by Rex Stout
So they did.
CHAPTER Six
Wolfe, for whom the first bottle of beer is merely a preamble, filled his glass from the second bottle, put the bottle down, and leaned back.
“What I’ve been after,” he said in his conversational tone again, “is how that particular individual, Mr Cyril Orchard, became a guest on that programme. The conclusion from the newspaper accounts is that none of you, including Miss Shepherd and Mr Savarese, knew him from Adam. But he was murdered. Later I’ll discuss this with you severally, but for now I’ll just put it to all of you: had you had any dealings with, or connection with, or knowledge of, Cyril Orchard prior to his appearance on that programme. Other than what I have just been told?” Starting with Madeline Fraser, he got either a no or a shake of the head from each of the six.
He grunted. “I assume,” he said, “that the police have unearthed no contradiction to any of your negatives, since if they had you would hardly be foolish enough to try to hold to them with me. My whole approach to this matter is quite different from what it would be if I didn’t know that the police have spent seven days and nights working on it. They have been after you, and they have their training and talents; also, they have authority and a thousand men-twenty thousand. The question is whether their methods and abilities are up to this job; all I can do is use my own.” Wolfe came forward to drink beer, used his handkerchief on his lips, and leaned back again.
“But I need to know what happened-from you, not the newspapers. We now have you in the broadcasting studio Tuesday morning, a week ago today. The two guests-Mr Cyril Orchard and Professor Savarese-have arrived. It is a quarter to eleven.
The rest of you are there/at or near the table which holds the microphones.
Seated at one side of the narrow table are Miss Fraser and Professor Savarese; across from them, facing them, are Mr Orchard and Mr Meadows. Voice levels are being taken. About twenty feet from the table is the first row of chairs provided for the studio audience. That audience consists of some two hundred people, nearly all women, many of whom, devoted followers of Miss Fraser, frequently attend the broadcasts. Is that picture correct-not approximately correct, but correct?” They nodded. “Nothing wrong with it,” Bill Meadows said.
“Many of them,” Miss Fraser stated, “would come much oftener if they could get tickets. There are always twice as many applications for tickets as we can supply.” “No doubt,” Wolfe growled. He had shown great restraint, not telling her how dangerous she was. “But the applicants who didn’t get tickets, not being there, do not concern us. An essential element of the picture which I haven’t mentioned is not yet visible. Behind the closed door of an electric refrigerator over against the wall are eight bottles of Starlite. How did they get there?” An answer came from the couch, from Fred Owen. “We always have three or four cases in the studio, in a locked cab-‘ “If you please, Mr Owen.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “I want to hear as much as I can of the voices of these six people.” They were there in the studio,” Tully Strong said. “In a cabinet. It’s kept locked because if it wasn’t they wouldn’t be there long.” “Who had taken the eight bottles from the cabinet and put them in the refrigerator?” “I had.” It was Elinor Vance, and I looked up from my notebook for another glance at her. “That’s one of my chores every broadcast.” One trouble with her, I thought, is overwork. Script writer, researcher, bartender-what else?
“You can’t carry eight bottles,” Wolfe remarked, “at one time.” “I know I can’t, so I took four and then went back for four more.” “Leaving the cabinet unlocked-no.” Wolfe stopped himself. “Those refinements will have to wait.” His eyes passed along the line again. “So there they are, in the refrigerator. By the way, I understand that the presence at the broadcast of all but one of you was routine and customary. The exception was you, Mr Traub.
You very rarely attend. What were you there for-” “Because I was jittery, Mr Wolfe.” Traub’s advertising smile and smooth low-pitched voice showed no resentment at being singled out. “I still thought having a race tout on the programme was a mistake, and I wanted to be on hand.” “You thought there was no telling what Mr Orchard might say?” “I knew nothing about Orchard. I thought the whole idea was a stinker.” “If you mean the whole idea of the programme, I agree-but that’s not what we’re trying to decide. We’ll go on with the broadcast. First, one more piece of the picture. Where are the glasses they’re going to drink from?” “On a tray at the end of the table,” Deborah Koppel said.
