Champagne for One

by Rex Stout

  Wolfe opened his eyes and aimed them at Dinky. “I’m not going to wait until Monday,” he said. “If I haven’t enough now, I never will have. One thing you have told me, or at least implied, will have to be my peg. If I asked you about it now, you would only wriggle out with lies, so I won’t bother. The time has come to attack the central question: if someone had decided to kill Faith Usher, how did he manage it?” He turned. “Archie, get Mr Cramer.”

  “No!” Byne was on his feet. “Damn you, after I’ve spilled-”

  I had lifted the receiver, but Byne was there, jostling and reaching. Wolfe’s voice, with a snap, turned him. “Mr Byne! Don’t squeal until you’re hurt. I’ve got you and I intend to keep you. Must I call Mr Panzer in?”

  He didn’t have to. Dinky backed away a step, giving me elbow room to dial, but close enough, he thought, to pounce. Getting Inspector Cramer at twenty minutes past ten on a Saturday evening can be anything from quick and simple to practically impossible. That time I had luck. He was at Homicide on Twentieth Street, and after a short wait I had him, and Wolfe got on, and Cramer greeted him with a growl, and Wolfe said he would need three minutes.

  “I’ll take all I can stand,” Cramer said. “What is it?”

  “About Faith Usher. I am being pestered beyond endurance. Take yesterday. In the morning those four men insisted on seeing me. In the afternoon you barged in. In the evening Mr Goodwin and I were interrupted by a phone call summoning him to Mrs Robilotti’s house, and when he goes he finds Mr Skinner there, and he-”

  “Do you mean the Commissioner?”

  “Yes. He said it was unofficial and off the record, and made an offensive proposal which Mr Goodwin was to refer to me. I don’t complain of that to you, since he is your superior and you presumably didn’t know about it.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “But it was another thorn for me, and I have had enough. I would like to put an end to it. All this hullabaloo has been caused by Mr Goodwin’s conviction, as an eye-witness, that Faith Usher did not kill herself, and I intend to satisfy myself on the point independently. If I decide he is wrong I will deal with him. If I decide he is right it will be because I will have uncovered evidence that may have escaped you. I notify you of my intention because in order to proceed I must see all of the people involved, I must invite them to my office, and I thought you should know about it. I thought you might choose to be present, and if so you will be welcome, but in that case you should get them here. I will not ask people to my office for a conference and then confront them with a police inspector. Tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock would be a good time.”

  Cramer made a noise, something like “Wmgzwmzg”. Then he found words. “So you’ve got your teeth in something. What?”

  “It’s other people’s teeth that are in something. In me. And I’m annoyed. The situation is precisely as I have described it and I have nothing to add.”

  “You wouldn’t have. Tomorrow is Sunday.”

  “Yes. Since three of them are girls with jobs that is just as well.”

  “You want all of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are any of them with you now?”

  “No.”

  “Is Commissioner Skinner in this?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll call you back in an hour.”

  “That won’t do,” Wolfe objected. “If I am to invite them I must start at once, and it’s late.”

  Not only that, but he knew darned well that if he gave him an hour Cramer would probably ring our bell in about ten minutes and want in. Anyway, it was a cinch that Cramer would buy it, and after a few more foolish questions he did.

  We hung up, and Wolfe turned to Byne, who had returned to his chair. “Now for you,” he said, “and Mrs Usher. I do not intend to let you communicate with anyone, and there is only one way to insure against it. She will spend the night here; there is a spare room with a good bed. It is a male household, but that shouldn’t disconcert her. There is another room you may use, or, if you prefer, Mr Panzer will accompany you home and sleep there, and bring you here in the morning. Mr Cramer will have the others here at eleven o’clock.”

  “You can go to hell,” Byne said. He stood up. “I’m taking Mrs Usher to her hotel.”

  Wolfe shook his head. “I know your mind is in disorder, but surely you must see that that is out of the question. I can’t possibly allow you an opportunity to repair any of the gaps I have made in your fences. If you scoot I shall move at once, and you’ll find you have no fences left at all. Only by my sufferance can you hope to get out of this mess without disfigurement, and you know it. Archie, bring Saul and Mrs Usher-no. First ring Mr Byne’s apartment and tell Orrie to come. Also tell him not to be disappointed at not finding the agreement; it isn’t there. If he has found any items that seem significant he might as well bring them.”

