Three at Wolfe's Door

by Rex Stout

  No, I didn't feel like calling her Helen. I would just as soon have been too far away from her to call her at all.

  Helen's declared object in arranging the party�declared to them �was to find out from me what Nero Wolfe and the cops had done and were doing, so they would know where they stood. Helen was sure I would loosen up, she had told them, because she had been to see me and found me very nice and sympathetic. So the hostesses were making it sort of festive and intimate by serving Bubble-Pagne, though I preferred milk. I had a suspicion that at least one of them, Lucy Morgan, would have preferred whisky or gin or rum or vodka, and maybe they all would, but that might have made me suspect that they were not just a bunch of wholesome, hard-working artists.

  They didn't look festive. I wouldn't say they were haggard, but much of the bloom was off. And they hadn't bought Helen's plug for me that I was nice and sympathetic. They were absolutely skeptical, sizing me up with sidewise looks, especially Carol Annis, who sat cross-legged on the couch with her head cocked. It was she who asked me, after a few remarks had been made about how awful it had been and still was, how well I knew the chef and the other man in the kitchen. I told her she could forget Fritz. He was completely above suspicion, and anyway he had been at the range while the plates were taken. As for Zoltan, I said that though I had known him a long while we were not intimate, but that was irrelevant because, granting that he had known which guest each girl would serve, if he poisoned one of the portions and saw that a certain girl got it, why did she or some other girl come back for another plate?

  Poison a la Carte 37

  "There's no proof that she did," Carol declared. "Nobody saw her."

  "Nobody noticed her." I wasn't aggressive; I was supposed to be nice and sympathetic. "She wouldn't have been noticed leaving the dining room because the attention of the girls who were in there was on Felix and Marjorie Quinn, who had spilled a blini, and the men wouldn't notice her. The only place she would have been noticed was in the corridor through the pantry, and if she met another girl there she could have stopped and been patting her hair or something. Anyhow, one of you must have gone back for a second plate, because when Fern Faber went for hers there wasn't any."

  "Why do you say one of us?" Nora demanded. "If you mean one of us here. There were twelve."

  "I do mean one of you here, but I'm not saying it, I'm just quoting the police. They think it was one of you here because you were the last five."

  "How do you know what they think?"

  "I'm not at liberty to say. But I do."

  "I know what I think," Carol asserted. She had uncrossed her^ legs and slid forward on the couch to get her toes to the floor. "I think it was Zoltan. I read in the Gazette that he's a chef at Rusterman's, and Nero Wolfe is the trustee and so he's the boss there, and I think Zoltan hated him for some reason and tried to poison him, but he gave the poisoned plate to the wrong girl. Nero Wolfe sat right next to Pyle."

  There was no point in telling her that she was simply ignoring the fact that one of them had gone back for a second helping, so I just said, "Nobody can stop you thinking. But I doubt very much if the police would buy that."

  "What would they buy?" Peggy asked.

  My personal feelings about Peggy were mixed. For, she had recognized me and named me. Against, she had accused me of liking myself. "Anything that would fit," I told her. "As I said, they think it was one of you five that went back for more, and therefore they have to think that one of you gave the poison to Pyle, because what other possible reason could you have had for

  38

  3 at Wolfe's Door

  serving another portion? They wouldn't buy anything that didn't fit into that. That's what rules out everybody else, including Zol tan." I looked at Carol. "I'm sorry, Miss Annis, but that's how it is."

  "They're a bunch of dopes," Lucy Morgan stated. "They get an idea and then they haven't got room for another one." She was on the floor with her legs stretched out, her back against the couch. "I agree with Carol, there's no proof that any of us went back for another plate. That Zoltan said he didn't see anyone come back. Didn't he?"

  "He did. He still does."

  "Then he's a dope too. And he said no one took two plates. Didn't he?"

  "Right. He still does."

  "Then how do they know which one he's wrong about? We were all nervous, you know that. Maybe one of us took two plates instead of one, and when she got to the dining room there she was with an extra, and she got rid of it by giving it to some guest that didn't have any."

  "Then why didn't she say so?" I asked.

