Dr. Brady said sharply, “I’ve been waiting here over half an hour. How long will this take? I’m due at my office at one o’clock.”
I was at my desk and he was nearby, on one of the straight-backed chairs. Next to him was Maryella, in the wing chair that I like to read in, and on the other side of her was Larry. Then Daniel Huddleston; and ending the arc was Janet in the red leather chair, her shoulders sagging, looking as if she were only about half there. As far as that goes, none of them looked very comfortable, not even Maryella; she would glance at one of them and then look back at Wolfe, and set her teeth on her lip and clear her throat again.
Wolfe’s half-open eyes were directed at Brady. “I’m afraid you may be a little late at your office, doctor. I’m sorry—”
“But what kind of a performance is this? You said on the telephone—”
“Please,” Wolfe interrupted sharply. “I said that to get you here.” His glance went around. “The situation is no longer as I represented it on the phone, to any of you. I told you that it was definitely known that Miss Huddleston had been murdered. Now we’re a little further along. I know who murdered her.”
They stared at him. Maryella’s teeth went deeper into her lip. Janet gripped the arms of her chair and stopped breathing. Daniel leaned forward with his chin stuck out like a halfback waiting for a signal. Brady made a noise in his throat. The only one who uttered anything intelligible was Larry. He said harshly:
“The hell you do.”
Wolfe nodded. “I do. That is one change in the situation. The other is that an attempt has been made to murder Miss Nichols. — Please! There is no cause for alarm. The attempt was frustrated—”
“When?” Brady demanded. “What kind of an attempt?”
“To murder Janet!” Maryella exclaimed incredulously.
Wolfe frowned at them. “This will go more quickly and smoothly with no interruptions. I’ll make it as brief as possible; I assure you I have no wish to prolong the unpleasantness. Especially since I find less than enjoyable the presence in this room of an extremely unattractive person. I shall call that person X. As you all know, X began with an effort to injure Miss Huddleston by sending anonymous letters—”
“Nothing of the sort!” Larry blurted indignantly. “We don’t know that one of us sent those letters! Neither do you!”
“Put it this way, Mr. Huddleston.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “I make statements. You suspect belief. In the end there will be a verdict, and you will concur or not. X sent those letters. Then he — I am forced thus to exclude women, at least temporarily, by the pronominal inadequacy of our language — then he became dissatisfied with the results, or something happened, no matter which. In any case, X decided on something more concrete and conclusive. Murder. The technique was unquestionably suggested by the recent death of Miss Horrocks by tetanus. A small amount of material procured at the stable, immersed in water, furnished the required emulsion. It was strained and mixed with argyrol, the mixture was put in a bottle with an iodine label, and the bottle was substituted for the iodine bottle in the cabinet in Miss Huddleston’s bathroom. But—”
“Her bathroom?” Maryella was incredulous again.
“Yes, Miss Timms. But X was not one to wait indefinitely for some accidental disjunction in Miss Huddleston’s skin. He carried the preparations further, by smashing her bottle of bath salts and inserting a sliver of glass among the bristles of her bath brush. Beautifully simple. It would be supposed that the sliver lodged there when the bottle broke. If she saw it and removed it, no harm done, try again. If she didn’t see it, she would cut herself, and there was the iodine bottle—”
“Nuts!” Larry exploded. “You can’t possibly—”
“No?” Wolfe snapped. “Archie, if you please?”
I took it from my pocket and handed it to him, and he displayed it to them between his thumb and forefinger. “Here it is. The identical piece of glass.”
They craned their necks. Brady stretched clear out of his chair, demanding, “How in the name of God—”
“Sit down, Dr. Brady. How did I get it? We’ll come to that. Those were the preparations. But chance intervened, to make better ones. That very afternoon, on the terrace, a tray of glasses was upset and the pieces flew everywhere. X conceived a brilliant improvisation on the spot. Helping to collect the pieces, he deposited one in Miss Huddleston’s slipper, and, entering the house on an errand, as all of you did in connection with that minor catastrophe, he ran upstairs and removed the sliver of glass from the bath brush, and got the bogus bottle of iodine, took it downstairs, and placed it in the cupboard in the living room, removing the genuine one kept there. For an active person half a minute, at most a minute, did for that.”
