Champagne for One

by Rex Stout

  “But Archie! He’s at dinner!”

  “I know. Tell him it’s urgent.” That was another unexpected pleasure, having a good excuse to call Wolfe from the table. He has too many rules. His voice came, or rather his roar.

  “Well?”

  “I have a report. Saul and I are having an argument. He thought-”

  “What the devil are you doing with Saul?”

  “I’m telling you. He thought I should phone you. We have a problem of protocol. I tailed Byne to a restaurant, a joint, and Saul tailed Mrs Usher to the same restaurant, and our two subjects are in there together in a booth. Byne is eating oysters. So the question is, who is in charge, Saul or me? The only way to settle it without violence was to call you.”

  “At meal time,” he said. I didn’t retort, knowing that his complaint was not that I had presumed to interrupt, but that his two bright ideas had picked that moment to rendezvous.

  I said sympathetically, “They should have known better.”

  “Is anyone with them?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Do they know they have been seen?”

  “No.”

  “Could you eavesdrop?”

  “Possibly, but I doubt it.”

  “Very well, bring them. There’s no hurry, since I have just started dinner. Give them no opportunity for a private exchange after they see you. Have you eaten?”

  “I’m full of pie and milk. I don’t know about Saul. I’ll ask him.”

  “Do so. He could come and eat-No. You may need him.”

  I hung up, returned to our field headquarters, and told Saul, “He wants them. Naturally. In an hour will do, since he just started dinner. Do you know what a genius is? A genius is a guy who makes things happen without his having any idea that they are going to happen. It’s quite a trick. Our genius wanted to know if you’ve had anything to eat.”

  “He would. Sure. Plenty.”

  “Okay. Now the m.o. Do we take them in there or wait till they come out?”

  Both procedures had pros and cons, and after discussion it was decided that Saul should go in and see how their meal was coming along, and when he thought they had swallowed enough to hold them through the hours ahead, or when they showed signs of adjourning, he would come out and wigwag me, go back in, and be near their booth when I approached.

  They must have been fast eaters, for Saul hadn’t been gone more than ten minutes when he came out, lifted a hand, saw me move, and went back in. I crossed over, entered, took five seconds to adjust to the noise and the smoke screen from the mob, made it to the rear, and there they were. The first Byne knew, someone was crowding him on the narrow seat, and his head jerked around. He started to say something, saw who it was, and goggled at me.

  “Hi, Dinky,” I said. “Excuse me for butting in, but I want to introduce a friend. Mr Panzer. Saul, Mrs Usher. Mr Byne. Sit down. Would you mind giving him room, Mrs Usher?”

  Byne had started to rise, by reflex, but it can’t be done in a tight little booth without toppling the table. He sank back. His mouth opened, and closed. Liquid spilled on the table top from a glass Elaine Usher was holding, and Saul, squeezed in beside her, reached and took it.

  “Let me out,” Byne said. “Let us out or I’ll go out over you. Her name is Upson. Edith Upson.”

  I shook my head. “If you start a row you’ll only make it worse. Mr Panzer knows Mrs Usher, though she doesn’t know him. Let’s be calm and consider the situation. There must be-”

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m trying to tell you. There must be some good reason why you two arranged to meet in this out-of-the-way dump, and Mr Panzer and I are curious to know what it is, and others will be too-the press, the public, the police, the District Attorney, and Nero Wolfe. I wouldn’t expect you to explain it here in this din and smog. Either Mr Panzer can phone inspector Cramer while I sit and chat with you, and he can send a car for you, or we’ll take you to talk it over with Mr Wolfe, whichever you prefer.”

  He had recovered some. He had played a lot of poker. He put a hand on my arm. “Look, Archie, there’s nothing to it. It looks funny, sure it does, us here together, but we didn’t arrange it. I met Mrs Usher about a year ago, I went to see her when her daughter went to Grantham House, and when I came in here this evening and saw her, after what’s happened, naturally I spoke to her and we-”

  “Save it, Dinky. Saul, phone Cramer.”