  "Because she was scared. The way Nero Wolfe came at us was enough to scare anybody. And now she won't say so because she has signed a statement and she's even more scared."

  I shook my head. "I'm sorry, but if you anatyze that you'll see that it won't do. It's very tricky. You can do it the way I did this afternoon. Take twenty-four little pieces of paper, and on twelve of them write the names of the guests, and arrange them as they sat at the table. On the other twelve pieces write the names of the twelve girls. Then try to manipulate the twelve girl pieces so that one of them either took in two plates at once, and did not give either of them to Pyle, or went back for a second plate, and did not give either the first one or the second one to Pyle. It can't be done. For if either of those things happened there wouldn't have been one mix-up, there would have been two. Since there was only one mix-up, Pyle couldn't possibly have been served by a girl who neither brought in two plates at once nor went back for a second one. So the idea that a girl Innocently brought in two plates is out."

  Poison cl la Carte 39

  "I don't believe it," Nora said flatly.

  "It's not a question of believing." I was still sympathetic. "You might as well say you don't believe two plus two is four. I'll show you. May I have some paper? Any old kind."

  She went to a table and brought some, and I took my pen and wrote the twenty-four names, spacing them, and tore the paper into twenty-four pieces. Then I knelt on a rug and arranged the twelve guest pieces in a rectangle as they had sat at table--not that that mattered, since they could have been in a straight line or a circle, but it was plainer that way. The girls gathered around. Nora knelt facing me, Lucy rolled over closer and propped on her elbows, Carol came and squatted beside me, Peggy plopped down at the other side, and Helen stood back of Nora.

  "Okay," I said, "show me." I took "Quinn" and put it back of "Leacraft." "There's no argument about that, Marjorie Quinn brought the first plate and gave it to Leacraft. Remember there was just one mix-up, started by Peggy when she saw Pyle had been served and gave hers to Nero Wolfe. Try having any girl bring in a second plate--or bring in two at once if you still think that might have happened--without either serving Pyle or starting a second mixup."

  My memory has had a long stiff training under the strains and pressures Wolfe has put on it, but I wouldn't undertake to report all the combinations they tried, huddled around me on the floor, even if I thought you cared. They stuck to it for half an hour or more. The most persistent was Peggy Choate, the redhead. After the others had given up she stayed with it, frowning and biting her lip, propped first on one hand and then the other. Finally she said, "Nuts," stretched an arm to make a jumble of all the pieces of paper, guests and girls, got up, and returned to her chair. I did likewise.

  "It's just a trick," said Carol Annis, perched on the couch again.

  "I still don't believe it," Nora Jaret declared. "I do not believe that one of us deliberately poisoned a man--one of us sitting here." Her big brown eyes were at me. "Good lord, look at us! Point at her! Point her out! I dare you to!"

  That, of course, was what I was there for--not exactly to point

  40 3 & Wolfe's Door

  her out, but at least to get a hint. I had had a vague idea that one might come from watching them maneuver the pieces of paper, but it hadn't. Nor from anything any of them had said. I had been expecting Helen lacono to introduce the subject of V
incent Pyle's modus operandi with girls, but apparently she had decided it was up to me. She hadn't spoken more than twenty words since we arrived.

  "If I could point her out," I said, "I wouldn't be bothering the rest of you. Neither would the cops if they could point her out. Sooner or later, of course, they will, but it begins to look as if they'll have to get at it from the other end. Motive. They'll have to find out which one of you had a motive, and they will--sooner or later--and on that maybe I can help. I don't mean help them, I mean help you--not the one who killed him, the rest of you. That thought occurred to me after I learned that Helen lacono had admitted that she had gone out with Pyle a few times last winter. What if she had said she hadn't? When the police found out she had lied, and they would have, she would have been in for it. It wouldn't have proved she had killed him, but the going would have been mighty rough. I understand that the rest of you have all denied that you ever had anything to do with Pyle. Is that right? Miss Annis?"

  "Certainly." Her chin was up. "Of course I had met him. Everybody in show business has. Once when he came backstage at the Coronet, and once at a party somewhere, and one other time but I don't remember where."

  "Miss Morgan?"

  She was smiling at me, a crooked smile. "Do you call this helping us?" she demanded.