  “You goddamn snoop,” Dinky said, merely repeating himself.

  I turned to the phone.

  Chapter Fifteen

  For an hour and a half Sunday morning Fritz and I worked like beavers, setting the stage. The idea was-that is, Wolfe’s idea-to reproduce as nearly as possibly the scene of the crime, and it was a damn silly idea, since you could have put seven or eight of that office into Mrs Robilotti’s drawing-room. Taking the globe and the couch and the television cabinet and a few other items to the dining-room helped a little, but it was still hopeless. I wanted to go up to the plant rooms and tell Wolfe so, and add that if a play-back was essential to his programme he had better break his rule never to leave the house on business and move the whole performance uptown to Mrs Robilotti’s, but Fritz talked me out of it. To get fourteen chairs we had to bring some down from upstairs, and then it developed later that some of them weren’t really necessary. The bar was a table over in the far corner, but it couldn’t be against the wall because there had to be room for Hackett behind it. One small satisfaction I got was that the red leather chair had been taken to the dining-room with the other stuff, and Cramer wouldn’t like that a bit.

  Furniture-moving wasn’t all. Mrs Usher kept buzzing on the house phone from the South Room, for more coffee, for more towels, though she had a full supply, for a section she said was missing from the Sunday paper I had taken her, and for an additional list of items I had to get from the drugstore. Then at ten-fifteen here came Austin Byne, escorted by Saul, demanding a private audience with Wolfe immediately, and to get him off my neck I had Saul take him up the three flights to the vestibule of the plant rooms, where they found the door locked, and then Saul had to get physical with him when he wanted to open doors on the upper floors trying to find Mrs Usher.

  I expected more turmoil when, at ten-forty, the bell rang and Inspector Cramer was on the stoop, but it wasn’t Wolfe he had come early for. He merely asked if Mrs Robilotti had arrived, and, when I told him no, stayed outside. Theoretically, in a democracy, a police inspector should react just the same to a dame with a Fifth Avenue mansion as to an unmarried mother, but a job is a job, and facts are facts and one fact was that the Commissioner himself had taken the trouble to make a trip to the mansion. So I didn’t chalk it up against Cramer that he waited out on the sidewalk for the Robilotti limousine; and anyway, he was there to greet the three unmarried mothers when Sergeant Purley Stebbins arrived with them in a police car. The three chevaliers, Paul Schuster, Beverly Kent, and Edwin Laidlaw, came singly, on their own.

  I had promised myself a certain pleasure, and I didn’t let Cramer’s one-man reception committee interfere with it. When the limousine finally rolled to the curb, a few minutes late, and he convoyed Mrs Robilotti up the stoop steps, followed by her husband, son, daughter, and butler, I held the door for them as they entered and then left them to Fritz. My objective was the last one in, Hackett. When he had crossed the sill I put my hands ready for his coat and hat, in the proper manner exactly.

  “Good morning, sir,” I said. “A pleasant day. Mr Wolfe will be down shortly.”

  I
t got him. He darted a glance at the others, saw that no eye was on him, handed me his hat, and said, “Quite. Thank you, Goodwin.”

  That made the day for me personally, no matter how it turned out professionally. I took him to the office and then went to the kitchen, buzzed the plant rooms on the house phone, and told Wolfe the cast had arrived.

  “Mrs Usher?” he asked.

  “Okay. In her room. She’ll stay put.”

  “Mr Byne?”

  “Also okay. In the office with the others, with Saul glued to him.”

  “Very well. I’ll be down.”

  I went and joined the mob. They were scattered around, some seated and some standing. I permitted myself a private grin when I saw that Cramer, finding the red leather chair gone, had moved one of the yellow ones to its exact position and put Mrs Robilotti in it, and was on his feet beside it, bending down to her. As I threaded my way through to my desk the sound of the elevator came, and in a moment Wolfe entered.

  No pronouncing of names was required, since he had met the Robilottis and the Grantham twins at the time of the jewellery hunt. He made it to his desk, sent his eyes around, and sat. He looked at Cramer.

