With Mrs. Carlisle the husband had come along. With Mrs. Orwin it was the son. His expression and manner were so different I would hardly have known him. Upstairs his tone had been mean and his face had been mean. Now his narrow little eyes were doing their damnedest to look frank and cordial and one of the boys. He leaned across the table at Cramer, extending a hand.
“Inspector Cramer? I’ve been hearing about you for years! I’m Eugene Orwin.” He glanced to his right. “I’ve already had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Goodwin — earlier today, before this terrible thing happened. It is terrible.”
“Yes,” Cramer agreed. “Sit down.”
“I will in a moment. I do better with words standing up. I would like to make a statement on behalf of my mother and myself, and I hope you’ll permit it. I’m a member of the bar. My mother is not feeling well. At the request of your men she went in with me to identify the body of Miss Brown, and it was a bad shock, and we’ve been detained now more than two hours.”
His mother’s appearance corroborated him. Sitting with her head propped on a hand and her eyes closed, obviously she didn’t care as much about the impression they made on the inspector as her son did. It was doubtful whether she was paying any attention to what her son was saying.
“A statement would be welcome,” Cramer told him, “if it’s relevant.”
“I thought so,” Gene said approvingly. “So many people have an entirely wrong idea of police methods! Of course you know that Miss Brown came here today as my mother’s guest, and therefore it might be supposed that my mother knows her well. But actually she doesn’t. That’s what I want to make clear.”
“Go ahead.”
Gene glanced at the shorthand dick. “If it’s taken down I would like to go over it when convenient.”
“You may.”
“Then here are the facts. In January my mother was in Florida. You meet all kinds in Florida. My mother met a man who called himself Colonel Percy Brown — a British colonel in the Reserve, he said. Later on he introduced his sister Cynthia to her. My mother saw a great deal of them. My father is dead, and the estate, a rather large one, is in her control. She lent Brown some money — not much; that was just an opener. A week ago—”
Mrs. Orwin’s head jerked up. “It was only five thousand dollars, and I didn’t promise him anything,” she said wearily, and propped her head on her hand again.
“All right, Mother.” Gene patted her shoulder. “A week ago she returned to New York, and they came along. The first time I met them I thought they were impostors. He didn’t sound like an Englishman, and certainly she didn’t. They weren’t very free with family details, but from them and Mother, chiefly Mother, I got enough to inquire about and sent a cable to London. I got a reply Saturday and another one this morning, and there was more than enough to confirm my suspicion, but not nearly enough to put it up to my mother. When she likes people she can be very stubborn about them — not a bad trait, not at all; I don’t want to be misunderstood and I don’t want her to be. I was thinking it over, what step to take next. Meanwhile, I thought it best not to let them be alone with her if I could help it — as you see, I’m being utterly frank. That’s why I came here with them today — my mother is a member of that flower club; I’m no gardener myself.”
His tone implied a low opinion of male gardeners, which was none too bright if his idea was to get solid with Wolfe as well as Cramer.
He turned a palm up. “That’s what brought me here. My mother came to see the orchids, and she invited Brown and his sister to come simply because she is good-hearted. But actually she doesn’t know them, she knows nothing about them, because what they have told her is one thing and what they really are is something else. Then this happened, and in the past hour, after she recovered a little from the shock of being taken in there to identify the corpse, I have explained to her what the situation is.”
He put his hands on the table and leaned on them, forward at Cramer. “I’m going to be quite frank, Inspector. Under the circumstances, I can’t see that it would serve any useful purpose to let it be published that that woman came here with my mother. What good would it do? How would it further the cause of justice? I want to make it perfectly clear that we have no desire to evade our responsibility as citizens. But how would it help to get my mother’s name in the headlines?”
He straightened, backed up a step, and looked affectionately at Mother.
“Names in headlines aren’t what I’m after,” Cramer told him, “but I don’t run the newspapers. If they’ve already got it I can’t stop them. I’d like to say I appreciate your frankness. So you only met Miss Brown a week ago. How many times had you seen her altogether?”
Three times, Gene said. Cramer had plenty of questions for both mother and son. It was in the middle of them that Wolfe passed me a slip of paper on which he had scribbled:
Tell Fritz to bring sandwiches and coffee for you and me. Also for those left in the front room. No one else. Of course Saul and Theodore.
I left the room, found Fritz in the kitchen, delivered the message, and returned.
Gene stayed cooperative to the end, and Mrs. Orwin tried, though it was an effort. They said they had been together all the time, which I happened to know wasn’t so, having seen them separated at least twice during the afternoon — and Cramer did too, since I had told him. They said a lot of other things, among them that they hadn’t left the plant rooms between their arrival and their departure with Wolfe; that they had stayed until most of the others were gone because Mrs. Orwin wanted to persuade Wolfe to sell her some plants; that Colonel Brown had wandered off by himself once or twice; that they had been only mildly concerned about Cynthia’s absence because of assurances from Colonel Brown and me; and so on and so forth. Before they left, Gene made another try for a commitment to keep his mother’s name out of it, and Cramer appreciated his frankness so much that he promised to do his best. I couldn’t blame Cramer; people like them might be in a position to call almost anybody, even the commissioner or the mayor, by his first name.
Fritz had brought trays for Wolfe and me, and we were making headway with them. In the silence that followed the departure of the Orwins, Wolfe could plainly be heard chewing a mouthful of mixed salad.
Cramer sat frowning at us. He spoke not to Wolfe but to me. “Is that imported ham?”
I shook my head and swallowed before I answered. “No, Georgia. Pigs fed on peanuts and acorns. Cured to Mr. Wolfe’s specifications. It smells good but it tastes even better. I’ll copy the recipe for you — no, damn it, I can’t, because the typewriter’s in the office. Sorry.” I put the sandwich down and picked up another. “I like to alternate — first a bit of ham, then sturgeon, then ham, then sturgeon…”
I could see him controlling himself. He turned his head. “Levy! Get that Colonel Brown in.”
“Yes, sir. That man you wanted — Vedder — he’s here.”
“Then I’ll take him first.”