Wolfe sighed. “As you know, it worked. Miss Huddleston stuck her foot in the slipper and cut her toe, her brother brought the iodine, Dr. Brady applied it, and she got tetanus and died.” His eyes darted to Brady. “By the way, doctor, that suggests a question. Is it worthy of remark that you failed to notice the absence of the characteristic odor of iodine? I merely ask.”
Brady was looking grim. “As far as I am concerned,” he said acidly, “it remains to be proven that the bottle did not contain iodine, and therefore—”
“Nonsense. I told you on the phone. The piece of turf where the chimpanzee poured some of the contents has been analyzed. Argyrol, no iodine, and a surfeit of tetanus germs. The police have it. I tell you, I tell all of you, that however disagreeable you may find this inquiry as I pursue it, it would be vastly more disagreeable if the police were doing it. Your alternative—”
The doorbell called me away, since Fritz had been told to leave it to me. I dashed out, not wanting to miss anything crucial, and naturally took the precaution, under the circumstances, of pulling the curtain aside for a peek through the glass. It was well that I did. I never saw the stoop more officially populated. Inspector Cramer, Lieutenant Rowcliff, and Sergeant Stebbins! I slipped the chain bolt in place, which would let the door come only five inches, turned the lock and the knob and pulled, and spoke through the crack:
“They don’t live here any more.”
“Listen, you goddamn squirt,” Cramer said impolitely. “Open the door!”
“Can’t. The hinge is broke.”
“I say open up! We know they’re here!”
“You do in a pig’s eye. The things you don’t know. If you’ve got one, show it. No? No warrant? And all the judges out to lunch—”
“By God, if you think—”
“I don’t. Mr. Wolfe thinks. All I have is brute force. Like this—”
I banged the door to, made sure the lock had caught, went to the kitchen and stood on a chair and removed a screw, bolted the back door and told Fritz to leave it that way, and returned to the office. Wolfe stopped talking to look at me. I nodded, and told him as I crossed to my chair:
“Three irate men. They’ll probably return with legalities.”
“Who are they?”
“Cramer, Rowcliff, Stebbins.”
“Ha.” Wolfe looked gratified. “Disconnect the bell.”
“Done.”
“Bolt the back door.”
“Done.”
“Good.” He addressed them: “An inspector, a lieutenant, and a sergeant of police have this building under siege. Since they are investigating murder, and since all of the persons involved have been collected here by me and they know it, my bolted doors will irritate them almost beyond endurance. I shall let them enter when I am ready, not before. If any of you wish to leave now, Mr. Goodwin will let you out to the street. Do you?”
Nobody moved or spoke, or breathed.
Wolfe nodded. “During your absence, Archie, Dr. Brady stated that outdoors on that terrace, with a breeze going, it is not likely that the absence of the iodine odor would have been noticed by him, or by anyone. Is that correct, doctor?”
“Yes,” Brady said curtly.
“Very well. I agree with you.” Wolfe surveyed the group. “So X’s improvisation was a success. Later, of course, he replaced the genuine iodine in the cupboard and removed the bogus. From his standpoint, it was next to perfect. It might indeed have been perfect, invulnerable to any inquest, if the chimpanzee hadn’t poured some of that mixture on the grass. I don’t know why X didn’t attend to that; there was plenty of time, whole days and nights; possible he hadn’t seen the chimpanzee doing it, or maybe he didn’t realize the danger. And we know he was foolhardy. He should certainly have disposed of the bogus iodine and the piece of glass he had removed from Miss Huddleston’s bath brush when it was no longer needed, but he didn’t. He—”
“How do you know he didn’t?” Larry demanded.
