am also involved personally in the income of your detective business. So is Fritz. So is the guy who wrote you that letter from New Guinea , or he’d like to be.”
   He growled, as a lion might growl when it realizes it must leave its cosy lair to scout around for a meal. I admit that for him a better comparison would be an elephant, but elephants don’t growl. Fritz, at the table shucking clams, started humming a tune, very low, probably pleased at the prospect of a client. Wolfe glared at him, reached for a clam, popped it into his mouth, and chewed. When I pushed the door open and held it, he waited until the clam was down before passing through.
   He doesn’t like to shake hands with strangers, and when we entered the office and I pronounced names he merely gave Laidlaw a nod en route to his desk. Before I went to mine I asked Laidlaw to move to the red leather chair so I wouldn’t have him in profile as he faced Wolfe. As I sat, Laidlaw was saying that he supposed Goodwin had told Wolfe who he was, and Wolfe was saying yes, he had.
   Laidlaw’s straight, steady eyes were now at Wolfe instead of me. “I want,” he said, “to engage you professionally. Do you prefer the retainer in cash, or a cheque?”
   Wolfe shook his head. “Neither, until I accept the engagement. What do you want done?”
   “I want you to get some information for me. You know what happened at Mrs Robilotti’s house last evening. You know that a girl named Faith Usher was poisoned and died. You know of the circumstances indicating that she committed suicide. Don’t you?”
   Wolfe said yes.
   “Do you know that the authorities have not accepted it as a fact that she killed herself? That they are continuing with the investigation on the assumption that she might have been murdered?”
   Wolfe said yes.
   “Then it’s obvious that they must have knowledge of some circumstance other than the ones I know about—or that any of us know about. They must have some reason for not accepting the fact that it was suicide. I don’t know what that reason is, and they won’t tell me, and as one of the people involved—involved simply because I was there—I have a legitimate right to know. That’s the information I want you to get for me. I’ll give you a retainer now, and your bill can be any amount you think is fair, and I’ll pay it.”
   I was not yawning. I must say I admired his gall. Though he didn’t know that Wolfe had been at the hole, he must have assumed that I had reported the offer he had made, and here he was looking Wolfe straight in the eye, engaging him professionally, and telling him he could name his figure, no matter what, whereas with me ten grand had been his limit. The gall of the guy! I had to admire him.
   The corners of Wolfe’s mouth were up. “Indeed,” he said. Laidlaw took a breath, but it came out merely as used air, not as words.
   “Mr Goodwin has told me,” Wolfe said, “of the proposal you made to him. I am at a loss whether to respect your doggedness and applaud your dexterity or to deplore your naivete. In any case I must decline the engagement. I already have the information you’re after, but I got it from Mr Goodwin in confidence and may not disclose it. I’m sorry, sir.”
   Laidlaw took another breath. “I’m not as dogged as you are,” he declared. “Both of you. In the name of God, what’s so top secret about it? What are you afraid of?”
   Wolfe shook his head. “Not afraid, Mr Laidlaw, merely discreet. When a matter in which we have an interest and a commitment requires us to nettle the police we are not at all reluctant. In this affair Mr Goodwin is involved solely because he happened to be there just as you are, and I am not involved at all. It is not a question of fear or of animus. I am merely detached. I will not, for instance, tell the police of the offers you have made Mr Goodwin and me because it would stimulate their curiosity about you, and since I assume you have made the offers in good faith I am not disposed to do you an ill turn.”
   “But you’re turning me down.”
   “Yes. Flatly. In the circumstances I have no choice. Mr Goodwin can speak for himself.”
   Laidlaw’s head turned to me and I had the eyes again. I wouldn’t have put it past him to renew his offer, with an amendment that he would now leave the figure up to me, but if he had that in mind he abandoned it when he saw my steadfast countenance. When, after regarding me for eight seconds, he left his chair, I thought he was leaving the field and Wolfe wouldn’t have to go to work after all, but no. He only wanted to mull, and preferred to have his face to himself. He asked, “May I have a minute?” and, when Wolfe said yes, he turned his back and moseyed across the rug towards the far wall, where the big globe stood in front of bookshelves; and, for double the time he had asked for, at least that, he stood revolving the globe. Finally he about-faced and returned to the red leather chair, not moseying.
   “I must speak with you privately,” he told Wolfe.
   “You are,” Wolfe said snortly.” If you mean alone, no. If a confidence weren’t as safe with Mr Goodwin as with me he wouldn’t be here. His ears are mine, and mine are his.”
   “This isn’t only a confidence. I’m going to tell you something that no one on earth knows about but me. I’m going to risk telling you because I have to, but I’m not going to double the risk.”
   “You will not be doubling it.” Wolfe was patient.” If Mr Goodwin left us I would give him a signal to listen to us on a contraption in another room, so he might as well stay.”
   “You don’t make it any easier, Wolfe.”
   “I don’t pretend to make things easier. I only make them manageable—when I can.”
   Laidlaw looked as if he needed to mull some more, but he got it decided without going to consult the globe again. “You’ll have all you can do to manage this,” he declared. “I couldn’t go to my lawyer with it, or anyhow I wouldn’t, and even if I had it would have been too much for him. I thought I couldn’t go to anybody, and then I thought of you. You have the reputation of a wizard, and God knows I need one. First I wanted to know why Goodwin thinks it was murder, but evidently you’re not going—by the way—”
   He took a pen from a pocket and a chequebook from another, put the book on the little table at his elbow, and wrote. He yanked the cheque off, glanced it over, got up to put it on Wolfe’s desk, and returned to the chair.
   “If twenty thousand isn’t enough,” he said, “for a retainer and advances for expenses, say so. You haven’t accepted the job, I know, but I’m camping here until you do. You spoke of managing things. I want you to manage that if they go on with their investigation it doesn’t go deep enough to uncover and make public a certain event in my life. I also want you to manage that I don’t get arrested and put on trial for murder.”
   Wolfe grunted. “I could give no guarantee against either contingency.”
   “I don’t expect you to. I don’t expect you to pass miracles, either. And two things I want to make plain: first, if Faith Usher was murdered I didn’t kill her and don’t know who did; and second, my own conviction is that she committed suicide. I don’t know what Goodwin’s reason is for thinking she was murdered, but whatever it is, I’m convinced that he’s wrong.”
   Wolfe grunted again. “Then why come to me in a dither? If you’re convinced it was suicide. Since they are human the police do frequently fumble, but usually they arrive at the truth. Finally.”
   “That’s the trouble. Finally. This time, before they arrive, they might run across the event I spoke of, and if they do, they might charge me with murder. Not they might, they would.”
   “Indeed. It must have been an extraordinary event. If that is what you intend to confide in me, I make two remarks: that you are not yet my client, and that even if you were, disclosures to a private detective by a client are not a privileged communication. It’s an impasse, Mr Laidlaw. I can’t decide whether to accept your job until I know what the event was; but I will add that if I do accept it I will go far to protect the interest of a client.”
   “I’m desperate, Wolfe,” Laidlaw said. He pushed his hair back, but it needed more than a push.” I admit it. I’m desperate. You’ll accept the job because there’s no reason why you shouldn’t. What I’m going to tell you is known to no one on earth but me, I’m pretty sure of that, but not absolutely sure, and that’s the devil of it.”
   He pushed at his hair again. “I’m not proud of this, what I’m telling you. I’m thirty-one years old. In August, nineteen fifty-six , a year and a half ago, I went into Cordoni’s on Madison Avenue to buy some flowers, and the girl who waited on me was attractive, and that evening I drove her to a place in the country for dinner. Her name was Faith Usher. Her vacation was to start in ten days, and by the time it started I had persuaded her to spend it in Canada with me. I didn’t use my own name; I’m almost certain she never knew what it was. She only had a week, and when we got back she went back to work at Cordoni’s, and I went to Europe and was gone two months. When I returned I had no idea of resuming any relations with her, but I had no reason to avoid her, and I stopped in at Cordoni’s one day. She was there, but she would barely speak to me. She asked me, if I came to Cordoni’s again, to get someone else to wait on me.”
   “I suggest,” Wolfe put in, “that you confine this to the essentials.”
   “I am. I want you to know just how it was. I don’t like to feel that I owe anyone anything, especially a woman, and I phoned her twice to get her to meet me and have a talk, but she wouldn’t. So I dropped it. I also stopped buying flowers at Cordoni’s, but some months later, one rainy day in April, I went there because it was convenient, and she wasn’t there. I didn’t ask about her. I include these details because you ought to know what the chances are that the police are going to dig this up.”
   “First the essentials,” Wolfe muttered.
   “All right, but you ought to know how I found out that she was at Grantham House. Grantham House is an institution started by—”
   “I know what it is.”
   “Then I don’t have to explain it. A few days after I had noticed that she wasn’t at Cordoni’s a friend of mine told me—his name is Austin Byne, and he is Mrs Robilotti’s nephew—he told me that he had been at Grantham House the day before on an errand for Mrs Robilotti and had seen a girl there that he recognized. He said I might recognize her too—the girl with the little oval face and green eyes who used to work at Cordoni’s. I told him I doubted it, that I didn’t remember her. But I—”
   “Was Mr Byne’s tone or manner suggestive?”
   “No. I didn’t think—I’m sure it wasn’t. But I wondered. Naturally. It had been eight months since the trip to Canada , and I did not believe that she had been promiscuous. I decided that I must see her and talk with her. I prefer to think that my chief reason was my feeling of obligation, but I don’t deny that I also wanted to know if she had found out who I was, and if so whether she had told anyone or was going to. In arranging to see her I took every possible precaution. Shall I tell you exactly how I managed it?”
   “Later, perhaps.”
   “All right, I saw her. She said that she had agreed to meet me only because she wanted to tell me that she never wanted to see me or hear from me again. She said she didn’t hate me—I don’t think she was capable of hate—but that I meant only one thing to her, a mistake that she would never forgive herself for, and that she only wanted to blot me out. Those were her words: ‘blot you out’. She said her baby would be given for adoption and would never know who its parents were. I had money with me, a lot of it, but she wouldn’t take a cent. I didn’t raise the question whether there could be any doubt that I was the father. You wouldn’t either, if it had been you, with her, the way she was.”
   He stopped and set his jaw. After a moment he released it. “That was when I decided to quit playing around. I made an anonymous contribution to Grantham House. I never saw her again until last night. I didn’t kill her. I am convinced she killed herself, and I hope to God my being there, seeing me again, wasn’t what made her do it.”