  "It might lead to that after I know how you stand. After all, the cops have your statement."

  She shrugged. "I've been around longer than Carol, so I had seen him to speak to more than she had. Once I danced with him at the Flamingo, two years ago. That was the closest I had ever been to him."

  "Miss Choate?"

  "I never had the honor. I only came to New York last fall. From

  Poison ci la Carte 41

  Montana. He had been pointed out to me from a distance, but he never chased me."

  "Miss Jaret?"

  "He was Broadway," she said. "I'm TV."

  "Don't the twain ever meet?"

  "Oh, sure. All the time at Sardi's. That's the only place I ever saw the great Pyle, and I wasn't with him."

  I started to cross my legs, but the wobbly chair leg reacted, and I thought better of it. "So there you are," I said, "you're all committed. If one of you poisoned him, and though I hate to say it I don't see any way out of that, that one is lying. But if any of the others are lying, if you saw more of him than you admit, you had better get from under quick. If you don't want to tell the cops tell me, tell me now, and I'll pass it on and say I wormed it out of you. Believe me, you'll regret it if you don't."

  "Archie Goodwin, a girl's best friend," Lucy said. "My bosom pal."

  No one else said anything.

  "Actually," I asserted, "I am your friend, all of you but one. I have a friendly feeling for all pretty girls, especially those who work, and I admire and respect you for being willing to make an~ honest fifty bucks by coming there yesterday to carry plates of grub to a bunch of finickers. I am your friend, Lucy, if you're not the murderer, and if you are no one is."

  I leaned forward, forgetting the wobbly chair leg, but it didn't object. It was about time to put a crimp in Helen's personal project. "Another thing. It's quite possible that one of you did see her returning to the kitchen for another plate, and you haven't said so because you don't want to squeal on her. If so, spill it now. The longer this hangs on the hotter it will get. When it gets so the pressure is too much for you and you decide you have got to tell it, it will be too late. Tomorrow may be too late. If you go to the cops with it tomorrow they probably won't believe you; they'll figure that you did it yourself and you're trying to squirm out. If you don't want to tell me here and now, in front of her, come with me down to Nero Wolfe's office and we'll talk it over,"

  They were exchanging glances, and they were not friendly

  42 3 at Wolfe's Door

  glances Wlen I had arrived probably not one of them, excluding the murderer, had believed that a poisoner was present, but now they all did, or at least they thought she might be; and when Z feeling takes hold it s good-by to friendliness. It would have bei convenient af I could have detected fear in one of the glances

  toUt5rnfaSpT�n ^ ^^ - t0� ^ ^ "n faces' "You area help," Carol Annis said bitterly. "Now you've got us hatmg each odier. Now everybody suspects everybody I had quit being nice and sympathetic. "It's about time" I told her. I glanced at my wrist. "It's not midnight yet. If I've made � all realize that this is no Broadway production, or TV either, and the longer the pay-off is postponed the tougher it will be for everybody I te� helped." I stood up. "Let's go. I don't say Mr Wolfe can do it by just snapping his fingers, but he might surprise you. He has often surprised me." �"*pnse

  "All right,'' Nora said She arose. "Come on. This is getting too damn painful. Come on." a K

  I don't pretend that that was what I had been heading for I admit that I had just been carried along by my tongue. If I arrived with that gang at midnight and Wolfe had gone to bed, he ZS almost certamly refuse to play. Even if he were still up height refuse to work, just to teach me a lesson, since I had not stuck to my instructions Those thoughts were at me as Peggy Choate bounced up and Carol Annis started to leave the couch

  But they were wasted. That tussle with Wolfe never'came off A door at the end of the room which had been standing ajar suddenly swung open, and there in its frame was a two-legged figure with shoulders a most as broad as the doorway, and I waf squinfeg at Sergeant Parley Stebbins of Manhattan Homicide West h! moved forward, croaking, "I'm surprised at you, Goodwin These ladies ought to get some sleep."