“The broadcasting table? Where they’re seated at the microphones?” “Yes.” “Who put them there?” “That girl, Nancylee Shepherd. The only way to keep her back of the line would be to tie her up. Or of course not let her in, and Miss Fraser will not permit that. She organized the biggest Fraser Girls’ Club in the country. So we-” The phone rang. I reached for it and muttered into it.
“Mr Bluff,” I told Wolfe, using one of my fifteen aliases for the caller. Wolfe got his receiver to his ear, giving me a signal to stay on.
“Yes, Mr Cramer?” Cramer’s sarcastic voice sounded as if he had a cigar stuck in his mouth, as he probably had. “How are you coming up there?” “Slowly. Not nearly started yet.” That’s too bad, since no one’s paying you on the Orchard case. So you told me yesterday.” This is today. Tomorrow’s paper will tell you all about it. I’m sorry, Mr Cramer, but I’m busy.” “You certainly are, from the reports I’ve got here. Which one is your client?” “You’ll see it in the paper.” “Then there’s no reason-” “Yes. There is. That I’m extremely busy and exactly a week behind you. Good-bye, sir.” Wolfe’s tone and his manner of hanging up got a reaction from the gate-crashers.
Mr Walter B. Anderson, the Starlite president, demanded to know if the caller had been Police Inspector Cramer, and, told that it was, got critical. His position was that Wolfe should not have been rude to the Inspector. It was bad tactics and bad manners. Wolfe, not bothering to draw his sword, brushed him aside with a couple of words, but Anderson leaped for his throat. He had not yet, he said, signed any agreement, and if that was going to be Wolfe’s attitude maybe he wouldn’t.
“Indeed.” Wolfe’s brows went up a sixteenth of an inch. “Then you’d better notify the Press immediately. Do you want to use the phone?” “By God, I wish I could. I have a right to-” “You have no right whatever, Mr Anderson, except to pay your share of my fee if I earn it. You are here in my office on sufferance. Confound it, I am undertaking to solve a problem that has Mr Cramer so nonplussed that he desperately wants a hint from me before I’ve even begun. He doesn’t mind my rudeness; he’s so accustomed to it that if I were affable he’d haul me in as a material witness. Are you going to use the phone?” “You know damn’ well I’m not.” “I wish you were. The better I see this picture the less I like it.” Wolfe went back to the line of candidates. “You say, Miss Koppel, that this adolescent busybody, Miss Shepherd, put the tray of glasses on the table?” “Yes, she-” “She took them from me,” Elinor Vance put in, “when I got them from the cabinet.
She was right there with her hand out and I let her take them.” “The locked cabinet that the Starlite is kept in?” “Yes.” “And the glasses are heavy and dark blue, quite opaque, so that anything in them is invisible?” “Yes.” “You didn’t look into them from the top?” “No.” “If one of them had something inside you wouldn’t have seen it?” “No.” Elinor went on: If you think my answers are short and quick, that’s because I’ve already answered these questions, and many others, hundreds of times. I could answer them in my sleep.” Wolfe nodded. “Of course. So now we have the bottles in the refrigerator and the glasses on the table, and the programme is on the air. For forty minutes it went smoothly. The two guests did well. None of Mr Traub’s fears were realized.” “It was one of the best broadcasts of the year,” Miss Fraser said.
“Exceptional,” Tully Strong declared. “There were thirty-two studio laughs in the first half-hour.” “How did you like the se
cond half?” Traub asked pointedly.
“We’re coming to it.” Wolfe sighed. “Well, here we are. The moment arrives when Starlite is to be poured, drunk, and eulogized. Who brought it from the refrigerator? You again, Miss Vance?” “No, me,” Bill Meadows said. “It’s part of the show for the mikes, me pushing back my chair, walking, opening the refrigerator door and closing it, and coming back with the bottles. Then someone-” “There were eight bottles in the refrigerator. How many did you get?” “Four.” “How did you decide which ones?” “I didn’t decide. I always just take the four in front. You realize that all Starlite bottles are exactly alike. There wouldn’t be any way to tell them apart, so how would I decide?” “I couldn’t say. Anyway, you didn’t?” “No. As I said, I simply took the four bottles that were nearest to me. That’s natural.” “So it is. And carried them, to the table and removed the caps?” “I took them to the table, but about removing the caps, that’s something we don’t quite agree on. We agree that I didn’t do it, because I put them on the table as usual and then got back into my chair, quick, to get on the mike.