   He stopped again. Then he went on, “I didn’t kill her, but you can see where I’ll be if the police go on investigating and dig this up somehow—though I don’t know how. They would have me. I was standing at the bar when Cecil Grantham came and got the champagne and took it to her. Even if I wasn’t convicted of murder, even if I was never put on trial, this would all come out and that would be nearly as bad. And evidently, if it weren’t for Goodwin, for what he has told them, they would almost certainly call it suicide and close it. Can you wonder that I want to know what he told them? At any price?”
   “No,” Wolfe conceded. “Accepting your account as candid, no. But you have shifted your ground. You wanted to hire me to tell you what Mr Goodwin has told the police, though you didn’t put it that way, and I declined. What do you want to hire me to do now?”
   “To manage this for me. You said you manage things. To manage that this is not dug up, that my connection with Faith Usher does not become known, that I am not suspected of killing her.”
   “You’re already suspected. You were there.”
   “That’s nonsense. You’re quibbling. I wouldn’t be suspected if it weren’t for Goodwin. Nobody would be.”
   I permitted myself an inside grin. “Quibble” was one of Wolfe’s pet words. Dozens of people, sitting in the red leather chair, had been told by him that they were quibbling, and now he was getting it back, and he didn’t like it.
   He said testily, “But you are suspected, and you’d be a ninny to hire me to prevent something that has already happened. You have admitted you’re desperate, and desperate men can’t think straight, so I should make allowances, and I do. That the police will not discover your connection with Faith Usher is a forlorn hope. Surely she knew your real name. Weren’t you known at Cordoni’s? Didn’t you have a charge account?”
   “No. I have charge accounts, of course, but not at any florist’s. I always paid cash for flowers—in those days. Now it doesn’t matter, but then it was more—uh—it was wiser. I don’t think she ever knew my name, and even if she did I’m almost certain she never told anyone about me—about the trip to Canada .”
   Wolfe was sceptical. “Even so,” he grumbled. “You appeared with her in public places. On the street. You took her to dinner. If the police persist it’s highly probable that they’ll turn it up; at that sort of thing they’re extremely proficient. The only way to ward that off with any assurance would be to arrange that they do not persist, and that rests with Mr Goodwin.” His head turned. “Archie. Has anything that Mr Laidlaw has said persuaded you that you might have been mistaken?”
   “No,” I said. “Now that we can name the figure I admit it’s a temptation, but I’m committed. No.”
   “Committed to what ?“ Laidlaw demanded.
   “To my statement that Faith Usher didn’t kill herself.”
   “Why? For God’s sake, why ?”
   Wolfe took over. “No, sir. That is still reserved, even if I accept your retainer. If I do, I’ll proceed on the hypothesis that your account of your relations with Faith Usher is bona fide, but only as a hypothesis. Over the years I have found many hypotheses untenable. It is quite possible that you did kill Faith Usher and your coming to me is a step in some devious and crafty stratagem. Then –”
   “I didn’t.”
   “Very well. That’s an item of the hypothesis. Then the situation is this: since Mr Goodwin is unyielding, and since if the police persist they will surely bare your secret and then harass you, I can do your job only (a) by proving that Faith Usher committed suicide and Mr Goodwin is wrong, or (b) by identifying and exposing the murderer. That would be a laborious and expensive undertaking, and I’ll ask you to sign a memorandum stating that, no matter who the murderer is, if I expose him you’ll pay my bill.”
   Laidlaw didn’t hesitate.” I’ll sign it.”
   “With, as I said, no guarantee.”
   “As I said, I don’t expect any.”
   “Then that’s understood.” Wolfe reached to pick up the cheque. “Archie. You may deposit this as a retainer and advance for expenses.”
   I got up and took it and dropped it in a drawer of my desk.
   “I want to ask a question,” Laidlaw said. He was looking at me. “Evidently you didn’t tell the police what happened when I asked Faith Usher to dance with me, and she refused. If you had told them they would certainly have asked me about it. Why didn’t you?”
   I sat down. “That’s about the only thing I left out. For a reason. From the beginning they were on my neck about my thinking it was murder, and if I had told them about her refusing to dance with you they would have thought I was also trying to pick the murderer, and they already had certain feelings about me on account of former collisions. And if you denied it when they asked you about it, they might think I was playing hopscotch. I could always remember it and report it later, if developments called for it.”
   Wolfe was frowning. “You didn’t report this to me.”
   “No, sir. Why should I? You weren’t interested.”
   “I am now. But now, conveniently, her refusal is already explained.” He turned to the client. “Did you know Miss Usher would be there before you went?”
   “No,” Laidlaw said.” If I had I wouldn’t have gone.”
   “Did she know you would be there?”
   “I don’t know, but I doubt it. I think that goes for her too; if she had she wouldn’t have gone.”
   “Then it was a remarkable coincidence. In a world that operates largely at random, coincidences are to be expected, but any one of them must always be mistrusted. Had you attended any of those affairs previously? Those annual dinners?”
   “No. It was on account of Faith Usher that I accepted the invitation. Not to see her—as I said, I wouldn’t have gone if I had known she would be there—just some feeling about what had happened. I suppose a psychiatrist would call it a feeling of guilt.”
   “Who invited you?”
   “Mrs Robilotti.”
   “Were you a frequent guest at her house?”
   “Not frequent, no, just occasional. I have known Cecil, her son, since prep school, but we have never been close. Her nephew, Austin Byne, was in my class at Harvard. What are you doing, investigating me?”
   Wolfe didn’t reply. He glanced up at the wall clock: ten minutes past one. He took in a couple of bushels of air through his nose, and let it out through his mouth. He looked at the client, not with enthusiasm.
   “This will take hours, Mr Laidlaw. Just to get started with you—what you know about those people—since I must proceed, tentatively, on the hypothesis that Mr Goodwin is right and Miss Usher was murdered, and you didn’t kill her, and therefore one of the others did. Eleven of them, if we include the butler—no, ten, since I shall arbitrarily eliminate Mr Goodwin. Confound it, an army! It’s time for lunch, and I invite you to join us, and then we’ll resume. Clams hashed with eggs, parsley, green peppers, chives, fresh mushrooms, and sherry. Mr Goodwin drinks milk. I drink beer. Would you prefer white wine?”
   Laidlaw said yes, he would, and Wolfe got up and headed for the kitchen.

Chapter 6

   At a quarter past five that afternoon, when Laidlaw left, I had thirty-two pages of shorthand, my private brand, in my book. Of course, Wolfe had gone up to the plant rooms at four o’clock so for the last hour and a quarter I had been the emcee. When Wolfe came down to the office at six I had typed four pages from my notes and was banging away on the fifth.
   Most of it was a waste of time and paper, but there were items that might come in handy. To begin with, there was nothing whatever on the three unmarried mothers who were still alive. Laidlaw had never seen or heard of Helen Yarmis or Ethel Varr or Rose Tuttle before the party. Another blank was Hackett. All I had got on him was that he was a good butler, which I already knew, and that he had been there for years, since before Grantham had died.
   Mrs Robilotti . Laidlaw didn’t care much for her. He didn’t put it that way, but it was obvious. He called her a vulgarian. Her first husband, Albert Grantham, had had genuine philanthropic impulses and knew what to do with them, but she was a phoney. She wasn’t actually continuing to support his philanthropies; they had been provided for in his will; she spent a lot of time on them, attending board meetings and so on, only to preserve her standing with her betters. “Betters,” for Laidlaw, evidently didn’t mean people with more money, which I thought was a broad-minded attitude for a man with ten million of his own.
   Robert Robilotti . Laidlaw cared for him even less, and said so. Mrs Albert Grantham, widow, had acquired him in Italy and brought him back with her luggage. That alone showed she was a vulgarian, but here, it seemed to me, things got confused, because Robilotti was not a vulgarian. He was polished, civilized, and well informed. In all this I’m merely quoting Laidlaw. Of course, he was also a parasite. When I asked if he looked elsewhere for the female refreshments that were in short supply at home, Laidlaw said there were rumours, but there were always rumours.
   Celia Grantham . Here I had got a surprise—nothing startling, but enough to make me lift a brow. Laidlaw had asked her to marry him six months ago and she had refused.” I tell you that,” he said, ‘so you will know that I can’t be very objective about her. Perhaps I was lucky. That was when I was getting a hold on myself after what had happened with Faith Usher, and perhaps I was just looking for help. Celia could help a man all right if she wanted to. She has character, but she hasn’t decided what to do with it. The reason she gave for refusing to marry me was that I didn’t dance well enough.” It was while we were on Celia that I learned that Laidlaw had an old-fashioned streak. When I asked him what about her relations with men and got a vague answer, and made it more specific by asking if he thought she was a virgin, he said of course, since he had asked her to marry him. An old fogy at thirty-one.
   Cecil Grantham . On him it struck me that Laidlaw was being diplomatic, and I thought I guessed why. Cecil was three years younger than Laidlaw, and I gathered that his interests and activities were along the same lines as Laidlaw’s had been three years ago before the event with Faith Usher had pushed his nose in—with qualifications, one being that whereas Laidlaw’s pile had been left to him with no strings attached, Cecil’s was in a trust controlled by his mother and he had to watch his budget. He had been heard to remark that he would like to do something to earn some money but couldn’t find any spare time for it. Each year he spent three summer months on a ranch in Montana .
   Paul Schuster . He was a prodigy. He had worked his way through college and law school, and when he had graduated with high honours a clerkship had been offered him by a justice of the United States Supreme Court, but he had preferred to go to work for a Wall Street firm with five names at the top, and a dozen at the side, of its letterhead. Probably a hundred and twenty bucks a week. Even more probably, at fifty he would be raking in half a million a year. Laidlaw knew him only fairly well and could furnish no information about the nature and extent of his intimacies with either sex. The owner of one of the five names at the top of the letterhead, now venerable, had been Albert Grantham’s lawyer, and that was probably the connection that had got Schuster at Mrs Robilotti’s dinner table.
   Beverly Kent . Of the Rhode Island Rents, if that means anything to you. It didn’t to me. His family was still hanging on to three thousand acres and a couple of miles of a river named Usquepaugh. He too had been in Laidlaw’s class at Harvard, and had followed a family tradition when he chose the diplomatic service for a career. In Laidlaw’s opinion it wasn’t likely that he had ever been guilty of an indiscretion, let alone an outrage, with a female.
   Edwin Laidlaw . A reformed man, a repentant sinner, and a recovered soul. He said he had more appropriate cliches handy, but I told him those would do. When he had inherited his father’s stack, three years ago, he had gone on as before, horsing around, and had caught up with himself only after the Faith Usher affair. He had not, to the best of his knowledge, ever made any other woman a mother, married or unmarried. It had taken more than half of his assets to buy the Malvin Press, and for four months he had been spending ten hours a day at his office, five days a week, not to mention evenings and weekends. He thought he would be on to the publishing business in five years.