  Saul started to slide out. Byne reached and grabbed his sleeve. “Now wait a minute. Damn it, can’t you listen? I’m-”

  “No,” I said. “No listening. You can have one minute to decide.” I looked at my watch. “In one minute either you and Mrs Usher come along to Nero Wolfe or we phone Cramer. One minute.” I looked at my watch. “Go.”

  “Not the cops,” Mrs Usher said. “My God, not the cops.”

  Byne began, “If you’d only listen-”

  “No. Forty seconds.”

  If you’re playing stud, and there’s only one card to come, and the man across has two jacks showing and all you have is a mess, it doesn’t matter what his hole card is, or yours either. Byne didn’t use up the forty seconds. Only ten of them had gone when he stretched his neck to look for a waiter and ask for his check.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Surveying Elaine Usher from my desk as she sat in the red leather chair, I told myself that Saul’s picture of her, pieced together from a dozen descriptions he had got, had been pretty accurate. Oval face, blue eyes set close, good skin, medium-cut blonde hair, around forty. I would have said a hundred and fifteen pounds instead of a hundred and twenty, but she might have lost a few in the last four days. I had put her in the red leather chair because I had thought it desirable to have Byne closer to me. He was between Saul and me, and Saul was between the two subjects. But my arrangement was soon changed.

  “I prefer,” Wolfe said, “to speak with you separately, but first I must make sure that there is no misunderstanding. I intend to badger you, but you don’t have to submit to it. Before I start, or at any moment, you may get up and leave. If you do, you will be through with me; thenceforth you will deal with the police. I make that clear because I don’t want you bouncing up and down. If you want to go now, go.”

  He took a deep breath. He had just come in from the dining-room, having had his coffee there while I reported on the summit conference at Tom’s Joint.

  “We were forced to come here by a threat,” Byne said.

  “Certainly you were. And I am detaining you by the same threat. When you prefer that to this, leave. Now, madam, I wish to speak privately with Mr Byne. Saul, take Mrs Usher to the front room.”

  “Don’t go,” Byne told her. “Stay here.”

  Wolfe turned to me. “You were right, Archie. He is incorrigible. It isn’t worth it. Get Mr Cramer.”

  “No,” Elaine Usher said. She left the chair. “I’ll go.”

  Saul was up. “This way,” he said, and went and opened the door to the front room and held it for her. When she had passed through he followed and closed the door.

  Wolfe levelled his eyes at Byne. “Now, sir. Don’t bother to raise your voice; that wall and door are sound-proofed. Mr Goodwin has told me how you explained being in that restaurant with Mrs Usher. Do you expect me to accept it?”

  “No,” Dinky said.

  Of course. He had had time to realize that it wouldn’t do. If he had gone to see her because her daughter was at Grantham House, how had he learned that she was Faith’s mother? Not from the records and not from Mrs Irwin. From one of the other girls? It was too tricky.

  “What do you substitute for it?” Wolfe asked.

  “I told Goodwin that because the real explanation would have been embarrassing for Mrs Usher. Now I can’t help it. I met her some time ago, three years ago, and for about a year I was intimate with her. She’ll probably deny it. I’m pretty sure she will. Naturally she would.”

  “No doubt. And your meeting her this evening was accide
ntal?”

  “No,” Dinky said. He had also had time to realize that that was too fishy. He went on, “She phoned me this morning and said she was at the Christie Hotel, registered as Edith Upson. She had known that I was Mrs Robilotti’s nephew, and she said she wanted to see me and ask me about her daughter who had died. I told her I hadn’t been there Tuesday evening, and she said she knew that, but she wanted to see me. I agreed to see her because I didn’t want to offend her. I didn’t want it to get out that I had been intimate with Faith Usher’s mother. We arranged to meet at that restaurant.”

  “Had you known previously that she was Faith Usher’s mother?”

  “I had known that she had a daughter, but not that her name was Faith. She had spoken of her daughter when we-when I had known her.”

  “What did she ask you about her daughter this evening?”

  “She just wanted to know if I knew anything that hadn’t been in the papers. Anything about the people there or exactly what had happened. I could tell her about the people, but I didn’t know any more about what had happened than she did.”