“Because he kept them. He must have kept them, since he used them. Yesterday he put the bogus iodine in the cabinet in Miss Nichols’ bathroom, and the piece of glass in her bath brush.”
I was watching them all at once, or trying to, but he or she was too good for me. The one who wasn’t surprised and startled put on so good an imitation of it that I was no better off than I was before. Wolfe was taking them in too, his narrowed eyes the only moving part of him, his arms folded, his chin on his necktie.
“And,” he rumbled, “it worked. This morning. Miss Nichols got in the tub, cut her arm, took the bottle from the cabinet, and applied the stuff—”
“Good God!” Brady was out of his chair. “Then she must—”
Wolfe pushed a palm at him. “Calm yourself, doctor. Antitoxin has been administered.”
“By whom?”
“By a qualified person. Please be seated. Thank you. Miss Nichols does not need your professional services, but I would like to use your professional knowledge. First — Archie, have you got that brush?”
It was on my desk, still wrapped in the paper Hoskins had got for me. I removed the paper and offered the brush to Wolfe, but instead of taking it he asked me:
“You use a bath brush, don’t you? Show us how you manipulate it. On your arm.”
Accustomed as I was to loony orders from him, I merely obeyed. I started at the wrist and made vigorous sweeps to the shoulder and back.
“That will do, thank you. — No doubt all of you, if you use bath brushes, wield them in a similar manner. Not, that is, with a circular motion, or around the arm, but lengthwise, up and down. So the cut on Miss Nichols’s arm, as Mr. Goodwin described it to me, runs lengthwise, about halfway between the wrist and the elbow. Is that correct, Miss Nichols?”
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 that? 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 the facts. I have finished. Now it’s your turn to talk. All of you. Of course this is highly unorthodox, all of you together like this, but it would take too long to do it properly, singly.”
He leaned back and joined his finger tips at the apex of his 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 emotion whatever, was born in one of these people and distended 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 reel streak across Larry’s cheek from beneath his eye nearly to his chin.
Everybody but Janet was making noises, some of which were words.
“Shut up!” Wolfe said gruffly. “Archie, if you’ve finished your nap—”
“Go to hell,” I told him. “I’m not a genius like you.” I gave Janet’s wrist a little pressure. “Drop it, girlie.”
She let the piece of glass fall to the floor and stood rigid, watching. Brady examined Larry’s cheek.
“Only skin deep,” Brady said, unfolding a handkerchief. “Here, hold this against it.”
“By God,” Larry blurted, “if it leaves a scar—”
“That was a lie,” Janet said. “You lied!”
“What?” Larry glared at her.
“She means,” Wolfe put in, “that you lied when you said you neither desired nor intended to marry her. I agree with her that the air was already bad enough in here without that. You fed her passion and her hope. She wanted you, God knows why. When your aunt intervened, she struck. For revenge? Yes. Or saying to your aunt, preparing to say, ‘Let me have him or I’ll ruin you?’ Probably. Or to ruin your aunt and then collect you from the debris? Possibly. Or all three, Miss Nichols?”
Janet, her back to him, still facing Larry, did not speak. I held onto her.
“But,” Wolfe said, “your aunt came to see me, and that frightened her. Also, when she herself came that evening and found that picture here, the picture you had carried in your watch, she was not only frightened but enraged. Being a very sentimental young woman—”
“Good God,” Brady muttered involuntarily. “Sentimental!”
A shudder ran over Janet from top to bottom. I pulled her around by the arm and steered her to the red leather chair and she dropped into it. Wolfe said brusquely:
“Archie, your notebook. No — first the camera—”
“I can’t stand it!” Maryella cried, standing up. She reached for something to hold onto, and as luck would have it, it was Brady’s arm. “I can’t!”
Wolfe frowned at them. “Take her up and show her the orchids, doctor. Three flights. And take that casualty along and patch it up. Fritz will get what you need. I advise you to smell the iodine.”