   As for Faith Usher, his thinking that she had not been promiscuous, and his not raising the question, at his last meeting with her, whether there was any doubt about his being the father of the baby she was carrying, had been based entirely on the impression he had got of her. He knew nothing whatever about her family or background. He hadn’t even known where she lived; she had refused to tell him. She had given him a phone number and he had called her at it, but he didn’t remember what it was, and he had made a little private ceremony of destroying his phone-number book when he had reformed. When I said that on a week’s vacation trip there is time for a lot of talk, he said they had done plenty of talking, but she had shied away from anything about her. His guess was that she had probably graduated from high school.
   We had spent a solid hour with him on the party before Wolfe went up to the plant rooms. Wolfe took him through every minute of it, trying to get some faint glimmer of a hint. Laidlaw was sure that neither he nor Faith Usher had said or done anything that could have made anyone suspect they had ever met before, except her refusing to dance with him, and no one had heard that but me. He had asked her to dance because he thought it would be noticed if he didn’t.
   Of course the main point was when Cecil Grantham came to the bar to get the champagne. Laidlaw had been standing there with Helen Yarmis, with whom he had just been dancing, and Mr and Mrs Robilotti. As he and Helen Yarmis approached the bar, Beverly Kent and Celia Grantham were moving away, and Mr and Mrs Robilotti were there, and of course Hackett. Laidlaw thought he and Helen Yarmis had been there more than a minute, but not more than two, when Cecil Grantham came; that was what he had told the police. He couldn’t say whether, when he had taken two glasses of champagne for Helen Yarmis and himself, there had been other glasses on the bar with champagne in them; he simply hadn’t noticed. The police had got him to try to recall the picture, but he couldn’t. All he was sure of was that he hadn’t poisoned any champagne, but he was almost as sure that Helen Yarmis hadn’t either. She had been right at his elbow.
   There was more, a lot more, but that’s enough for here. You can see why I said that most of it was a waste of time and paper. I might mention that Wolfe had dictated the memorandum, and I had typed it, and Laidlaw had signed it. Also, as instructed by Wolfe, as soon as Laidlaw had gone I phoned Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin, and Orrie Gather, and asked them to drop in at nine o’clock.
   At six, on the dot as always, Wolfe entered and crossed to his desk. I collated the originals of the four finished pages, took them to him, and went back to the typewriter. I was rolling out the fifth page when he spoke.
   “Archie.”
   I twisted my neck. ”Yes, sir?”
   “Your attention, please.”
   I swivelled. ”Yes, sir.”
   “You will agree that this is a devil of a problem, with monstrous difficulties in a disagreeable context.”
   “Yes, sir.”
   “I have asked you three times regarding your contention that Miss Usher did not commit suicide. The first time it was merely civil curiosity. The second time, in the presence of Mr Cramer, it was merely rhetorical, to give you an opportunity to voice your resolution. The third time, in the presence of Mr Laidlaw, it was merely by the way, since I knew you wouldn’t pull back with him here. Now I ask you again. You know how it stands. If I undertake this job, on the assumption that she was murdered, an assumption based solely on your testimony, you know what it will entail in time, energy, wit, and vexation. The expense will be on Mr Laidlaw, but the rest will be on me. I don’t care to risk, in addition, the chance that I am burrowing in an empty hole. So I ask you again.”
   I nodded. “I knew this would come. Naturally. I stand pat. I can make a speech if you want one.”
   “No. You have already explained your ground. I will only remind you that the circumstances as described by Mr Cramer indicate that it would have been impossible for anyone to poison that glass of champagne with any assurance that it would get to Miss Usher.”
   “I heard him.”
   “Yes. There is the same objection to supposing that it was intended for any other particular person, and its getting to Miss Usher was a mishap.”
   “Right.”
   “There is also the fact that she was the most likely target, since the poison was in her bag, making it highly probable that the conclusion would be that she had killed herself. But for you, that would be the conclusion. Therefore it was almost certainly intended for her.”
   “Right.”
   “But, for the reasons given by Mr Cramer, it couldn’t possibly have been intended for her.”
   I grinned at him. “What the hell,” I said. “I know it’s a lulu. I admit I wouldn’t know where to start, but I’m not supposed to. That’s your part. Speaking of starting, Saul and Fred and Orrie will be here at nine o’clock.”
   He made a face. He had to cook up chores for them, nine o’clock was less than three hours away, for one of the hours he would be dining, and he would not work his brain at the table.
   “I have,” he growled, “only this moment committed myself, after consulting you. Mr Laidlaw’s cheque could have been returned.” He flattened his palms on the chair arms. “Then I’m in for it, and so are you. You will go tomorrow morning to that institution, Grantham House, and learn about Faith Usher. How she got there, when she came and when she left, what happened to her infant—everything. Cover it.”
   “I will if I can get in. I mention as a fact, not an objection, that that place has certainly had a lot of visitors today. At least a dozen assorted journalists, not to mention cops. Have you any suggestions?”
   “Yes. You told me yesterday morning that a man you know named Austin Byne had phoned to ask you to take his place at that gathering. Today Mr Laidlaw said that a man named Austin Byne, Mrs Robilotti’s nephew, had once gone to Grantham House on an errand for his aunt. I suppose the same man?”
   “You suppose.” I crossed my legs. “It wouldn’t hurt you any, and would be good for my morale, if you let me take a trick now and then. Austin Byne had already occurred to me, and I asked for suggestions only to be polite. I already know what your powers of observation and memory are and you didn’t have to demonstrate them by remembering that I had mentioned his name on the fly and—Why the snort?”
   “At the notion that your morale needs any encouragement. Do you know where to reach Mr Byne?”
   I said I did and, before resuming at the typewriter, dialled his number. No answer. During the next hour and a half I interrupted my typing four times to dial the number, and still no answer. By then it was dinner-time. For himself, Wolfe will permit nothing and no one to interfere with the course of a meal, and, since we dine together in the dining-room, my leaving the table is a sort of interference and he doesn’t like it, but that time I had to. Three times during dinner I went to the office to dial Byne’s number, with no luck, and I tried again when, having finished the baked pears, we transferred to the office and Fritz brought coffee. I accept a “no answer” verdict only after counting thirteen rings, and had got nine when the doorbell rang and Fritz announced Saul Panzer. The other two came a minute later.
   That trio, the three that Wolfe always called on when we needed more eyes and ears and legs, were as good as you could get in the metropolitan area. In fact, Saul Panzer, a little guy with a big nose who never wore a hat, compromising on a cap when the weather was rough, was better. With an office and a staff he could have cleaned up, but that wouldn’t have left him enough time for playing the piano or playing pinochle or keeping up with his reading, so he preferred to freelance at seventy bucks a day. Fred Durkin, bulky and bald-headed, had his weak points, but he was worth at least half as much as Saul, which was his price, if you gave him the right kind of errands. If Orrie Gather had been as smart as he was brave and handsome he would have been hiring people instead of being hired, and Wolfe would have had to find someone else, which wouldn’t have been easy because good operatives are scarce.
   They were on yellow chairs in a row facing Wolfe’s desk. We hadn’t seen any of them for two months, and civilities had been exchanged, including handshakes. They are three of the nine or ten people to whom Wolfe willingly offers a hand. Saul and Orrie had accepted offers of coffee; Fred had preferred beer.
   Wolfe sipped coffee, put his cup down, and surveyed them. “I have undertaken,” he said, “to find an explanation for something that can’t possibly be explained.”
   Fred Durkin frowned, concentrating. He had decided long ago that there was a clue in every word Wolfe uttered, and he wasn’t going to miss one if he could help it. Orrie Gather smiled to show that he recognized a gag when he heard it, and finally appreciated—it. Saul Panzer said, “Then the job is to invent one.”
   Wolfe nodded.” It may come to that, Saul. Either that or abandon it. Usually, as you know, I merely give you specific assignments, but in this case you will have to be told the situation and the background. We are dealing with the death of a woman named Faith Usher who drank poisoned champagne at the home of Mrs Robert Robilotti. I suppose you have heard of it.”
   They all had.
   Wolfe drank coffee. “But you should know all that I know, except the identity of my client. Yesterday morning Archie got a phone call from a man he knows, by name Austin Byne, the nephew of Mrs Robilotti. He asked Archie…”
   Seeing that I could be spared for a while, and thinking it was time for another try at Byne, I got up, circled around the trio, went to the kitchen, and dialled the number on the extension there. After five rings I was thinking I was going to draw a blank again, but then I had a voice saying hallo.
   “Byne?” I asked. “Dinky Byne?”
   “Who is this?”
   “Archie Goodwin.”
   “Oh, hallo there. I’ve been thinking you might call. To give me hell for getting you into a mess. I don’t blame you. Go on and say it.”
   “I could all right, but I’ve got another idea. You said you’d return the favour some day, and tomorrow is the day. I want to run up to Grantham House and have a talk with someone there, preferably the woman in charge, and they’re probably having too many visitors and won’t let me in. So I thought you might say a word for me—on the phone, or write a letter I can take, or maybe even go along. How about it?”
   Silence. Then: “What makes you think a word from me would help?”
   “You’re Mrs Robilotti’s nephew. And I heard somebody say, I forget who, that she has sent you there on errands.”
   Another silence. “What are you after? What do you want to talk about?”
   “I’m just curious about something. Some questions the cops have asked me because I was there last night, the mess you got me into, have made me curious.”
   “What questions?”
   “That’s a long story. Also complicated. Just say I’m nosy by nature, that’s why I’m in the detective business. Maybe I’m trying to scare up a client. Anyway, I’m not asking you to attend a death by poisoning, as you did me, though you didn’t know it. I just want you to make a phone call.”
   “I can’t, Archie.”
   “No? Why not?”
   “Because I’m not in a position to. It wouldn’t be– It might look as if—I mean I just can’t do it.”
   “Okay, forget it. I’ll have to feed some other curiosity—I’ve got plenty. For instance, my curiosity about why you asked me to fill in for you because you had such a cold you could hardly talk when you didn’t have a cold—at least not the kind you tried to fake, I haven’t told the cops about that, your faking the cold, so I guess I’d better do that and ask them to ask you why. I’m curious.”
   “You’re crazy. I did have a cold. I wasn’t faking.”
   “Nuts. Take care of yourself. I’ll be seeing you, or the cops will.”
   Silence, a short one.” Don’t hang up, Archie.”
