Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 31

by Champagne for One

  “Why must he have done it? You invented that, didn’t you? About him and Miss Usher?”

  “I did not. I sort of kept an eye on Faith, naturally. I don’t mean I was with her, I just kept an eye on her. I saw her with Laidlaw twice, and the day he left for Canada I saw her in his car. I knew he went to Canada because a friend got a card from him. I didn’t have to invent it.”

  Wolfe grunted. “You realize, Mr. Byne, that everything you say is now suspect. Assuming that you knew that Laidlaw and Miss Usher had in fact been intimate, why did you surmise that he had killed her? Was she menacing him?”

  “Not that I know of. If he had a reason for killing her I didn’t know what it was. But he was the only one of the people there that night who had had anything to do with her.”

  “No. You had.”

  “Damn it, I wasn’t there!”

  “That’s true, but those who were there can also plead lack of opportunity. In the circumstances as I have heard them described, no one could have poisoned Miss Usher’s champagne with any assurance that it would get to her. And you alone, of all those involved, had a motive, and not a puny one. An increase in annual income of $27,000 or more, tax exempt, is an alluring prospect. If I were you I would accept almost any alternative to a disclosure of that agreement to the District Attorney.”

  “I am. I’m sitting here while you pile it on.”

  “So you are.” Wolfe looked at his palms and put them on the chair arms. “Now. Did you know that Miss Usher kept a bottle of poison on her person?”

  No hesitation. “I knew that she said she did. I never saw it. Her mother told me, and Mrs. Irwin at Grantham House mentioned it to me once.”

  “Did you know what kind of poison it was?”

  “No.”

  “Was it Mrs. Usher’s own idea to seclude herself in a hotel under another name, or did you suggest it?”

  “Neither one. I mean I don’t remember. She phoned me Thursday—no, Wednesday—and we decided she ought to do that. I don’t remember who suggested it.”

  “Who suggested your meeting this evening?”

  “She did. She phoned me this morning. I told you that.”

  “What did she want?”

  “She wanted to know what I was going to do about payments, with Faith dead. She knew that by the agreement it was left to my discretion. I told her that for the present I would continue to send her half.”

  “Had she been using any of the money you sent her to support her daughter?”

  “I don’t think so. Not for the last four or five years, but it wasn’t her fault. Faith wouldn’t take anything from her. Faith wouldn’t live with her. They couldn’t get along. Mrs. Usher is very—unconventional. Faith left when she was sixteen, and for over a year we didn’t know where she was. When I found her she was working in a restaurant. A waitress.”

  “But you continued to pay Mrs. Usher her full share?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that fund in your possession and control without supervision?”

  “Certainly.”

  “It has never been audited?”

  “Certainly not. Who would audit it?”

  “I couldn’t say. Would you object to an audit by an accountant of my selection? Now that I know of the agreement?”

  “I certainly would. The fund is my property and I am accountable to no one but myself, as long as I pay Mrs. Usher her share.”

  “I must see that agreement.” Wolfe pursed his lips and slowly shook his head. “It is extremely difficult,” he said, “to circumvent the finality of death. Mr. Grantham made a gallant try, but he was hobbled by his vain desire to guard his secret even after he became food for worms. He protected you and Mrs. Usher, each against the frailty or knavery of the other, but what if you joined forces in a threat to his repute? He couldn’t preclude that.” He lifted a hand to brush it aside. “A desire to defeat death makes any man a fool. I must see that agreement. Meanwhile, a few points remain. You told Mr. Goodwin that your selection of Miss Usher to be invited to that party was fortuitous, but now that won’t do. Then why?”

  “Of course,” Byne said. “I knew that was coming.”

  “Then you’ve had time to devise an answer.”

  “I don’t have to devise it. I was a damn fool. When I got the list from Mrs. Irwin and saw Faith’s name on it—well, there it was. The idea of having Faith as a guest at my aunt’s house—it just appealed to me. Mrs. Robilotti is only my aunt by marriage, you know. My mother was Albert Grantham’s sister. You’ve got to admit there was a kick in the idea of having Faith sitting at my aunt’s table. And then …”

  He left it hanging. Wolfe prodded him. “Then?”

  “That suggested another idea, to have Laidlaw there too. I know I was a damn fool, but there it was. Laidlaw seeing Faith there, and Faith seeing him. Of course, my aunt could cross Faith off and tell Mrs. Irwin—” He stopped. In a second he went on, “I mean you never knew what Faith would do, she might refuse to go, but Laidlaw wouldn’t know she had been asked, so what the hell. So I suggested that to my aunt, to invite Laidlaw, and she did.”

  “Did Miss Usher know that Albert Grantham had fathered her?”

  “My God, no. She thought her father had been a man named Usher who had died before she was born.”

  “Did she know you were the source of her mother’s income?”

  “No. I think—No, I don’t think, I know. She suspected that her mother’s income came from friends. From men she knew. That was why she left. About my picking Faith to be invited to that party and suggesting Laidlaw, after I had done that I got cold feet. I realized something might happen. At least Faith might walk out when she saw him, and it might be something worse, and I didn’t want to be there, so I decided to get someone to go in my place. The first four or five I tried couldn’t make it, and I thought of Archie Goodwin.”

  Wolfe leaned back and closed his eyes, and his lips started to work. They pushed out and went back in, out and in, out and in … Sooner or later he always does that, and I really should have a sign made, GENIUS AT WORK, and put it on his desk when he starts it. Usually I have some sort of idea as to what genius is working on, but that time not a glimmer. He had cleared away some underbrush, for instance who had sicked the cops on Laidlaw and how Faith and Laidlaw had both got invited to the party, but he had got only one thing to chew on, that he had at last found somebody who had had a healthy motive to kill Faith Usher, and Byne, as he liked to point out himself, hadn’t even been at the party. Of course, that could have been what genius was at, doping out how Byne could have poisoned the champagne by remote control, but I doubted it.

  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 seei
ng 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. Also 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 “Wmgz-wmzg.” 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 15

  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 possible 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 playback was essential to his program 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.”

  It 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 jewelry 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 balk, 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?”