  Poison & la Carte 43

  m vr

  I

  I Of course I was a monkey. If it had been Stebbins who had

  made a monkey of me I suppose I would have leaped for a window I and dived through. Hitting the pavement from a fourth-story window should be enough to finish a monkey, and life wouldn't be worth living if I had been bamboozled by Purley Stebbins. But obviously it hadn't been him; it had been Peggy Choate or Nora Jaret, or both; Purley had merely accepted an invitation to come and listen in.

  So I kept my face. To say I was jaunty would be stretching it, but I didn't scream or tear my hair. "Greetings," I said heartily. "And welcome. I've been wondering why you didn't join us instead of skulking in there in the dark."

  "I'll bet you have." He had come to arm's length and stopped. He turned. "You can relax, ladies." Back to me: "You're under arrest for obstructing justice. Come along."

  "In a minute. You've got all night." I moved my head. "Of* course Peggy and Nora knew this hero was in there, but I'd--"

  "I said come along!" he barked.

  "And I said in a minute. I intend to ask a couple of questions. I wouldn't dream of resisting arrest, but I've got leg cramp from kneeling too long and if you're in a hurry you'll have to carry me." I moved my eyes. "I'd like to know if you all knew. Did you, Miss lacono?"

  "Of course not."

  "Miss Morgan?"

  "No."

  "Miss Annis?"

  "No, I didn't, but I think you did." She tossed her head and the corn silk fluttered. "That was contemptible. Saying you wanted to help us, so we would talk, with a policeman listening."

  "And then he arrests me?"

  "That's just an act."

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  3 at Wolfe's Door

  "I wish it were. Ask your friends Peggy and Nora if I knew� only I suppose you wouldn't believe them. They knew, and they didn't tell you. You'd better all think over everything you said. Okay, Sergeant, the leg cramp's gone."

  He actually started a hand for my elbow, but I was moving and it wasn't there. I opened the door to the hall. Of course he had me go first down the three flights; no cop in his senses would descend stairs in front of a dangerous criminal in custody. When we emerged to the sidewalk and he told me to turn left I asked him, "Why not cuffs?"

  "Clown if you want to," he croaked.

  He flagged a taxi on Amsterdam Avenue, and when we were in and rolling I spoke. "I've been thinking, about la
ws and liberties and so on. Take false arrest, for instance. And take obstructing justice. If a man is arrested for obstructing justice, and it turns out that he didn't obstruct any justice, does that make the arrest false? I wish I knew more about law. I guess I'll have to ask a lawyer. Nathaniel Parker would know."

  It was the mention of Parker, the lawyer Wolfe uses when the occasion calls for one, that got him. He had seen Parker in action.

  "They heard you," he said, "and I heard you, and I took some notes. You interfered in a homicide investigation. You quoted the police to them, you said so. You told them what the police think, and what they're doing and are going to do. You played a game with them with those pieces of paper to show them exactly how it figures. You tried to get them to tell you things instead of telling the police, and you were going to take them to Nero Wolfe so he could pry it out of them. And you haven't even got the excuse that Wolfe is representing a client. He hasn't got a client."

  "Wrong. He has."

  "Like hell he has. Name her."

  "Not her, him. Fritz Brenner. He is seeing red because food cooked by him was poisoned and killed a man. It's convenient to have the client living right in the house. You admit that a licensed detective has a right to investigate on behalf of a client."

  "I admit nothing."

  "That's sensible," I said approvingly. "You shouldn't. When

  Poison ft la Carte 45

  you're on the stand, being sued for false arrest, it would be bad to have it thrown up to you, and it would be two against one because the hackie could testify. Can you hear us, driver?"

  "Sure I can hear you," he sang out. "It's very interesting."

  "So watch your tongue," I told Purley. "You could get hooked for a year's pay. As for quoting the police, I merely said that they think it was one of those five, and when Cramer told Mr. Wolfe that he didn't say it was confidential. As for telling them what the police think, same comment. As for playing that game with them, why not? As for trying to get them to tell me things, I won't comment on that at all because I don't want to be rude. That must have been a slip of the tongue. If you ask me why I didn't balk there at the apartment and bring up these points then and there, what was the use? You had spoiled the party. They wouldn't have come downtown with me. Also I am saving a buck of Mr. Wolfe's money, since you had arrested me and therefore the taxi fare is on the city of New York. Am I still under arrest?"