   “Why not? Make an offer.”
   “I want to talk this over. I want to see you, but I don’t want to leave here because I’m expecting a phone call. Maybe you could come here?”
   “Where is here?”
   “My apartment. Eighty-seven Bowdoin Street , in the Village. It’s two blocks south—”
   “I know where it is. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Take some aspirin.”
   When I had hung up, Fritz, who was at the sink, turned to say, “As I thought, Archie. I knew there would be a client, since you were there.”
   I told him I’d have to think that over to decide how to take it, and went to the office to tell the conference it would have to manage without me for a while.

Chapter 7

   There’s no telling what 87 Bowdoin Street had been like a few years back—or rather, there is, if you know the neighbourhood—but someone had spent some dough on it, and it wasn’t at all bad when you got inside. The tile floor was a nice dark green, the walls were a lighter green but the same tone, and the frame of the entrance for the do-it-yourself elevator was outlined with a plain wide strip of dull aluminium. Having been instructed over the intercom in the vestibule, I entered the elevator and pushed the button marked 5.
   When I emerged on the fifth floor Byne was there to greet me and ushered me in. After taking my hat and coat he motioned me through a doorway, and I found myself in a room that I would have been perfectly willing to move to when the day came that Wolfe fired me or I quit, with perhaps a few minor changes. The rugs and chairs were the kind I like, and the lights were okay, and there was no fireplace. I hate fireplaces. When Byne had got me in a chair and asked if I would like a drink, and I had declined with thanks, he stood facing me. He was tall and lanky and loose-jointed, with not much covering for his face bones except skin.
   “That was a hell of a mess I got you into,” he said. “I’m damn sorry.”
   “Don’t mention it,” I told him. “I admit I wondered a little why you picked me. If you want some free advice, free but good, next time you want to cook up a reason for skipping something, don’t overdo it. If you make it a cold, not that kind of a cold, just a plain everyday virus.”
   He turned a chair around and sat. “Apparently you’ve convinced yourself that was a fake.”
   “Sure I have, but my convincing myself doesn’t prove anything. The proof would have to be got, and of course it could be if it mattered enough—items like people you saw or talked to Monday evening, or phoned to yesterday or they phoned you, and whoever keeps this place so nice and clean, if she was here yesterday—things like that. That would be for the cops. If I needed any proof personally, I got it when as soon as I mentioned that the cold was a fake you had to see me right away. So why don’t we just file that?”
   “You said you haven’t told the cops.”
   “Right. It was merely a conclusion I had formed.”
   “Have you told anyone else? My aunt?”
   “No. Certainly not her. I was doing you a favour, wasn’t I?”
   “Yes, and I appreciate it. You know that, Archie, I appreciate it.”
   “Good. We all like to be appreciated. I would appreciate knowing what it is you want to talk over.”
   “Well.” He clasped his hands behind his head, showing how casual it was, just a pair of pals chatting free and easy. “To tell the truth, I’m in a mess too. Or I will be if you’d like to see me squirm. Would you like to see me squirm?”
   “I might if you’re a good squirmer. How do I go about it?”
   “All you have to do is spill it about my faking a cold. No matter who you spill it to it will get to my aunt, and there I am.” He unclasped his hands and leaned forward. “Here’s how it was. I’ve gone to those damn annual dinners on my uncle’s birthday the last three years and I was fed up, and when my aunt asked me again I tried to beg off, but she insisted, and there are reasons why I couldn’t refuse. But Monday night I played poker all night, and yesterday morning I was fuzzy and couldn’t face it. The question was who to tap. For that affair it can’t be just anybody. The first two candidates I picked were out of town, and the next three all had dates. Then I thought of you. I knew you could handle yourself in any situation, and you had met my aunt. So I called you, and you were big-hearted enough to say yes.”
   He sat back. “That’s how it was. Then this morning comes the news of what happened. I said I was sorry I got you into it, and I am, I’m damned sorry, but frankly, I’m damned glad I wasn’t there. It certainly wasn’t a pleasant experience, and I’m just selfish enough to be glad I missed it. You’ll understand that.” “Sure. Congratulations. I didn’t enjoy it much myself.” “I’ll bet you didn’t. So that’s what I wanted, to explain how it was so you’d see it wouldn’t help matters any for anyone to know about my faking a cold. It certainly wouldn’t help me, because it would get to my aunt sooner or later, and you know how she’d be about a thing like that. She’d be sore as hell.”
   I nodded. “I don’t doubt it. Then it’s an ideal situation. You want something from me, and I want something from you. Perfect. We’ll swap. I don’t broadcast about the phoney cold, and you get me an audience at Grantham House. What’s that woman’s name? Irving ?”
   “Irwin. Blanche Irwin.” He scratched the side of his neck with a forefinger.” You want to swap, huh?”
   “I do. What could be fairer?”
   “It’s fair enough,” he conceded. “But I told you on the phone I’m not in a position to do that.”
   “Yeah, but then I was asking a favour. Now I’m making a deal.”
   His neck itched again. “I might stretch a point. I might, if I knew what you want with her. What’s the idea?”
   “Greed. Desire for dough. I’ve been offered five hundred dollars for an eye-witness story on last night, and I want to decorate it with some background. Don’t tell Mrs Irwin that, though. She’s probably down on journalists by now. Just tell her I’m your friend and a good loyal citizen and have only been in jail five times.”
   He laughed. “That’ll do it all right. Wait till you see her.” He sobered.” So that’s it. It’s a funny world, Archie. A girl gets herself in a fix she sees only one way out of, to kill herself, and you’re there to see her do it just because I had had all I wanted of those affairs, and here you’re going to collect five hundred dollars just because you were there. It’s a funny world. So I didn’t do you such a bad turn after all.”
   I had to admit that was one way of looking at it. He said he felt like saluting the funny world with a drink, and wouldn’t I join him, and I said I’d be glad to. When he had gone and brought the requirements, a scotch and water for me and bourbon on the rocks for him, and we had performed the salute, he got at the phone and made a person-to-person call to Mrs Irwin at Grantham House. Apparently there was nothing at all wrong with his position; he merely told her he would appreciate it if she would see a friend of his, and that was all there was to it. She said morning would be better than afternoon. After he hung up we discussed the funny world while finishing the drinks, and when I left one more step had been taken towards the brotherhood of man.
   Back home, the conference was over, the trio had gone, and Wolfe was at his desk with his current book, one he had said I must read, World Peace through World Law , by Grenville Clark and Louis B. Sohn. He finished a paragraph, lowered it, and told me to enter expense advances to Saul and Fred and Orrie, two hundred dollars each. I went to the safe for the book and made the entries, returned the book, locked the safe, and asked him if I needed to know anything about their assignments. He said that could wait, meaning that he wanted to get on with his reading, and asked about mine. I told him it was all set, that he wouldn’t see me in the morning because I would be leaving for Grantham House before nine.
   “I now call Austin Byne ‘Dinky’,” I told him. “I suppose because he’s an inch over six feet, but I didn’t ask. I should report that he balked and I had to apply a little pressure. When he phoned yesterday he tried to sound as if his tubes were dogged, but he boggled it. He had no cold. He now says that he had been to three of those affairs and had had enough, and he rang me only after he had tried five others and they weren’t available. So we made a deal. He gets me in at Grantham House, and I won’t tell his aunt on him. He seems to feel that his aunt might bite.”
   Wolfe grunted. “Nothing is as pitiable as a man afraid of a woman. Is he guileless?”
   “I would reserve it. He is not a dope. He might be capable of knowing that someone was going to kill Faith Usher so that it would pass for suicide, and he wanted somebody there alert and brainy and observant to spot it, so he got me, and he is now counting on me, with your help, to nail him. Or her. Or he may be on the level and merely pitiable.”
   “You and he have not been familiar?”
   “No, sir. Just acquaintances. I have only seen him at parties.”
   “Then his selecting you is suggestive per se .”
   “Certainly. That’s why I took the trouble to go to see him. To observe. There were other ways of getting to Mrs Irwin of Grantham House.”
   “But you have formed no conclusion.”
   “No, sir. Question mark.”
   “Very well. Pfui. Afraid of a woman.” He lifted his book, and I went to the kitchen for a glass of milk.
   At eight-twenty the next morning, Thursday, I was steering the 1957 Heron sedan up the Forty-sixth Street ramp to the West Side Highway. Buying the sedan, the year before, had started an argument that wasn’t finished yet. Wolfe pays for the cars, but I do the driving, and I wanted one I could U-turn when the occasion arose, and that clashed with Wolfe’s notion that anyone in a moving vehicle was in constant deadly peril, and that the peril was in inverse ratio to the size of the vehicle. In a forty-ton truck he might actually have been able to relax. So we got the Heron, and I must say that I had nothing against it but its size.
   I soon had proof of what I had been hearing and reading, that the forty-eight-hour rain in New York had been snow a little to the north. At Hawthorne Circle it was already there at the roadside, and the farther I rolled on the Taconic State Parkway the more there was of it. The sun was on it now, glancing off the slopes of the drifts and banks, and it was very pleasant, fighting the hardships of an old-fashioned winter by sailing along on the concrete at fifty-eight m.p.h. with ridges of white four and five feet high only a step from the hubcaps. When I finally left the parkway and took a secondary road through the hills, the hardships closed in on me some for a few miles, and when I turned in at an entrance between two stone pillars, with “Grantham House“ on one of them, and headed up a curving driveway climbing a hill, only a single narrow lane had been cleared, and as I rounded a sharp curve the hubcaps scraped the ridge.
   Coming out of another curve, I braked and stopped. I was blocked, though not by snow. There were nine or ten of them standing there facing me, pink-faced and bright-eyed in the sunshine, in an assortment of jackets and coats, no hats, some with gloves and some without. They would have been taken anywhere for a bunch of high-school girls except for one thing: they were all too bulky around the middle. They stood and grinned at me, white teeth flashing.
   I cranked the window down and stuck my head out. “Good morning. What do you suggest?”
   One in front, with so much brown hair that only the middle of her face showed, called out,” What paper are you from?”
   “No paper. I’m sorry if I ought to be. I’m just an errand boy. Can you get by?”
   Another one, a blonde, had advanced to the fender. “The trouble is,” she said, “that you’re right in the centre. If you edge over we can squeeze past.” She turned and commanded, “Back up and give him room.”