Someone else always takes the caps from the bottles, not always the same one, and that day Debby-Miss Koppel was right there, and Miss Vance, and Strong, and Traub. I was on the mike and didn’t see who removed the caps. The action there is a little tight and needs help, with taking off the caps, pouring into the glasses, and getting the glasses passed around-and the bottles have to be passed around too.” “Who does the passing?” “Oh, someone-or, rather, more than one. You know, they just get passed-the glasses and bottles both. After pouring into the glasses the bottles are still about half-full, so the bottles are passed too.” “Who did the pouring and passing that day?” Bill Meadows hesitated. “That’s what we don’t agree about.” He was not at ease. “As I said, they were all right there-Miss Koppel and Miss Vance, and Strong and Traub. That’s why it was confusing.” “Confusing or not,” Wolfe said testily, “it should be possible to remember what happened, so simple a thing as that. This is the detail where, above all others, clarity is essential. We know that Mr Orchard got the bottle and glass which contained the cyanide, because he drank enough of it to kill him. But we do not know, at least I don’t, whether he got it by a whim of circumstance or by the deliberate manoeuvre of one or more of those present. Obviously that’s a vital point. That glass and bottle were placed in front of Mr Orchard by somebody-not this one, or this one, but that one. Who put it there?” Wolfe’s gaze went along the line. They all met it. No one had anything to say, but neither was anyone impelled to look somewhere else. Finally Tully Strong, who had his spectacles back on, spoke: “We simply don’t remember, Mr Wolfe.” “Pfui.” Wolfe was disgusted. “Certainly you remember. No wonder Mr Cramer has got nowhere. You’re lying, every one of you.” “No,” Miss Fraser objected. “They’re not lying really.” “The wrong pronoun,” Wolfe snapped at her. “My comment included you, Miss Fraser.” She smiled at him. “You may include me if you like, but I don’t. It’s like this.
These people are not only associated with one another in connection with my programme, they are friends. Of course they have arguments-there’s always bound to be some friction when two people are often together, let alone five or six-but they are friends and they like one another.” Her timing and inflections were as good as if she had been on the air. “This is a terrible thing, a horrible thing, and we all knew it was the minute the doctor came and looked at him, and then looked up and said nothing should be touched and no one should leave. So could you really expect one of them to say-or, since you include me, could you expect one of us to say-yes, I gave him the glass with poison in it?” “What was left in the bottle was also poisoned.” “All right, the bottle too. Or could you expect one of us to say-yes, I saw my friend give him the glass and bottle? And name the friend?” “Then you’re agreeing with me. That you’re all lying.” Not at all.” Miss Fraser was too earnest to smile now. “The pouring and passing the glasses and bottles was commonplace routine, and there was no reason for us to notice details enough to keep them in our minds at all. Then came that overwhelming shock, and the confusion, and later came the police, and the strain and tension of it, and we just didn’t remember. That isn’t the least bit surprising. What would surprise me would be if someone did remember, for instance if Mr Traub said positively that Mr Strong put that.glass and bottle in front of Mr Orchard, it would merely prove that Mr Traub hates Mr Strong, and that would surprise me because I don’t believe that any one of us hates another one.” “Nor,” Wolfe murmured dryly, “that any of you hated Mr Orchard-or wanted to kill him.” “Who on earth could have wanted to kill that man?” “I don’t know. That’s what I’ve been hired to find out-provided the poison reached its intended destination. You say you’re not surprised, but I am. I’m surprised the police haven’t locked you all up.” “They damn’ near did,” Traub said grimly.
