Stout, Rex - Black Orchids

by Black Orchids (lit)

  Janet nodded, cleared her throat, and said, "Yes," in a small voice.

  "And it's about an inch long. A little less?"

  "Yes."

  Wolfe turned to Brady. "Now for you, sir. Your professional knowledge. To establish a premise invulnerable to assault. Why did Miss Nichols carve a gash nearly an inch long on her arm? Why didn't she jerk the brush away the moment she felt her skin being ruptured?"

  "Why?" Brady was scowling at him. "For the obvious reason that she didn't feel it."

  "Didn't feel it?"

  "Certainly not. I don't know what premise you're trying to establish, but with the bristles rubbing her skin there would be no feeling of the sharp glass cutting her. None whatever. She wouldn't know she had been cut until she saw the blood."

  "Indeed." Wolfe looked disappointed. "You're sure of hat? You'd testify to it?"

  "I would. Positively."

  "And any other doctor would?"

  "Certainly."

  "Then we'll have to take it that way. Those, then, are he facts. I have finished. Now it's your turn to talk. All of •ou. Of course this is highly unorthodox, all of you to-;ether like this, but it would take too long to do it properly,

  ingly."

  He leaned back and joined his finger tips at the apex of is central magnificence. "Miss Timms, we'll start with you. Talk, please."

  Maryella said nothing. She seemed to be meeting his gaze, but she didn't speak.

  "Well, Miss,Timms?"

  "I don't know-" she tried to clear the huskiness from her voice-"I don't know what you want me to say."

  "Nonsense," Wolf said sharply. "You know quite well. you are an intelligent woman. You've been living in that house two years. It is likely that ill feeling or fear, any motion whatever, was born in one of these people and extended to the enormity of homicide, and you were totally unaware of it? I don't believe it. I want you to tell me the things that I would drag out of you if I kept you here all afternoon firing questions at you."

  Maryella shook her head. "You couldn't drag anything out of me that's not in me."

  "You won't talk?"

  "I can't talk." Maryella did not look happy. "When I've got nothing to say."

  Wolfe's eyes left her. "Miss Nichols?"

  Janet shook her head.

  "I won't repeat it. I'm saying to you what I said to Miss Timms."

  "I know you are." Janet swallowed and went on in a thin voice, "I can't tell you anything, honestly I can't."

  "Not even who tried to kill you? You have no idea who tried to kill you this morning?"

  "No-I haven't. That's what frightened me so much. I don't know who it was."

  Wolfe grunted, and turned to Larry. "Mr. Huddleston?"

  "I don't know a damn thing," Larry said gruffly.

  "You don't. Dr. Brady?"

  "It seems to me," Brady said coolly, "that you stopped before you were through. You said you know who murdered Miss Huddleston. If-"

  "I prefer to do it this way, doctor. Have you anything to tell me?"

  "No."

  "Nothing with any bearing on any aspect of this business?"

  "No."

  Wolfe's eyes went to Daniel "Mr. Huddleston, you have already talked, to me and to the police. Have you anything new to say?"

  "I don't think I have," Daniel said slowly. He looked more miserable than anyone else. "I agree with Dr. Brady that if you-"

  "I would expect you to," Wolfe snapped. His glance swept the arc. "I warn all you, with of course one exception, that the police will worm it out of you and it will be a distressing experience. They will make no distinction between relevancies and irrelevancies. They will, for example, impute significance to the fact that Miss Timms has been trying to captivate Mr. Larry Huddleston with her charms-"

  "I have not!" Maryella cried indignantly. "Whatever-"

  "Yes, you have. At least you did on Tuesday, August 19th. Mr. Goodwin is a good reporter. Sitting on the arm of his chair. Ogling him-"

  "I wasn't! I wasn't trying to captivate him-"

  "Do you love him? Desire him? Fancy him?"

  "I certainly don't!"