  “You have explained the purpose of this gathering, Mr Cramer?”

  “Yes. You’re going to prove that Goodwin is either wrong or right.”

  “I didn’t say ‘prove’. I said I intend to satisfy myself and deal with him accordingly.” He surveyed the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen. I will not keep you long-at least, not most of you. I have no exhortation for you and no questions to ask. To form an opinion of Mr Goodwin’s competence as an eye-witness, I need to see, not what he saw, since these quarters are too cramped for that, but an approximation of it. You cannot take your positions precisely as they were last Tuesday evening, or re-enact the scene with complete fidelity, but we’ll do the best we can. Archie?”

  I left my chair to stage-manage. Thinking that Mrs Robilotti and her Robert were the most likely to baulk, I left them till the last. First I put Hackett behind the table, which was the bar, and Laidlaw and Helen Yarmis at one end of it. Then Rose Tuttle and Beverly Kent, on chairs over where the globe had stood. Then Celia Grantham and Paul Schuster by the wall to the right of Wolfe’s desk, with her sitting and him standing. Then I put Saul Panzer on a chair near the door to the hall, and told the audience, “Mr Panzer here is Faith Usher. The distance is wrong and so are the others, but the relative positions are about right.” Then I put an ashtray on a chair to the right of the safe, and told them, “This is Faith Usher’s bag, containing the bottle of poison.” With all that arranged, I didn’t think Mrs Robilotti would protest when I asked her and her husband to take their places in front of the bar, and she didn’t.

  That was all, except for Ethel Varr and me, and I got her and stood with her at a corner of my desk, and told Wolfe, “All set.”

  “Miss Tuttle and I were much farther away,” Beverly Kent objected.

  “Yes, sir,” Wolfe agreed. “It is not presumed that this is identical. Now.” His eyes went to the group at the bar. “Mr Hackett, I understand that when Mr Grantham went to the bar for champagne for himself and Miss Usher, two glasses were there in readiness. You had poured one of them a few minutes previously, and the other just before he arrived. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.” Hackett had fully recovered from our brush in the hall and was back in character. “I have stated to the police that one of the glasses had been standing there three or four minutes.”

  “Please pour a glass now and put it in place.”

  The bottles in the cooler on the table were champagne, and good champagne-Wolfe had insisted on it. Fritz had opened two of them. Pouring champagne is always nice to watch, but I doubt if any pourer ever had as attentive an audience as Hackett had, as he took a bottle from the cooler and filled a glass.

  “Keep the bottle in your hand,” Wolfe directed him. “I’ll explain what I’m after and then you may proceed. I want to see it from various angles. You will pour another glass, and Mr Grantham will come and get the two glasses and go with them to Mr Panzer-that is to say, to Miss Usher. He will hand him one, and Mr Goodwin will be there and take the other one. Meanwhile you will be pouring two more glasses, and Mr Grantham will come and get them and go with them to Miss Tuttle, and hand her one, and again Mr Goodwin will be there and take the other one. You will do the same with Miss Varr and Miss Grantham. Not with Miss Yarmis and Mrs Robilotti, since they are there at the bar. That way I shall see it from all sides. Is that clear, Mr Hackett?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s not clear to me,” Cecil said. “What’s the idea? I didn’t do that. All I did was get two glasses and take one to Miss Usher.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Wolfe told him. “As I said, I want to get various angles on it. If you prefer, Mr Panzer can move to the different positions, but this is simpler. I only request your cooperation. Do you find my request unreasonable?”

  “I find it pretty damn nutty. But it’s all nutty, in my opinion, so a little more won’t hurt, if I can keep a glass for myself when I’ve performed.” He moved, then turned. “What’s the order again?”

  “The order is unimportant. After Mr Panzer, Misses Tuttle, Varr, and Grantham, in any order you please.”

  “Right. Start pouring, Hackett. Here I come.”

  The show started. It did seem fairly nutty, at that, especially my part. Hackett pouring, and Cecil carrying, and the girls taking-there was nothing odd about that; but me racing around, taking the second glass, deciding what to do with it, doing it, and getting to the next one in time to be there waiting when Cecil arrived-of all the miscellaneous chores I had performed at Wolfe’s direction over the years, that took the prize. At the fourth and last one, for Celia Grantham, by the wall to the right of Wolfe’s desk, Cecil cheated. After he had handed his sister hers he ignored my out-stretched hand, raised his glass, said, “Here’s to crime,” and took a mouthful of the bubbles. He lowered the glass and told Wolfe, “I hope that didn’t spoil it.”