   They obeyed. When they were far enough away I eased the car forward and to the right until the fender grazed the snowbank, and stopped. They said that was fine and started down the alley single file. As they passed the front fender they turned sidewise, every darned one, which seemed to me to be faulty tactics, since their spread fore and aft was more than from side to side. Also they should have had their backs to the car so their fronts would be against the soft snow, but no, they all faced me. A couple of them made friendly remarks as they went by, and one with a sharp little chin and dancing dark eyes reached in and pulled my nose. I stuck my head out to see that they were all clear, waved good-bye, and pressed gently on the gas.
   Grantham House, which had once been somebody’s mansion, sprawled over about an acre, surrounded by evergreen trees loaded with snow and other trees still in their winter skeletons. A space had been cleared with enough room to turn around, barely, and I left the car there, followed a path across a terrace to a door, opened it, entered, crossed the vestibule, and was in a hall about the size of Mrs Robilotti’s drawing-room. A man who would never see eighty again came hobbling over, squeaking at me, “What’s your name?”
   I told him. He said Mrs Irwin was expecting me, and led me into a smaller room where a woman was sitting at a desk. As I entered she spoke, with a snap.” I hope to goodness you didn’t run over my girls.”
   “Absolutely not,” I assured her.” I stopped to let them by.”
   “Thank you.” She motioned to a chair.” Sit down. The snow has tried to smother us, but they have to get air and exercise. Are you a newspaperman?”
   I told her no and was going to elaborate, but she had the floor. “Mr Byne said your name is Archie Goodwin and you’re a friend of his. According to the newspaper there was an Archie Goodwin at that party at Mrs Robilotti’s. Was that you?”
   I was at a disadvantage. With her smooth hair, partly grey, her compact little figure, and her quick brown eyes wide apart, she reminded me of Miss Clark, my high-school geometry teacher out in Ohio , and Miss Clark had always had my number. I had waited until I saw her to decide just what line to take. First I had to decide whether to say it was me or it was I.
   “Yes,” I said, “that was me. It also said in the paper that I work for a private detective named Nero Wolfe.”
   “I know it did. Are you here as a detective?”
   She certainly liked to come to the point. So had Miss Clark. But I hoped I was man enough not to be afraid of a woman. “The best way to answer that,” I told her, “is to explain why I came. You know what happened at that party and you know I was there. The idea seems to be that Faith Usher committed suicide. I have got the impression that the police may settle for that. But on account of what I saw, and what I didn’t see, I doubt it. My personal opinion is that she was murdered, and if she was, I would hate to see whoever did it get away witty it. But before I start howling about it in public I want to do a little checking, and I thought the best place to check on Faith Usher herself was here with you.”
   “I see.” She sat straight and her eyes were straight. “Then you’re a knight with a plume?”
   “Not at all. I’d feel silly with a plume. My pride is hurt. I’m a professional detective and I try to be a good one, and I believe that someone committed murder right before my eyes, and how do you think I like that?”
   “Why do you believe it was murder?”
   “As I said, on account of what I saw and what I didn’t see. A question of observation. I would prefer to let it go at that if you don’t mind.”
   She nodded. “The professional with his secrets. I have them too; I have a medical degree. Did Mrs Robilotti send you here?”
   That decision wasn’t hard to make. Grantham House wasn’t dependent on Mrs Robilotti, since it had been provided for by Albert Grantham’s will, and it was ten to one that I knew what Mrs Irwin thought of Mrs Robilotti. So I didn’t hesitate.
   “Good heavens, no. To have a suicide in her drawing-room was bad enough. If she knew I was here looking for support for my belief that it was murder she’d have a fit.”
   “Mrs Robilotti doesn’t have fits, Mr Goodwin.”
   “Well, you know her better than I do. If she ever did have a fit this would call for one. Of course, I may be sticking my neck out. If you prefer suicide to murder as much as she does I’ve wasted a lot of gas driving up here.”
   She looked at me, sizing me up.” I don’t,” she said bluntly.
   “Good for you,” I said.
   She lifted her chin. “I see no reason why I shouldn’t tell you what I have told the police. Of course, it’s possible that Faith did kill herself, but I doubt it. I get to know my girls pretty well, and she was here nearly five months, and I doubt it. I knew about the bottle of poison she had—she didn’t tell me, but one of the other girls did—and that was a problem, whether to get it away from her. I decided not to, because it would have been dangerous. As long as she had it and went on showing it and talking about using it, that was her outlet for her nerves, and if I took it away she would have to get some other outlet, and there was no telling what it might be. One reason I doubt if she killed herself is that she still had that bottle of poison.”
   I smiled. “The police would love that.”
   “They didn’t, naturally. Another reason is that if she had finally decided to use the poison she wouldn’t have done it there at that party, with all those people. She would have done it somewhere alone, in the dark, and she would have left a note for me. She knew how I felt about my girls, and she would have known it would hurt me, and she would have left a note. Still another reason is the fact that she was actually pretty tough. That bottle of poison was merely the enemy that she intended to defeat somehow—it was death, and she was going to conquer it. The spirit she had, down deep, showed sometimes in a flash in her eyes. You should have seen that flash.”
   “I did, Tuesday evening when I was dancing with her.”
   “Then she still had it, and she didn’t kill herself. But how are you going to prove it?”
   “I can’t. I can’t prove a negative. I would have to prove an affirmative, or at least open one up. If she didn’t poison her champagne someone else did. Who? That’s the target.”
   “Oh.” Her eyes widened. “Good heavens! That’s obvious, certainly, but if you’ll believe me, Mr Goodwin, it hadn’t occurred to me. My only thought was that Faith had not killed herself. My mind had stopped there.” Her lips tightened. She shook her head. “I can’t help it,” she said emphatically. “I wish you success, anyhow. I would help you if I could.”
   “You already have,” I assured her, “and maybe you can more. If you don’t mind a few questions. Since you’ve read the paper, you know who was there Tuesday evening. About the three girls—Helen Yarmis, Ethel Varr, and Rose Tutde—they were all here at the time Faith Usher was, weren’t they?”
   “Yes. That is, the times overlapped. Helen and Ethel left a month before Faith did. Rose came six weeks before Faith left.”
   “Had any of them known her before?”
   “No. I didn’t ask them—I ask the girls as few questions as possible about their past—but there was no indication that they had, and there isn’t much going on here that I don’t know about.”
   “Did any trouble develop between any of them and her?”
   She smiled. “Now, Mr Goodwin. I said I would help you if I could, but this is ridiculous. My girls have their squabbles and their peeves, naturally, but I assure you that nothing that happened here put murder into the heart of Helen or Ethel or Rose. If it had I would have known it, and I would have dealt with it.”
   “Okay. If it wasn’t one of them I’ll have to look elsewhere. Take the three male guests—Edwin Laidlaw, Paul Schuster, and Beverly Kent. Do you know any of them?”
   “No. I had never heard their names before.”
   “You know nothing about them?”
   “Nothing whatever.”
   “What about Cecil Grantham?”
   “I haven’t seen him for several years. His father brought him twice—no, three times—to our summer picnic, when Cecil was in his middle teens. After his father died he was on our Board of Directors for a year, but he resigned.”
   “You know of no possible connection between him and Faith Usher?”
   “No.”
   “What about Robert Robilotti?”
   “I have seen him only once, more than two years ago, when he came to our Thanksgiving dinner with Mrs Robilotti. He played the piano for the girls and had them singing songs, and when Mrs Robilotti was ready to leave, the girls didn’t want him to go. My feelings were mixed.”
   “I’ll bet they were. Faith Usher wasn’t here then?”
   “No.”
   “Well, we’re all out of men. Celia Grantham?”
   “I knew Celia fairly well at one time. For a year or so after she finished college she came here frequently, three or four times a month, to teach the girls things and talk with them; then suddenly she quit. She was a real help and the girls liked her. She has fine qualities, or had, but she is headstrong. I haven’t seen her for four years. I am tempted to add something.”
   “Go ahead.”
   “I wouldn’t if I thought you would misunderstand. You are looking for a murderer, and Celia would be quite capable of murder if she thought the occasion demanded it. The only discipline she recognizes is her own. But I can’t imagine an occasion that would have led her to kill Faith Usher. I haven’t seen her for four years.”
   “Then if she had had contact with Faith Usher you wouldn’t know about it. Least but not last, Mrs Robilotti.”
   “Well.” She smiled.” She is Mrs Robilotti.”
   I smiled back.” I agree. You certainly have known her. She was Mrs Albert Grantham. I am tempted to add something.”
   “You may.”
   “I wouldn’t if I thought you would misunderstand. I feel that if you knew anything that would indicate that Mrs Robilotti might have killed Faith Usher you would think it was your duty to tell me about it. So I can simply ask, do you?”
   “That’s rather cheeky, Mr Goodwin. But I simply answer, I do not. Ever since Mr Grantham died Mrs Robilotti has been coming here about once a month except when she was travelling, but she has never been at ease with the girls, nor they with her. Of course she came while Faith was here, but as far as I know she never spoke with her except as one of a group. So my answer to your question is no.”
   “Who picks the girls to be invited to the annual dinner on Grantham’s birthday?”
   “When Mr Grantham was alive, I did. The first few years after he died, Mrs Grantham did, on information I supplied. The last two years she has left it to Mr Byne, and he consults me.”
   “Is that so? Dinky didn’t mention that.”
   “ ‘Dinky’? ”
   “Mr Byne. We call him that. I’ll ask him about it. But if you don’t mind telling me, how does he do it? Does he suggest names and ask you about them?”
   “No, I make a list, chiefly of girls who have been here in the past year, with information and comments, and he chooses from that. I make the list with care. Some of my girls would not be comfortable in those surroundings. On what basis Mr Byne makes his selections, I don’t know.”
   “I’ll ask him.” I put a hand on her desk. “And now for the main point, what I was mostly counting on if you felt like helping me. It’s very likely that the event or the situation, whatever it was, that led to Faith Usher’s death dated from before she came here. It could have happened after she left, but you wouldn’t know about that anyway. She was here nearly five months. You said you ask the girls as few questions as possible about their pasts, but they must tell you a lot, don’t they?”
   “Some of them do.”
   “Of course. And of course you keep it in confidence. But Faith is dead, and you said you’d help me if you could. She must have told you things. She may even have told you the name of the man who was responsible for her being here. Did she?”
   I asked that because I had to. Mrs Irwin was much too smart not to realize that that was the first and foremost question a detective would want answered about Faith Usher’s past, and if I hadn’t asked it she would have wondered why and might even have been bright enough to suspect that I already knew. There wasn’t much chance that she had the answer, in view of her tone and manner when she said that she had never heard of Edwin Laidlaw.
   “No,” she said.” She never said a word about him to me, and I doubt if she did to any of the girls.”
   “But she did tell you things?”