  "Then the police will be doubly suspicious. They will suspect that you were after him for his aunt's money. And speaking of money, some of you must know that Miss Huddleston's brother was getting money from her and dissatisfied with what he got. Yet you refuse to tell me-"

  "I wasn't dissatisfied," Daniel broke in. His face flushed and his voice rose. "You have no right to make insinuations-"

  "I'm not making insinuations." Wolfe was crisp. "I am showing you the sort of thing the police will get their teeth into. They are quite capable of supposing you were blackmailing your sister-"

  "Blackmail!" Daniel squealed indignantly. "She gave it to me for research-"

  "Research!" his nephew blurted with a sneer. "Research! The Elixir of Life! Step right up, gents ..."

  Daniel sprang to his feet, and for a second I thought his intention was to commit mayhem on Larry, but it seemed he merely was arising to make a speech.

  "That," he said, his jaw quivering with anger, "is a downright lie! My motivation and my methods are both strictly scientific. Elixir of Life is a romantic and inadmissible conception. The proper scientific term is 'catholicon.' My sister agreed with me, and being a woman of imagination and insight, for years she generously financed-"

  "Catholicon!" Wolfe was staring at him incredulously. "And I said you were capable of using your brains!"

  "I assure you, sir-"

  "Don't try. Sit down." Wolfe was disgusted. "I don't care if you wasted your sister's money, but there are some things you people know that I do care about, and you are foolish not to tell me." He wiggled a finger at Brady. "You, doctor, should be ashamed of yourself. You ought to know better. It is idiotic to withhold facts which are bound to be uncovered sooner or later. You said you had nothing to tell me with any bearing on any aspect of this business. What about the box of stable refuse you procured for the stated purpose of extracting tetanus germs from it?"

  Daniel made a noise and turned his head to fix Brady with a stare. Brady was taken aback, but not as much as might have been expected. He regarded Wolfe a moment and then said quietly, "I admit I should have told you that."

  "Is that all you have to say about it? Why didn't you tell the police when they first started to investigate?"

  "Because I thought there was nothing to investigate. I continued to think so until this morning, when you phoned me. It would have served no useful purpose-"

  "What did you do with that stuff?"

  "I took it to the office and did some experiments with two of my colleagues. We were settling an argument. Then we destroyed it. All of it."

  "Did any of these people know about it?"

  "I don't-" Brady frowned. "Yes, I remember-I discussed it. Telling them how dangerous any small cut might be-"

  "Not me," Daniel said grimly. "If I had known you did that-"

  They glared at each other. Daniel muttered something and sat down.

  The phone rang, and I swiveled and got it. It was Doc Vollmer, and I nodded to Wolfe and he took it. When he hung up he told them:

  "The bottle from which Miss Nichols treated her wound this morning contained enough tetanus germs to destroy the population of a city, properly distributed." He focused on Brady. "You may have some idea, doctor, how the police would regard that episode, especially if you had withheld it. It would give you no end of trouble. In a thing like this evasion or concealment should never be attempted without the guidance of an expert. By the way, how long had you known Miss Huddleston?"

  "I had known her casually for some time. Several years."

  "How long intimately?"

  "I wouldn't say I knew her intimately. A couple of months ago I formed the habit of going there rather often."

  "What made you form the habit? Did you fall in love with her?"

  "With whom?"

  "Miss Huddleston."

  "Certainly not."
Brady looked not only astonished but insulted. "She was old enough to be my mother."

  "Then why did you suddenly start going there?"

  "Why-a man goes places, that's all."

  Wolfe shook his head. "Not in an emotional vacuum. Was it greed or parsimony? Free horseback rides? I doubt it; your income is probably adequate. Mere convenience? No; it was out of your way, quite a bother. My guess, to employ the conventional euphemism, is love. Had you fallen in love with Miss Nichols?"

  "No."

  "Then what? I assure you, doctor, I am doing this much more tactfully than the police would. What was it?"

  A funny look appeared on Brady's face. Or a series of looks. First it was denial, then hesitation, then embarrassment, then do or die. All the time his eyes were straight at Wolfe. Suddenly he said, in a voice louder than he had been using, "I had fallen in love with Miss Timms. Violently."

  "Oh!" Maryella exclaimed in amazement. "You certainly never-"

  "Don't interrupt, please," Wolfe said testily. "Had you notified Miss Timms of your condition?"