  “It was in bad taste,” Celia said.

  “I meant it to be,” he retorted. “This whole thing has been in bad taste from the beginning.”

  Wolfe, who had straightened up to watch the performance, let his shoulders down. “You didn’t spoil it,” he said. His eyes went around. “I invite comment. Did anyone notice anything worthy of remark?”

  “I don’t know whether it’s worthy of remark or not,” Paul Schuster, the lawyer, said, “but this exhibition can’t possibly be made the basis for any conclusion. The conditions were not the same at all.”

  “I must disagree,” Wolfe disagreed. “I did get a basis for a conclusion, and for the specific conclusion I had hoped for. I need support for it, but would rather not suggest it. I appeal to all of you: did anything about Mr Grantham’s performance strike your eye?”

  A growl came from the door to the hall. Sergeant Purley Stebbins was standing there on the sill, his big frame half filling the rectangle. “I don’t know about a conclusion,” he said, “but I noticed that he carried the glasses the same every time. The one in his right hand, his thumb and two fingers were on the bowl and the one in his left hand, he held that lower down, by the stem. And he kept the one in his right hand and handed them the one in his left hand. Every time.”

  I had never before seen Wolfe look at Purley with unqualified admiration. “Thank you, Mr Stebbins,” he said. “You not only have eyes but know what they’re for. Will anyone corroborate him?”

  “I will,” Saul Panzer said. “I do.” He was still holding the glass Cecil had handed him.

  “Will you, Mr Cramer?”

  “I reserve it.” Cramer’s eyes were narrowed at him. “What’s your conclusion?”

  “Surely that’s obvious.” Wolfe turned a hand over. “What I hoped to get was ground for a conclusion that anyone who was sufficiently familiar with Mr Grantham’s habits, and who saw him pick up the glasses and start off with them, would
know which one he would hand to Miss Usher. And I got it, and I have two competent witnesses, Mr Stebbins and Mr Panzer.” His head turned. “That is all, ladies and gentlemen. I wish to continue, but only to Mrs Robilotti, Mr Byne, and Mr Laidlaw-and Mr Robilotti by courtesy, if he chooses to stay. The rest of you may go. I needed your help for this demonstration and I thank you for coming. It would be a pleasure to serve you champagne on some happier occasion.”

  “You mean we have to go?” Rose Tuttle piped. “I want to stay.” Judging from the expressions on most of the faces, the others did too, except Helen Yarmis, who was standing by the bar with Laidlaw. She said, “Come on, Ethel,” to Ethel Varr, who was standing by my desk, and they headed for the door. Cecil emptied his glass and put it on Wolfe’s desk and announced that he was staying, and Celia said she was too. Beverly Kent, the diplomat, showed that he had picked the right career by handling Rose Tuttle, who was seated beside him. She let him escort her out. Paul Schuster approached to listen a moment to the twins arguing with Wolfe, and then turned and went. Seeing Cramer cross to Mrs Robilotti, at the bar with her husband, I noted that Hackett wasn’t there and then found that he wasn’t anywhere. He had gone without my knowing it, one more proof that a detective is no match for a butler.

  It was Mrs Robilotti who settled the issue with the twins. She came to Wolfe’s desk, followed by Cramer and her husband, and told them to go, and then turned to her husband and told him to go too. Her pale grey eyes, back under her angled brows, were little circles of tinted ice. It was Celia she looked at.

  “This man needs a lesson,” she said, “and I’ll give it to him. I never have needed you, and I don’t need you now. You’re being absurd. I do things better alone, and I’ll do this alone.”

  Celia opened her mouth, closed it again, turned to look at Laidlaw, and went, and Cecil followed. Robilotti started to speak, met the pale grey eyes, shrugged like a polished and civilized Italian, and quit. When her eyes had seen him to the door, she walked to the chair Cramer had placed for her when she arrived, sat, aimed the eyes at Wolfe, and spoke.