At six o’clock that evening I was at my desk. The office was quiet and peaceful. Wolfe had done it up brown. Cramer had come like a lion with a squad and a warrant, and had departed like a lamb with a flock of statements, a confession, a murderer, and apoplexy. Despite all of which, loving Cramer as I do, when I heard the elevator bringing Wolfe down from the plant rooms I got too busy with my desk work to turn around. Intending not even to acknowledge his presence. The excuse he had given for keeping Maryella there was that it was impossible for her to return to Riverdale as things stood, and there was no place else for her to go. Phooey.
But I got no chance to freeze them out, for they went right on by the office door, to the kitchen. I stuck to my desk. Time went by, but I was too irritated to get any work done. Towards seven o’clock the bell rang, and I went to the front door and found Doc Brady. He said he had been invited, so I took him to the kitchen.
The kitchen was warm, bright, and full of appetizing smells. Fritz was slicing a ripe pineapple. Wolfe was seated in the chair by the window, tasting out of a steaming saucepan. Maryella was perched on one end of the long table with her legs crossed, sipping a mint julep. She fluttered the fingers of her free hand at Brady for a greeting. He stopped in astonishment, and stood and blinked at her, at Wolfe and Fritz, and back at her.
“Well,” he said. “Really. I’m glad you can be so festive. Under the circumstances—”
“Nonsense!” Wolfe snapped. “There’s nothing festive about it; we’re merely preparing a meal. Miss Timms is much better occupied. Would you prefer hysterics? We had a discussion about spoon bread, and there are two batches in the oven. Two eggs, and three eggs. Milk at a hundred and fifty degrees, and boiling. Take that julep she’s offering you. Archie, a julep?”
Brady took the julep from her, set it down on the table without sampling it, wrapped his arms around her, and made it tighter. She showed no inclination to struggle or scratch. Wolfe pretended not to notice, and placidly took another taste from the saucepan. Fritz started trimming the slices of pineapple.
Maryella gasped, “Ah think, Ah’d bettah breathe.”
Wolfe asked amiably, “A julep, Archie?”
I turned without answering, went to the hall and got my hat, slammed the door from the outside, walked to the corner and into Sam’s place, and climbed onto a stool at the counter. I didn’t know I was muttering to myself, but I must have been, for Sam, behind the counter, demanded:
“Spoon bread? What the hell is spoon bread?”
“Don’t speak till you’re spoken to,” I told him, “and give me a ham sandwich and a glass of toxin. If you have no toxin, make it milk. Good old wholesome orangutan milk. I have been playing tag with an undressed murderess. Do you know how to tell a murderess when you see one? It’s a cinch. Soak her in iodine over night, drain through cheesecloth, add a pound of pig chitlins — what? Oh. Rye and no pickle. Ah think Ah’d bettah breathe.”
~ ~ ~
I have never mentioned it to him, and I don’t intend to. I’ve got a dozen theories about it. Here are a few for samples:
1. He knew I would go to the funeral, and he sent that bunch of orchids purely and simply to pester me.
2. Something from his past. When he was young and handsome, and Bess Huddleston was ditto, they might have been — uh, acquainted. As for her not recognizing him, I doubt if his own mother would, as is. And there’s no doubt he has fifteen or twenty pasts; I know that much about him.
3. He was paying a debt. He knew, or had an idea, that she was going to be murdered, from something someone said that first day, and was too damn lazy, or too interested in corned beef hash with chitlins, to do anything about it. Then when she was ready for burial he felt he owed her something, so he sent her what? Just some orchids, any old orchids? No, sir. Black ones. The first black orchids ever seen on a coffin anywhere on the globe since the dawn of history. Debt canceled. Paid in full. File receipted bills.
4. I’ll settle for number three.
5. But it’s still a mystery, and when he catches me looking at him a certain way he knows darned well what’s on my mind.
A.G.