  "No, I hadn't." Brady stuck to his guns. "I was afraid to. She was so-I didn't suppose-she's a terrible flirt-"

  "That's not true! You know mighty well-"

  "Please!" Wolfe was peremptory. His glance shot from right to left and back again. "So all but one of you knew of Dr. Brady's procuring that box of material from the stable, and all withheld the information from me. You're hopeless. Let's try another one, more specific. The day Miss Huddleston came here, she told me that Miss Nichols had a grievance against her, and she suspected her of sending those anonymous letters. I ask all of you- including you, Miss Nichols-what was that grievance?"

  No one said a word.

  "I ask you individually. Miss Nichols?"

  Janet shook her head. Her voice was barely audible. "Nothing. It was nothing."

  "Mr. Huddleston?"

  Daniel said promptly, "I have no idea."

  "Miss Timms?"

  "I don't know," Maryella said, and by the way Wolfe's eyes stayed with her an instant, I saw that he knew she was lying.

  "Dr. Brady?"

  "If I knew I'd tell you," Brady said, "but I don't."

  "Mr. Huddleston?"

  Larry was waiting for him with a fixed smile that twisted a corner of his mouth. "I told you before," he said harshly, "that I don't know a damn thing. That goes right down the line."

  "Indeed. May I have your watch a moment, please?"

  Larry goggled at him.

  "That hexagonal thing on your wrist," Wolfe said. "May I see it a moment?"

  Larry's face displayed changes, as Brady's had shortly before. First it was puzzled, then defiant, then he seemed to be pleased about something. He snarled:

  "What do you want with my watch?"

  "I want to look at it. It's a small favor. You haven't been very helpful so far."

  Larry, his lips twisted with the smile again, unbuckled the strap and arose to pass the watch across the desk to Wolfe, whose fingers closed over it as he said to me:

  "The Huddleston folder, Archie."

  I went and unlocked the cabinet and got out the folder and brought it, Wolfe took it and flipped it open and said:

  "Stay there, Archie. As a bulwark and a witness. Two witnesses would be better. Dr. Brady, if you will please stand beside Mr. Goodwin and keep your eyes on me? Thank you."

  Wolfe's eyes went through the gap between Brady and me to focus on Larry. "You are a very silly young man, Mr. Huddleston. Incredibly callow. You were smugly gratified because you thought I was expecting to find a picture of Miss Nichols in your watch case and would be chagrined not to. You were wrong. Now, doctor, and Archie, please observe. Here is the back of the watch. Here is a picture of Miss Nichols, trimmed to six sides, and apparently to fit. The point could be definitely determined by opening the watch case, but I'm not going to, because it will be opened later and microscopically compared with the picture to prove that it did contain it-Archie!"

  I bulwarked. I owed Larry a smack anyhow, for bad manners if nothing else, but I didn't actually deliver it, since all he did was shoot off his mouth and try to shove through Brady and me to make a grab for the watch. So I merely stiff-armed him and propelled him backwards into his chair and stood ready.

  "So," Wolfe went on imperturbably, "I put the watch and picture inside separate envelopes for safekeeping. Thus. If, Mr. Huddleston, you are wondering how I got that picture, your aunt left it here. I suggest that it is time for you to help us a little, and I'll start with a question that I can make a test of. When did your aunt take that picture from you?"

  Larry was trying to sneer, but it wasn't working very well. His face couldn't hold it because some of the muscles were making movements of their own.

  "Probably," Wolfe said, "it's time to let the police in. I suppose they'll get along faster with you-"

  "You fat bastard!" But the snarl in Larry's voice had become a whine.

  Wolfe grimaced. "I'll try once more, sir. You are going to answer these questions, if not for me then for someone less fat but more importunate. Would you rather have it dug out of the servants and your friends and acquaintances? It's shabby enough as it is; that would only make it worse. When did your aunt take that picture from you?"

  Larry's jaw worked, but his tongue didn't. Wolfe waited ten seconds, then said curtly:

  "Let them in, Archie."

  I took a step, but before I took another one Larry blurted:

  "Goddamn you! You know damn well when she took it! She took it the day she came down here!"

  Wolfe nodded. "That's better. But that wasn't the first time she objected to your relations with Miss Nichols. Was

  it?"

  "No."

  "Did she object on moral grounds?"