  “Do you wish to elaborate on any of this? Or add anything?”

  “There’s nothing to add.”

  “Then I’ll see Mrs Usher. After I speak with her I’ll ask you in again, with her present. Archie, take Mr Byne and bring Mrs Usher.”

  He came like a lamb. He had thrown away his discard and made his draw and his bets, and was ready for the showdown. I opened the door for him, held it for Mrs Usher to enter, closed it, and returned to my desk. She went to the red leather chair, so Wolfe had to swivel to face her. Another item of Saul’s report on her had been that she liked men, and there were indications that men probably liked her-the way she handled her hips when she walked, the tilt of her head, the hint of a suggestion in her eyes, even now, when she was under pressure and when the man she was looking at was not a likely candidate for a frolic. And she was forty. At twenty she must have been a treat.

  Wolfe breathed deep again. Exertion right after a meal was pretty rugged. “Of course, madam,” he said, “my reason for speaking with you and Mr Byne separately is transparent: to see if your account will agree with his. Since you have had no opportunity for collusion, agreement would be, if not conclusive, at least persuasive.”

  She smiled. “You use big words, don’t you?” Something in her tone and her look conveyed the notion that for years she had been wanting to meet a man who used big words.

  Wolfe grunted. “I try to use words that say what I mean.”

  “So do I,” she declared, “but sometimes it’s hard to find the ones I want. I don’t know what Mr Byne told you, but all I can do is tell you the truth. You want to know how I happened to be with him there tonight, isn’t that it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Well, I phoned him this morning and said I wanted to see him and he said he would meet me there at Tom’s Joint, I had never heard of it before, at a quarter past seven. So I went. That’s not very thrilling, is it?”

  “Only moderately. Have you known him long?”

  “I don’t really know him at all. I met him somewhere about a year ago, and I wish I could tell you where, but I’ve been trying to remember and I simply can’t. It was a party somewhere, but I can’t remember where. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter. But yesterday I was sitting at the window thinking about my daughter. My dear daughter Faith.” She stopped to gulp, but it wasn’t very impressive. “And I remembered meeting a man named Byne, Austin Byne, and someone telling me, maybe he told me himself, that he was the nephew of the rich Mrs Robilotti who used to be Mrs Albert Grantham. And my daughter had died at Mrs Robilotti’s house, so maybe he could tell me about her, and maybe he could get Mrs Robilotti to see me so I could ask her about her. I wanted to learn all I could about my daughter.” She gulped.

  It didn’t look good. In fact, it looked bad. Byne had been smart enough to invent one that she couldn’t be expected to corroborate; he had even warned that she would probably deny it; and what was worse, it was even possible that he hadn’t invented it. He might have been telling the truth, like a gentleman. The meeting of Wolfe’s two bright ideas at Tom’s Joint, which had looked so rosy when Saul told me they were together, might fizzle out entirely. Maybe he wasn’t a genius after all.

  If he was sharing my gloom it didn’t show. He asked, “Since your rendezvous with Mr Byne was innocuous, why were you alarmed by his threat to call the police? What were her words, Archie?”

  ” ‘Not the cops. My God, not the cops.’ “

  “Yes. Why, Mrs Usher?”

  “I don’t like cops. I never have liked cops.”

  “Why did you leave your home and go to a hotel and register under another name?”

  “Because of how I felt, what my daughter had done. I didn’t want to see people. I knew newspapermen would come. And cops. I wanted to be alone. You would too if-”

  The doorbell rang, and I went. Sometimes I let Fritz answer it when I am engaged, but with her there and Byne in the front room I thought I had better see who it was, and besides, I was having a come-down and felt like moving. It was only Orrie Gather. I opened up and greeted him, and he crossed the sill, and I shut the door. When he removed his coat there was disclosed a leather thing, a zippered case, that he had had under it.

  “What’s that?” I asked. “Your weekend bag?”

  “No,” he said. “It’s Mrs Usher’s sec-”

  My hand darted to clap on his mouth. He was startled, but he can take a hint, and when I headed down the hall and turned right to the dining-room he followed.