“I certainly thought they would arrest me,” Madeline Fraser declared. “That was what was in my mind-it was all that was in my mind-as soon as I heard the doctor say cyanide. Not who had given him that glass and bottle, not even what the effect would be on my programme, but the death of my husband. He died of cyanide poisoning six years ago.” Wolfe nodded. The papers haven’t neglected that. It was what leaped first to your mind?” “Yes, when I heard the doctor say cyanide. I suppose you wouldn’t understand-or perhaps you would-anyway it did.” “It did to mine too,” Deborah Koppel interposed, in a tone that implied that someone had been accused of something. “Miss Fraser’s husband was my brother. I saw him just after he died. Then that day I saw Cyril Orchard, and-” She stopped. Having her in profile, I couldn’t see her eyes, but I saw her clasped hands. In a moment she went on: “Yes, it came to my mind.” Wolfe stirred impatiently. “Well, I won’t pretend that I’m exasperated that you’re such good friends that you haven’t been able to remember what happened.
If you had, and had told the police, I might not have this job.” He glanced at the clock on the wall. “It’s after eleven. I had thought it barely possible that I might get a wedge into a crack by getting you here together, but it seems hopeless. You’re much too fond of one another. Our time has been completely wasted. I haven’t got a thing, not a microscopic morsel, that I hadn’t already got from the papers. I may never get anything, but I intend to try. Which of you will spend the night here with me? Not all the night; probably four or five hours. I shall need that long, more or less, with each of you, and I would like to start now. Which of you will stay?” There were no eager volunteers.
“My Lord!” Elinor Vance protested. “Over and over and over again.” “My clients,” Wolfe said, “are your employer, your network, and your sponsors.
Mr Meadows?” “I’ve got to take Miss Fraser home,” Bill objected. “I could come back.” “I’ll take her,” Tully Strong offered.
“That’s foolish.” Deborah Koppel was annoyed. “I live only a block away and we’ll take a taxi together.” “I’ll go with you,” Elinor Vance suggested. “I’ll drop you and keep the taxi on uptown.” “I’ll ride with you,” Tully Strong insisted.
“But you live in the Village!” “Count me in,” Bill Meadows sdd stubbornly. “I can be back here in twenty minutes. Thank God tomorrow’s Wednesday.” “This is all unnecessary,” the president of Starlite broke in with authority. He had left the couch and was among the candidates, who were also on their feet.
“My car is outside and I can take all of you who are going uptown. You can stay here with Wolfe, Meadows.” He turned and stepped to the desk. “Mr Wolfe, I haven’t been greatly impressed this evening. Hardly at all impressed.” “Neither have I,” Wolfe agreed. “It’s a dreary outlook. I would prefer to abandon it, but you and I are both committed by that press release.” Seeing that some of them were heading for the hall, he raised his voice. “If you please? A moment. I would like to make appointments. One of you tomorrow from eleven to one, another from two to four, another in the evening from eight-thirty
to twelve, and another from midnight on. Will you decide on that before you go?” They did so, with me helping them and making notes of the decisions. It took a little discussion, but they were such good friends that there was no argument.
The only thing that soured the leave-taking at all was when Owen made an opportunity to pass me a crack about no patch or cut being visible on Wolfe’s face. He might at least have had the decency to let it lie.
“I said nothing about his face,” I told him coldly. “I said he cut himself shaving. He shaves his legs. I understood you wanted him in kilts for the pictures.” Owen was too offended to speak. Utterly devoid of a sense of humour.
When the others had gone Bill Meadows was honoured with the red leather chair.
On a low table at his elbow I put a replenished glass, and Fritz put a tray holding three sandwiches made with his own bread, one of minced rabbit meat, one of corned beef, and one of Georgia country ham. I arranged myself at my desk with my notebook, a plate of sandwiches to match Bill’s, a pitcher of milk and a glass. Wolfe had only beer. He never eats between dinner and breakfast. If he did he never would be able to say he is no fatter than he was five years ago, which isn’t true anyhow.
In a way it’s a pleasure to watch Wolfe doing a complete overhaul on a man, or a woman either, and in another way it’s enough to make you grit your teeth. When you know exactly what he’s after and he’s sneaking up on it without the slightest sound to alarm the victim, it’s a joy to be there. But when he’s after nothing in particular, or if he is you don’t know what, and he pokes in this hole a while and then tries another one, and then goes back to the first one, and as far as you can see is getting absolutely nowhere, and the hours go by, and your sandwiches and milk are all gone long ago, sooner or later the time comes when you don’t even bother to get a hand in front of your yawns, let alone swallow them.