  "Hell, no. She objected to our getting married. She ordered me to break off the engagement. The engagement was secret, but she got suspicious and questioned Janet, and Janet told her, and she made me call it off."

  "And naturally you were engaged." Wolfe's voice was smooth, silky. "You burned for revenge-"

  "I did not!" Larry leaned forward, having trouble to control his jaw. "You can come off that right now! You're not going to pin anything on me! I never really wanted to marry her, and what's more, I never intended to! I can prove that by a friend of mine!"

  "Indeed." Wolfe's eyes were nearly shut. "A man like you has friends? I suppose so. But after your aunt made you break the engagement you still kept the picture in your watch?"

  "Yes. I had to. I mean I had Janet to deal with too, and it wasn't easy, living right there in the house. I was afraid of her. You don't know her. I opened the watch case purposely in front of my aunt so she'd take that damn picture. Janet seemed to think the picture meant something, and I thought when she knew it was gone-"

  "Did you know that Miss Nichols sent the anonymous letters?"

  "No, I didn't. Maybe I suspected, but I didn't know."

  "Did you also suspect, when your aunt-"

  "Stop! Stop it!"

  It was Janet.

  She didn't raise her voice. She didn't have to. The tone alone was enough to stop anything and anybody. It was what you would expect to come out of an old abandoned grave, if you had such expectations. Except her mouth, no part of her moved. Her eyes were concentrated on Wolfe's face, with an expression in them that made it necessary for me to look somewhere else. Apparently it had the same effect on the others, for they did the same as me. We gazed at Wolfe.

  "Ha," he said quietly. "A little too much for you, is it, Miss Nichols?"

  She went on staring at him.

  "As I expected," he said, "you're all rubble inside. There's nothing left of you. The simplest way is for me to dictate a confession and you sign it. Then I'll send a copy of it to a man I know, the editor of the Gazette, and it will be on his front page this evening. He would like an exclusive picture of you to go with it, and Mr. Goodwin will be glad to take it. I know you'll like that."

 
; Uh-huh, I thought, he's not only going to make a monkey of Cramer, he's going to give him a real black eye. Daniel muttered something, and so did Brady, but Wolfe silenced them with a gesture.

  "For your satisfaction," he went on, "I ought to tell you, Miss Nichols, that your guilt was by no means obvious. I became aware of it only when Mr. Goodwin telephoned me from Riverdale this morning, though I did of course notice Mr. Larry Huddleston's hexagonal watch when he came here nine days ago, and I surmised your picture had been in it. But your performance today was the act of a nitwit. I presume you were struck with consternation yesterday when you saw that turf being removed, realized what the consequences would be, and attempted to divert suspicion by staging an attack on yourself. Did you know what I was getting at a while ago when I asked Dr. Brady why you didn't jerk the brush away the instant you felt the glass puncture your skin? And he replied, as of course he would, that you didn't feel the glass cutting you?"

  She didn't answer.

  "That," Wolfe said, "was precisely the point, that you did jerk the brush away when you had pulled it along your arm less than an inch, because you knew the glass was there and was cutting you, having put it there yourself.

  Otherwise the cut would have been much longer, probably half the length of your arm. You saw Mr. Goodwin wield the brush as an illustration, sweeping from wrist to shoulder. Everyone does that. At least, no one moves the brush less than an inch and stops. But even without that, your performance today was fantastic, if you meant-as you did-to make it appear as an attempt by some other person to kill you. Such a person would have known that after what had happened, even if you used the bogus iodine, you would certainly have antitoxin administered, which would have made the attempt a fiasco. Whereas you, arranging the affair yourself, knew that a dose of antitoxin would save you from harm. You really-"

  "Stop it!" Janet said, in exactly the same tone as before. I couldn't look at her.

  But that was a mistake, not looking at her. For completely without warning she turned into a streak of lightning. It was so sudden and swift that I was still in my chair when she grabbed the sliver of glass from Wolfe's desk, and by the time I got going she had whirled and gone through the air straight at Larry Huddleston, straight at his face with the piece of glass in her fingers. Everyone else moved too, but no one fast enough, not even Larry. Daniel got his arms around her, her left arm pinned against her, and I got her other arm, including the wrist, but there was a red streak across Larry's cheek from beneath his eye nearly to his chin.