   “Not very much. If you mean facts, people she had known and things she had done, really nothing. But she talked with me a good deal, and I formed two conclusions about her—I mean about her history. No, three. One was that she had had only one sexual relationship with a man, and a brief one. Another was that she had never known her father and probably didn’t know who he was. The third was that her mother was still alive and that she hated her—no, hate is too strong a word. Faith was not a girl for hating. Perhaps the word is repugnance. I made those three conclusions, but she never stated any of them explicitly. Beyond that I know nothing about her past.”
   “Do you know her mother’s name?”
   “No. As I said, I have no facts.”
   “How did she get to Grantham House?”
   “She came here one day in March, just a year ago. She was in her seventh month. No letter or phone call, she just came. She said she had once read about Grantham House in a magazine and she remembered it. Her baby was born on May eighteenth.” She smiled. “I don’t have on my tongue the dates of all the births here, but I looked it up for the police.”
   “Is there any possibility that the baby is involved? I mean in her death? Anything or anyone connected with it or its adoption?”
   “Not the slightest. Absolutely none. I handle that. You may take my word for it.”
   “Did she ever have any visitors here?”
   “No. Not one.”
   “You say she was here five months, so she left in August. Did someone come for her?”
   “No. Usually the girls don’t stay so long after the baby comes, but Faith had rather a bad time and had to get her strength back. Actually someone did come for her—Mrs James Robbins, one of our directors, drove her to New York . Mrs Robbins had got a job for her at Berwick’s, the furniture store, and had arranged for her to share a room with another girl, Helen Yarmis. As you know, Helen was there Tuesday evening. Helen might know if anything—Yes, Dora?”
   I turned my head. The woman who had opened the door—middle-aged and a little too plump for her blue uniform—stood holding the knob. She spoke. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Doctor, but Katherine may be going to rush things a bit. Four times since nine o’clock, and the last one was only twenty minutes.”
   Mrs Irwin was out of her chair and moving. By the time she reached me I was up too, to take the hand she offered.
   “It may be only a prelude,” she said, “but I’d better go and see. I repeat, Mr Goodwin, I wish you success, in spite of what success would mean. I don’t envy you your job, but I wish you success. You’ll forgive me for rushing off.”
   I told her I would, and I could have added that I’d rather have my job than hers, or Katherine’s either. As I got my coat from a chair and put it on I figured that if she had been there fifteen years and had averaged one a week Katherine’s would be the 34-th, or even at two a month it would be the 36-th… On my way out to the car I had a worry. If I met the girls on their way back the manoeuvre would have to be repeated with me headed downhill and them up, and I didn’t like the idea of them rubbing their fronts along the side of the car again, with the door handles. But luckily, as I started the engine, here they came, straggling from the tunnel of the driveway into the cleared space. Their faces were even pinker and they were puffing. One of them sang out, “Oh, are you going?” and another one called, “Why don’t you stay for lunch?” I told them some other time. I was glad I had turned the car around on arrival. I had an impulse to tell them Katherine was tuning up for her big act to see how they would take it, but decided it wouldn’t be tactful, and when they had cleared the way I fed gas and rolled. The only one who didn’t tell me good-bye was out of breath.

Chapter 8

   When we have company in the office I like to be there when they arrive, even if the matter being discussed isn’t very important or lucrative, but that time I missed it by five minutes. When I got there at five past six that afternoon Wolfe was behind his desk, Orrie Gather was in my chair, and Helen Yarmis, Ethel Varr, and Rose Turtle were there in three of the yellow chairs facing Wolfe. As I entered, Orrie got up and moved to the couch. He has not entirely given up the idea that some day my desk and chair will be his for good, and he liked to practise sitting there when I am not present.
   Not that it had taken me six hours to drive back from Grantham House. I had got back in time to eat my share of lunch, kept warm by Fritz, and then had given Wolfe a verbatim report of my talk with Mrs Irwin. He was sceptical of my opinion that her mind was sound and her heart was pure, since he is convinced that every woman alive has a screw loose somewhere, but he had to agree that she had talked to the point, she had furnished a few hints that might be useful about some of our cast of characters, and she had fed the possibility that Austin Byne might not be guileless. Further discourse with Dinky was plainly indicated. I dialled his number and got no answer, and, since he might be giving his phone a recess, I took a walk through the sunshine, first to the bank to deposit Laidlaw’s cheque and then down to 87 Bowdoin Street.
   Pushing Byne’s button in the vestibule got no response. I had suggested to Wolfe that I might take along an assortment of keys so that if Byne wasn’t home I could go on in and pass the time by looking around, but Wolfe had vetoed it, saying that Byne had not yet aroused our interest quite to that point. So I spent a long hour and a quarter in a doorway across the street. That’s one of the most tiresome chores in the business, waiting for someone to show when you have no idea how long it will be and you haven’t much more idea whether he has anything that will help.
   It was twelve minutes past five when a taxi rolled to a stop at the curb in front of 87 and Byne climbed out. When he turned after paying the hackie, I was there.
   “We must share a beam,” I told him. “I feel a desire to see you, and come, and here you are.”
   Something had happened to the brotherhood of man. His eye was cold. “What the hell—” he began, and stopped. “Not here,” he said. ”Come on up.”
   Even his manners were affected. He entered the elevator ahead of me, and upstairs, though he let me precede him into the apartment, I had to deal with my coat and hat unaided. Inside, in the room that would require only minor changes, my fanny was barely touching the chair seat when he demanded, “What’s this crap about murder?”
   “That word ‘crap’ bothers me,” I said. “The way we used it when I was a boy out in Ohio , we knew exactly what it meant. But I looked it up in the dictionary once, and there’s no—”
   “Nuts.” He sat. “My aunt says that you’re saying that Faith Usher was murdered, and that on account of you the police won’t accept the fact that it was suicide. You know damn well it was suicide. What are you trying to pull?”
   “No pull.” I clasped my hands behind my head, showing it was just a pair of pals chatting free and easy, or ought to be. “Look, Dinky. You are neither a cop nor a district attorney. I have given them a statement of what I saw and heard at that party Tuesday evening, and if you want to know why that makes them go slow on their verdict you’ll have to ask them. If I told them any lies they’ll catch up with me and I’ll be hooked. I’m not going to start an argument with you about it.”
   “What did you say in your statement?”
   I shook my head. “Get the cops to tell you. I won’t. I’ll tell you this: if my statement is all that keeps them from calling it suicide, I’m the goat. I’ll be responsible for a lot of trouble for that whole bunch, and I don’t like it but can’t help it. So I’m doing a little checking on my own. That’s why I wanted to see Mrs Irwin at Grantham House. I told you I had been offered five hundred bucks for a story on Faith Usher, and I had, but what I was really after was information on whether anyone at that party might have had any reason to kill her. For example, if someone intended to kill her at that party he had to know she would be there. So I wanted to ask Mrs Irwin how she had been picked to be invited and who had picked her.”
   I gave him a friendly grin. “And I asked her and she told me, and that was certainly no help, since it was you, and you weren’t at the party. You even faked a cold to get out of going—and by the way, I said I wouldn’t broadcast that, and I haven’t.” I thought it wouldn’t hurt to remind him that there was still a basis for brotherhood.
   “I know,” he said, “you’ve got that to shake at me. About my picking Faith Usher to be invited, I suppose Mrs Irwin told you how it was done. I know she told the police. She gave me a list of names with comments, and I merely picked four of the names. I’ve just been down at the District Attorney’s office telling them about it. As I explained to them, I had no personal knowledge of any of those girls. From Mrs Irwin’s comments I just picked the ones that seemed to be the most desirable.”
   “Did you keep the list? Have you got it?”
   “I had it, but an assistant district attorney took it. One named Mandelbaum. No doubt he’ll show it to you if you ask him.”
   I ignored the dig. “Anyway,” I said, “even if the comments showed that you stretched a point to pick Faith Usher, that wouldn’t cross any Ts, since you skipped the party. Did anyone happen to be with you when you were making the selections? Someone who said something like, ‘there’s one with a nice name, Faith Usher, a nice unusual name, why don’t you ask her?’ ”
   “No one was with me. I was alone.” He pointed. “At that desk.”
   “Then that’s out.” I was disappointed. “If you don’t mind my asking, a little point occurred to me as I was driving back from Grantham House—that you were interested enough to take the trouble to pick the girls to be invited, but not enough to go to the party. You even went to a lot of trouble to stay away. That seemed a little inconsistent, but I suppose you can explain it.”
   “To you? Why should I?”
   “Well, explain it to yourself and I’ll listen.”
   “There’s nothing to explain. I picked the girls because my aunt asked me to. I did it last year too. I told you last night why I skipped the party.” He cocked his head, making the skin even tighter on his cheekbone. “What the hell are you driving at, anyhow? Do you know what I think?”
   “No, but I’d like to. Tell me.”
   He hesitated. “I don’t mean that, exactly, what I think. I mean what my aunt thinks—or I’ll put it this way, an idea she’s got in her mind. I guess she hasn’t forgotten that remark you made once that she resented. Also she feels that Wolfe overcharged her for that job he did. The idea is that if you have sold the police and the District Attorney on your murder theory, and if they make things unpleasant enough for her and her guests you and Wolfe might figure that she would be willing to make a big contribution to have it stopped. A contribution that would make you remember something that would change their minds. What do you think of that?”
   “It is an idea,” I conceded, “but it has a flaw. If I remembered something now that I didn’t put in my statement, no contribution from your aunt would replace my hide that the cops and the D.A. would peel off. Tell your aunt that I appreciate the compliment and her generous offer, but I can’t—”
   “I didn’t say she made an offer. You keep harping on your damn statement. What’s in it?”
   That was what was biting him, naturally, as it had bit Celia Grantham and Edwin Laidlaw, and probably all of them. For ten minutes he did the harping on it. He didn’t go so far as to make a cash offer, either on his own or on behalf of his aunt, but he appealed to everything from my herd instinct to my better nature. I would have let him go on as long as his breath lasted, on the chance that he might drop a word with a spark of light in it, if I hadn’t known that company was expected at the office at six o’clock and I wanted to be there when they arrived. When I left he was so frustrated he didn’t even go to the hall with me.
   I had shaved it pretty close, and that was the worst time of day for uptown traffic, so I didn’t quite make it. It was six-five when I climbed out of the taxi and headed for the stoop. If you think I was straining my nerves more than necessary, you don’t know Wolfe as I do. I have seen him get up and march out and take to his elevator merely because a woman has burst into tears or started screaming at him, and the expected company, he had told me, was three females, Helen Yarmis, Ethel Varr, and Rose Tuttle, and there was no telling what shape they might be in after the sessions they had been having with various officers of the law.
