“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. Cather, 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 a 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 to know? 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 humor 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 toward 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 Tuttle 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 Tuttle 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 Tuttle. 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 Tuttle asser
ted, “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.”
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