  I shut the door, moved away from it, and demanded, “Mrs Usher’s what?”

  “Her secret sin.” There was a gleam in his eye. “I want to give it to Mr Wolfe myself.”

  “You can’t. Mrs Usher is in the office with him. Where did-”

  “She’s here? How come?”

  “That can wait. Where did you get that thing?”

  I may have sounded magisterial, but my nerves were a little raw. It put Orrie on his dignity. His chin went up. “It’s a pleasure to report, Mr Goodwin. Mr Panzer and I were covering the Christie Hotel. When the subject appeared and hopped a taxi he followed in one before I could join him. That left me loose and I phoned in. Mr Wolfe asked me if there had been any indication how long she would be gone, and I said yes, since she took a taxi it certainly wouldn’t be less than half an hour and probably longer, and he said it would be desirable to take a look at her room, and I said fine. It took a while to get in. Do you want the details?”

  “That can wait. What’s in it?”

  “It was in a locked suitcase-not the one the messenger took today, a smaller one. The suitcase was easy, but this thing had a trick lock and I had to bust it.”

  I put out a hand. He hated to give it up, but protocol is protocol. I took it to the table, unzipped it, and pulled out two envelopes, one nine by twelve and the other one smaller. Neither was sealed, and hadn’t been. I slipped out the contents of the big one.

  They were pictures that had been clipped from magazines and newspapers. I would have recognized him even if there had been no captions, since I had been old enough to read for some years, and you often run across a picture of a multi-millionaire philanthropist. The one on top was captioned: “Albert Grantham (left) receiving the annual award of the American Benevolent League.” They were all of Grantham, twenty or more. I started to turn them over, one by one, to see if anything was written on them.

  “To hell with that,” Orrie said impatiently. “It’s the other one.” It, not so big, held another envelope, smaller, of white rag bond. The engraved return in the corner said “Albert Grantham,” with the Fifth Avenue address, and it was addressed in longhand to Mrs Elaine Usher, 812 West 87th Street, New York, and below was written “By Messenger.” Inside were folded sheets. I unfolded them and read:

  6 June 1952

  My dear Elaine:

  In accordance with my promise, I am confirming in
writing what I said to you recently.

  I am not accepting the obligations, legal or moral, of paternity of your daughter, Faith. You have always maintained that I am her father, and for a time I believed you, and I now have no evidence to prove you are wrong but, as I told you, I have taken the trouble to inform myself of your method of life for the past ten years, and it is quite clear that chastity is not one of your virtues. It may have been, during that period fifteen years ago when I took advantage of your youth and enjoyed your favours-you say it was-but your subsequent conduct makes it doubtful. I shall not again express my regret for my own conduct during that period. I have done that and you know how I feel about it, and have always felt since I achieved maturity, and I have not been illiberal in supplying the material needs of your daughter and yourself. For a time that was not easy, but since my father’s death I have given you $2,000 each month, and you have paid no taxes on it.

  But I am getting along in years, and you are quite right, I should make provision against contingencies. As I told you, I must reject your suggestion that I give you a large sum outright-large enough for you and your daughter to live on the income. I distrust your attitude towards money. I fear that in your hands the principal would soon be squandered, and you would again appeal to me. Nor can I provide for you through a trust fund, either now or in my will, for the reasons I gave you. I will not risk disclosure.

  So I have taken steps that should meet the situation. I have given my nephew, Austin Byne, a portfolio of securities the income from which is tax exempt, amounting to slightly more than $2,000,000. The yield will be about $55,000 annually. My nephew is to remit half of it to you and keep the other half for himself.

  This arrangement is recorded in an agreement signed by my nephew and myself. One provision is that if you make additional demands, if you disclose the relationship you and I once had, or if you make any claims on my estate or any member of my family, he is relieved of any obligation to share the income with you. Another provision is that if he fails to make the proper remittances to you with reasonable promptness you may claim the entire principal. In drafting that provision I would have liked to have legal advice, but could not. I am sure it is binding. I do not think my nephew will fail in his performance, but if he does you will know what to do. There is of course the possibility that he will squander the principal, but I have known him all his life and I am sure it is remote.