Rex Stout - Cordially Invited to Meet Death

She didn’t seem to feel like talking. I explained to her about Doc Vollmer being an old friend of ours, with his home and office on the same block as Nero Wolfe’s house, so I was taking her there, and I tried a few leading questions, such as whether she had any idea how the piece of glass got into the bristles of her bath brush, but she didn’t seem to be having any ideas. What she needed was a strong man to hold her hand, but I was driving. She had simply had the daylights scared out of her.

I had no explaining to do at Doc Vollmer’s, since Wolfe had talked to him on the phone, and we weren’t in there more than twenty minutes altogether. He cleaned the cut thoroughly, applied some of his own iodine, gave her the antitoxin in that arm, and then took me to an inside room and asked me for the iodine bottle I had. When I gave it to him he uncorked it, smelled it, frowned, poured a little of the contents into a glass vial, corked it again even tighter than I had, and handed it back to me.

“She’ll be all right,” he said. “What a devilish trick! Tell Mr. Wolfe I’ll phone him as soon as possible.”

I escorted Janet back out to the car. It was only a couple of hundred feet from there to Wolfe’s door, and I discovered that I couldn’t drive the last thirty of them because two cars were parked in front. Janet hadn’t even asked why I was taking her to Wolfe’s house. Apparently she was leaving it up to me. I gave her a reassuring grin as I opened the door with my key and waved her in.

Not knowing who the callers might be, the owners of the cars in front, instead of taking her straight to the office I ushered her into the front room. But one of them was there, sprawled in a chair, and when Janet saw him she emitted an exclamation. It was Larry Huddleston. I greeted him, invited Janet to sit, and not wanting to use the connecting door to the office, went around by the hall. Wolfe wasn’t in the office, but two more visitors were, and they were Dr. Brady and Daniel Huddleston, evidently, judging from their attitudes, not being chummy.

Oho, I thought, we’re having a party, and went to the kitchen, and there was Wolfe.

He was standing by the long table, watching Fritz rub a spice mixture into slices of calf’s liver, and watching with him, standing beside him, closer to him than I had ever seen any woman or girl of any age tolerated, with her hand slipped between his arm and his bulk, was Maryella.

Wolfe gave me a fleeting glance. “Back, Archie? We’re doing mock terrapin. Miss Timms had a suggestion.” He leaned over to peer at the liver, straightened, and sighed clear to the bottom. He turned to me: “And Miss Nichols?”

“In front. Doc Vollmer took a sample and will phone as soon as possible.”

“Good. On the coldest shelf, Fritz; the time is uncertain; and leave the door to Archie. Archie, we are busy and not available. All of us. Come, Miss Timms.”

She couldn’t cling to him as they went through the door, because there wasn’t room.

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.”