   Therefore I was relieved when I entered the office and found that everything was peaceful, with Wolfe at his desk, the girls in a row facing him, and Orrie in my chair. As I greeted the guests Orrie moved to the couch, and when I was where I belonged Wolfe addressed me.
   “We have only exchanged civilities, Archie. Have you anything that should be reported?”
   “Nothing that won’t wait, no, sir. He is still afraid of a woman.”
   He went to the company. “As I was saying, ladies, I thank you for coming. You were under no obligation. Mr Gather, asking you to come, explained that Mr Goodwin’s opinion, expressed in your hearing Tuesday evening, that Faith Usher was murdered, has produced some complications that are of concern to me, and that I wished to consult with you. Mr Goodwin still believes—”
   “I told him,” Rose Tuttle blurted, “that Faith might take the poison right there, and he said he would see that nothing happened, but it did.” Her blue eyes and round face weren’t as cheerful as they had been at the party, in fact they weren’t cheerful at all, but her curves were all in place and her pony tail made its jaunty arc.
   Wolfe nodded.” He has told me of that. But he thinks that what happened was not what you feared. He still believes that someone else poisoned Miss Usher’s champagne. Do you disagree with him, Miss Tuttle?”
   “I don’t know. I thought she might do it, but I didn’t see her. I’ve answered so many questions about it that now I don’t know what I think.”
   “Miss Varr?”
   You may remember my remark that I would have picked Ethel Varr if I had been shopping. Since she was facing Wolfe and I had her in profile, and she was in daylight from the windows, her face wasn’t ringing any of the changes in its repertory, but that was a good angle for it, and the way she carried her head would never change. Her lips parted and closed again before she answered.
   “I don’t think,” she said in a voice that wanted to tremble but she wouldn’t let it, “that Faith killed herself.”
   “You don’t, Miss Varr? Why?”
   “Because I was looking at her. When she took the champagne and drank it. I was standing talking with Mr Goodwin, only just then we weren’t saying anything because Rose had told me that she had told him about Faith having the poison, and he was watching Faith so I was watching her too, and I’m sure she didn’t put anything in the champagne because I would have seen her. The police have been trying to get me to say that Mr Goodwin told me to say that, but I keep telling them that he couldn’t because he hasn’t said anything to me at all. He hasn’t had a chance to.” Her head turned, changing her face, of course, as I had it straight on. “Have you, Mr Goodwin?”
   I wanted to go and give her a hug and a kiss, and then go and shoot Cramer and a few assistant district attorneys. Cramer hadn’t seen fit to mention that my statement had had corroboration; in fact, he had said that if it wasn’t for me suicide would be a reasonable assumption. The damn liar. After I shot him I would sue him for damages.
   “Of course not,” I told her. “If I may make a personal remark, you told me at the dinner table that you were only nineteen years old and hadn’t learned how to take things, but you have certainly learned how to observe things, and how to take your ground and stand on it.” I turned to Wolfe.” It wouldn’t hurt any to tell her it’s satisfactory.”
   “It is,” he acknowledged. “Indeed, Miss Varr, quite satisfactory.” That, if she had only known it, was a triumph. He gave me a satisfactory only when I hatched a masterpiece. His eyes moved. “Miss Yarmis?”
   Helen Yarmis still had her dignity, but the corners of her wide, curved mouth were apparently down for good, and since that was her best feature she looked pretty hopeless. “All I can do,” she said stiffly, “is say what I think. I think Faith killed herself. I told her it was dumb to take that poison along to a party where we were supposed to have a good time, but I saw it there in her bag. Why would she take it along to a party like that if she wasn’t going to use it?”
   Wolfe’s understanding of women has some big gaps, but at least he knows enough not to try using logic on them. He merely ignored her appeal to unreason. “When,” he asked, “did you tell her not to take the poison along?”
   “When we were dressing to go to the party. We lived in an apartment together. Just a big bedroom with a kitchenette, and the bathroom down the hall, but I guess that’s an apartment.”
   “How long had you and she been living together?”
   “Seven months. Since August, when she left Grantham House. I can tell you anything you want to ask, after the way I’ve been over it the last two days. Mrs Robbins brought her from Grantham House on a Friday so she could get settled to go to work at Barwick’s on Monday. She didn’t have many clothes—”
   “If you please, Miss Yarmis. We must respect the convenience of Miss Varr and Miss Tuttle. During those seven months did Miss Usher have many callers?”
   “She never had any.”
   “Neither men nor women?”
   “No. Except once a month when Mrs Robbins came to see how we were getting along, that was all.”
   “How did she spend her evenings?”
   “She went to school four nights a week to learn typing and shorthand. She was going to be a secretary. I never saw how she could if she was as tired as I was. Fridays we often went to the movies. Sundays she would go for walks, that’s what she said. I was too tired. Anyway, sometimes I had a date, and—”
   “If you please. Did Miss Usher have no friends at all? Men or women?”
   “I never saw any. She never had a date. I often told her that was no way to live, just crawl along like a worm—”
   “Did she get any mail?”
   “I don’t know, but I don’t think so. The mail was downstairs on a table in the hall. I never saw her write any letters.”
   “Did she get any telephone calls?”
   “The phone was downstairs in the hall, but of course I would have known if she got a call when I was there. I don’t remember she ever got one. This is kinda funny, Mr Wolfe. I can answer your questions without even thinking because they’re all the same questions the police have been asking, even the same words, so I don’t have to stop to think.”
   I could have given her a hug and kiss too, though not in the same spirit as with Ethel Varr. Anyone who takes Wolfe down a peg renders a service to the balance of nature, and to tell him to his face that he was merely a carbon copy of the cops was enough to spoil his appetite for dinner.
   He grunted. “Every investigator follows a routine up to a point. Miss Yarmis. Beyond that point comes the opportunity for talent if any is at hand. I find it a little difficult to accept your portfolio of negatives.” Another grunt. “It may not be outside my capacity to contrive a question that will not parrot the police. I’ll try. Do you mean to tell me that during the seven months you lived with Miss Usher you had no inkling of her having any social or personal contact—excluding her job and night school and the visits of Mrs Robbins—with any of her fellow beings?”
   Helen was frowning. The frown deepened. “Say it again,” she commanded.
   He did so, slower.
   “They didn’t ask that,” she declared.” What’s an inkling?”
   “An intimation. A hint.”
   She still frowned. She shook her head. “I don’t remember any hints.”
   “Did she never tell you that she had met a man that day that she used tomorrow? Or a woman? Or that someone, perhaps a customer at Barwick’s, had annoyed her? Or that she had been accosted on the street? Did she never account for a headache or a fit of ill humour by telling of an encounter she had had? An encounter is a meeting face to face. Did she never mention a single name in connection with some experience, either pleasant or disagreeable? In all your hours together, did nothing ever remind her—What is it?”
   Helen’s frown had gone suddenly, and the corners of her mouth had lifted a little. “Headache,” she said. “Faith never had headaches, except only once, one day when she came home from work. She wouldn’t eat anything and she didn’t go to school that night, and I wanted her to take some aspirin but she said it wouldn’t help any. Then she asked me if I had a mother, and I said my mother was dead and she said she wished hers was. That didn’t sound like her and I said that was an awful thing to say, and she said she knew it was but I might say it too if I had a mother like hers, and she said she had met her on the street when she was out for lunch and there had been a scene, and she had to run to get away from her.” Helen was looking pleased.” So that was a contact, wasn’t it?”
   “It was. What else did she say about it?”
   “That was all. The next day—no, the day after—she said she was sorry she had said it and she hadn’t really meant it, about wishing her mother was dead. I told her if all the people died that I had wished they were dead there wouldn’t be room in the cemeteries. Of course that was exaggerated, but I thought it would do her good to know that people were wishing people were dead all the time.”
   “Did she ever mention her mother again?”
   “No, just that once.”
   “Well. We have recalled one contact, perhaps we can recall another.”
   But they couldn’t. He contrived other questions that didn’t parrot the police, but all he got was a collection of blanks, and finally he gave it up.
   He moved his eyes to include the others. “Perhaps I should have explained,” he said, “exactly why I wanted to talk with you. First, since you had been in close association with Miss Usher, I wanted to know your attitude towards Mr Goodwin’s opinion that she did not kill herself. On the whole you have supported it. Miss Varr has upheld it on valid grounds, Miss Yarmis has opposed it on ambiguous grounds, and Miss Turtle is uncertain.”
   That was foxy and unfair. He knew damn well Helen Yarmis wouldn’t know what “ambiguous” meant, and that was why he used it.
   He was going on.” Second, since I am assuming that Mr Goodwin is right, that Miss Usher did not poison her champagne and that therefore someone else did, I wanted to look at you and hear you talk. You are three of the eleven people who were there and are suspect; I exclude Mr Goodwin. One of you might have taken that opportunity to use a lump of the poison that you all knew—”
   “But we couldn’t!” Rose Turtle blurted. “Ethel was with Archie Goodwin. Helen was with that publisher, what’s-his-name, Laidlaw, and I was with the one with big ears– Kent . So we couldn’t!”
   Wolfe nodded. “I know, Miss Turtle. Evidentially, nobody could, so I must approach from another direction, and all eleven of you are suspect. I don’t intend to harass you ladies in an effort to trick you into betraying some guarded secret of your relationship with Miss Usher; that’s an interminable and laborious process and all night would only start it; and besides, it would probably be futile. If one of you has such a secret it will have to be exposed by other means. But I did want to look at you and hear you talk.”
   “I haven’t talked much,” Ethel Varr said.
   “No,” Wolfe agreed, “but you supported Mr Goodwin, and that alone is suggestive. Third—and this was the main point—I wanted your help. I am assuming that if Miss Usher was murdered you would wish the culprit to be disclosed. I am also assuming that none of you has so deep an interest in any of the other eight people there that you would want to shield him from exposure if he is guilty.”
   “I certainly haven’t,” Ethel Varr declared. “Like I told you, I’m sure Faith didn’t put anything in her champagne, and if she didn’t, who did? I’ve been thinking about it. I know it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Mr Goodwin, and I’m sure it wasn’t Helen or Rose. How many does that leave?”
   “Eight. The three male guests, Laidlaw, Schuster, and Kent. The butler. Mr Grantham and Miss Grantham. Mr and Mrs Robilotti.”
   “Well, I certainly don’t want to shield any of them .”
   “Neither do I,” Rose Turtle asserted, “if one of them did it.”
   “You couldn’t shield them,” Helen Yarmis told them, “if they didn’t do it. There wouldn’t be anything to shield them from.”
   “You don’t understand, Helen,” Rose told her. “He wants to find out who it was. Now, for instance, what if it was Cecil Grantham, and what if you saw him take the bottle out of Faith’s bag and put it back, or something like that, would you want to shield him? That’s what he wants to know.”
   “But that’s just it,” Helen objected. “If Faith did it herself, why would I want to shield him?”
   “But Faith didn’t do it. Ethel and Mr Goodwin were both looking at her.”
   “Then why,” Helen demanded, “did she take the bottle to the party when I told her not to?”
   Rose shook her head, wiggling the pony tail. “You’d better explain it,” she told Wolfe.
   “I fear,” he said, “that it’s beyond my powers. It may clear the air a little if I say that a suspicious word or action at the party, like Mr Grantham’s taking the bottle from the bag, was not what I had in mind. I meant, rather, to ask if you know anything about any of those eight people that might suggest the possibility of a reason. why one of them might have wanted Miss Usher to die. Do you know of any connection between one of them and Miss Usher—either her or someone associated with her?”
   “I don’t,” Rose said positively.
   “Neither do I,” Ethel declared.
   “There’s so many of them,” Helen complained. “Who are they again?”
   Wolfe, patient under stress, pronounced the eight names.
   Helen was frowning again. “The only connection I know about,” she said, “is Mrs Robilotti. When she came to Grantham House to see us. Faith didn’t like her.”
   Rose snorted.” Who did?”
   Wolfe asked. “Was there something definite, Miss Yarmis? Something between Miss Usher and Mrs Robilotti?”
   “I guess not,” Helen conceded. “I guess it wasn’t any more definite with Faith than it was with the rest of us.”
   “Did you have in mind something in particular that Miss Usher and Mrs Robilotti said to each other?”
   “Oh, no. I never heard Faith say anything to her at all. Neither . did I. She thought we were harlots.”
   “Did she use that word? Did she call you harlots?”
   “Of course not. She tried to be nice but didn’t know how. One of the girls said that one day when she had been there, she said that she thought we were harlots.”
   “Well.” Wolfe took in air, in and clear down to his middle, and let it out again.” I thank you again, ladies, for coming.” He pushed his chair back and rose.” We seem to have made little progress, but at least I have seen and talked with you, and I know where to reach you if the occasion arises.”
   “One thing I don’t see,” Rose Turtle said as she left her chair. “Mr Goodwin said he wasn’t there as a detective, but he is a detective, and I had told him about Faith having the poison, and I should think he ought to know exactly what happened. I didn’t think anyone could commit a murder with a detective right there.”
   A very superficial and half-baked way to look at it, I thought, as I got up to escort the ladies out.

Chapter 9

   Paul Schuster, the promising young corporation lawyer with the thin nose and quick dark eyes, sat in the red leather chair at a quarter past eleven Friday morning, with the eyes focused on Wolfe. “We do not claim/ he said, “to have evidence that you have done anything that is actionable. It should be clearly understood that we are not presenting a threat. But it is a fact that we are being injured, and if you are responsible for the injury it may become a question of law.”
   Wolfe moved his head to take the others in—Cecil Grantham, Beverly Kent, and Edwin Laidlaw, lined up on yellow chairs—and to include them. “I am not aware,” he said dryly, “of having inflicted an injury on anyone.”
   Of course that wasn’t true. What he meant was that he hadn’t inflicted the injury he was trying to inflict. Forty-eight hours had passed since Laidlaw had written his cheque for twenty thousand dollars and put it on Wolfe’s desk, and we hadn’t earned a dime of it, and the prospect of ever earning it didn’t look a bit brighter. Dinky Byne’s cover, if he had anything to cover, was intact. The three unmarried mothers had supplied no crack to start a wedge. Orrie Gather, having delivered them at the office for consultation, had been given another assignment, and had come Thursday evening after dinner, with Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin, to report; and all it had added up to was an assortment of blanks. If anyone had had any kind of connection with Faith Usher, it had been buried good and deep, and the trio had been told to keep digging.
   When, a little after ten Friday morning, Paul Schuster had phoned to say that he and Grantham and Laidlaw and Kent wanted to see Wolfe, and the sooner the better, I had broken two of the standing rules: that I make no appointments without checking with Wolfe, and that I disturb him in the plant rooms only for emergencies. I had told Schuster to be there at eleven, and I had buzzed the plant rooms on the house phone to tell Wolfe that company was coming. When he growled I told him that I had looked up “emergency” in the dictionary, and it meant an unforeseen combination of circumstances which calls for immediate action, and if he wanted to argue either with the dictionary or with me I was willing to go upstairs and have it out. He had hung up on me.
   And was now telling Schuster that he was not aware of having inflicted an injury on anyone.
   “Oh, for God’s sake,” Cecil Grantham said.
   “Facts are facts,” Beverly Kent muttered. Unquestionably a diplomatic way of putting it, suitable for a diplomat. When he got a little higher up the ladder he might refine it by making it “A fact is a fact is a fact.”
   “Do you deny,” Schuster demanded, “that we owe it to Goodwin that we are being embarrassed and harassed by a homicide investigation? And he is your agent, employed by you. No doubt you know the legal axiom, respondent superior . Isn’t that an injury?”
   “Not only that,” Cecil charged, “but he goes up to Grantham House, sticking his nose in. And yesterday a man tried to pump my mother’s butler, and he had no credentials, and I want to know if you sent him. And another man with no credentials is asking questions about me among my friends, and I want to know if you sent him .”
   “To me,” Beverly Kent stated, “the most serious aspect is the scope of the police inquiry. My work on our Mission to the United Nations is in a sensitive field, very sensitive, and already I have been definitely injured. Merely to have been present when a sensational event occurred, the suicide of that young woman, would have been unfortunate. To be involved in an extended police inquiry, a murder investigation, could be disastrous for me. If in addition to that you are sending your private agents among my friends and associates to inquire about me, that is adding insult to injury. I have no information of that, as yet. But you have, Cece?”
   Cecil nodded.” I sure have.”
   “So have I,” Schuster said.
   “Have you, Ed?”
   Laidlaw cleared his throat. “No direct information, no. Nothing explicit. But I have reason to suspect it.”
   He handled it pretty well, I thought. Naturally he had to be with them, since if he had refused to join in the attack they would have wondered why, but he wanted Wolfe to understand that he was still his client.
   “You haven’t answered my question,” Schuster told Wolfe.” Do you deny that we owe this harassment to Goodwin, and therefore to you, since he is your agent?”
   “No,” Wolfe said. “But you owe it to me, through Mr Goodwin, only secondarily. Primarily you owe it to the man or woman who murdered Faith Usher. So it’s quite possible that one of you owes it to himself.”
   “I knew it,” Cecil declared.” I told you, Paul.”
   Schuster ignored him. “As I said,” he told Wolfe, “this may become a question of law.”
   “I expect it to, Mr Schuster. A murder trial is commonly regarded as a matter of law.” Wolfe leaned forward, flattened his palms on the desk, and sharpened his tone.” Gentlemen. Let’s get to the point, if there is one. What are you here for? Not, I suppose, merely to grumble at me. To buy me off? To bully me? To dispute my ground? What are you after?”
   “Goddamm it,” Cecil demanded, “what are you after? That’s the point! What are you trying to pull? Why did you send—”
   “Shut up, Cece,” Beverly Kent ordered him, not diplomatic at all. “Let Paul tell him.”
   The lawyer did so. “Your insinuation,” Schuster said, “that we have entered into a conspiracy to buy you off is totally unwarranted. Or to bully you. We came because we feel, with reason, that our rights of privacy are being violated without provocation or just cause, and that you are responsible. We doubt if you can justify that responsibility, but we thought you should have a chance to do so before we consider what steps may be taken legally in the matter.”
   “Pfui”, Wolfe said.
   “An expression of contempt is hardly an adequate justification, Mr Wolfe.”
   “I didn’t intend it to be, sir.” Wolfe leaned back and clasped his fingers at the apex of his central mound. “This is futile, gentlemen, both for you and for me. Neither of us can possibly be gratified. You want a stop put to your involvement in a murder inquiry, and my concern is to involve you as deeply as possible—the innocent along with—”
   “Why?” Schuster demanded.” Why are you concerned?”
   “Because Mr Goodwin’s professional reputation and competence have been challenged, and by extension my own. You invoked respondent superior ; I will not only answer, I will act. That the innocent must be involved along with the guilty is regrettable but unavoidable. So you can’t get what you want, but no more can I. What I want is a path to a fact. I want to know if one of you has buried in his past a fact that will account for his resort to murder to get rid of Faith Usher, and if so, which. Manifestly you are not going to sit here and submit to a day-long inquisition by me, and even if you did, the likelihood that one of you would betray the existence of such a fact is minute. So, as I say, this is futile both for you and for me. I wish you good day only as a matter of form.”
   But it wasn’t quite that simple. They had come for a showdown, and they weren’t going to be bowed out with a “good day” as a matter of form—at least, three of them weren’t. They got pretty well worked up before they left. Schuster forgot all about saying that they hadn’t come to present a threat. Kent went far beyond the bounds of what I would call diplomacy. Cecil Grantham blew his top, at one point even pounding the top of Wolfe’s desk with his fist. I was on my feet, to be handy in case one of them lost control and picked up a chair to throw but my attention was mainly on our client. He was out of luck. For the sake of appearance he sort of tried to join in, but his heart wasn’t in it, and all he could manage was a mumble now and then. He didn’t leave his chair until Cecil headed for the door, followed by Kent , and then, not wanting to be the last one out, he jumped up and went. I stepped to the hall to see that no one took my new hat in the excitement, went and tried the door after they were out, and returned to the office.
   I expected to see Wolfe leaning back with his eyes closed, but no. He was sitting up straight, glaring at space. He transferred the glare to me.
   “This is grotesque,” he growled.
   “It certainly is,” I agreed warmly. “Four of the suspects come to see you uninvited, all set for a good long heart-to-heart talk, and what do they get? Bounced. The trouble is, one of them was our client, and he may think we’re loafing on the job.”
   “Bah. When the men phone tell them to come in at three. No. At two-thirty. No. At two o’clock. We’ll have lunch early. I’ll tell Fritz.” He got up and marched out.
   I felt uplifted. That he was calling the men in for new instructions was promising. That he had changed it from three o’clock, when his lunch would have been settled, to two-thirty, when digestion would have barely started, was impressive. That he had advanced it again, to two, with an early lunch, was inspiring. And then to go to tell Fritz instead of ringing for him—all hell was popping.