Rex Stout - Poison à la Carte

“Nobody noticed her.” I wasn’t aggressive; I was supposed to be nice and sympathetic. “She wouldn’t have been noticed leaving the dining room because the attention of the girls who were in there was on Felix and Marjorie Quinn, who had spilled a blini, and the men wouldn’t notice her. The only place she would have been noticed was in the corridor through the pantry, and if she met another girl there she could have stopped and been patting her hair or something. Anyhow, one of you must have gone back for a second plate, because when Fern Faber went for hers there wasn’t any.”

“Why do you say one of us?” Nora demanded. “If you mean one of us here. There were twelve.”

“I do mean one of you here, but I’m not saying it, I’m just quoting the police. They think it was one of you here because you were the last five.”

“How do you know what they think?”

“I’m not at liberty to say. But I do.”

“I know what I think,” Carol asserted. She had uncrossed her legs and slid forward on the couch to get her toes on the floor. “I think it was Zoltan. I read in the Gazette that he’s a chef at Rusterman’s, and Nero Wolfe is the trustee and so he’s the boss there, and I think Zoltan hated him for some reason and tried to poison him, but he gave the poisoned plate to the wrong girl. Nero Wolfe sat right next to Pyle.”

There was no point in telling her that she was simply ignoring the fact that one of them had gone back for a second helping, so I just said, “Nobody can stop you thinking. But I doubt very much if the police would buy that.”

“What would they buy?” Peggy asked.

My personal feelings about Peggy were mixed. For, she had recognized me and named me. Against, she had accused me of liking myself. “Anything that would fit,” I told her. “As I said, they think it was one of you five that went back for more, and therefore they have to think that one of you gave the poison to Pyle, because what other possible reason could you have had for serving another portion? They wouldn’t buy anything that didn’t fit into that. That’s what rules out everybody else, including Zoltan.” I looked at Carol. “I’m sorry, Miss Annis, but that’s how it is.”

“They’re a bunch of dopes,” Lucy Morgan stated. “They get an idea and then they haven’t got room for another one.” She was on the floor with her legs stretched out, her back against the couch. “I agree with Carol, there’s no proof that any of us went back for another plate. That Zoltan said he didn’t see anyone come back. Didn’t he?”

“He did. He still does.”

“Then he’s a dope too. And he said no one took two plates. Didn’t he?”

“Right. He still does.”

“Then how do they know which one he’s wrong about? We were all nervous, you know that. Maybe one of us took two plates instead of one, and when she got to the dining room there she was with an extra, and she got rid of it by giving it to some guest that didn’t have any.”

“Then why didn’t she say so?” I asked.

“Because she was scared. The way Nero Wolfe came at us was enough to scare anybody. And now she won’t say so because she has signed a statement and she’s even more scared.”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, but if you analyze that you’ll see that it won’t do. It’s very tricky. You can do it the way I did this afternoon. Take twenty-four little pieces of paper, on twelve of them write the names of the guests, and arrange them as they sat at the table. On the other twelve pieces write the names of the twelve girls. Then try to manipulate the twelve girl pieces so that one of them either took in two plates at once, and did not give either of them to Pyle, or went back for a second plate, and did not give either the first one or the second one to Pyle. It can’t be done. For if either of those things happened there wouldn’t have been one mix-up, there would have been two. Since there was only one mix-up, Pyle couldn’t possibly have been served by a girl who neither brought in two plates at once nor went back for a second one. So the idea that a girl innocently brought in two plates is out.”

“I don’t believe it,” Nora said flatly.

“It’s not a question of believing.” I was still sympathetic. “You might as well say you don’t believe two plus two is four. I’ll show you. May I have some paper? Any old kind.”

She went to a table and brought some, and I took my pen and wrote the twenty-four names, spacing them, and tore the paper into twenty-four pieces. Then I knelt on a rug and arranged the twelve guest pieces in a rectangle as they had sat at the table — not that that mattered, since they could have been in a straight line or a circle, but it was plainer that way. The girls gathered around. Nora knelt facing me, Lucy rolled over closer and propped on her elbows, Carol came and squatted beside me, Peggy plopped down at the other side, and Helen stood back of Nora.

“Okay,” I said, “show me.” I took “Quinn” and put it back of “Leacraft.” “There’s no argument about that, Marjorie Quinn brought the first plate and gave it to Leacraft. Remember there was just one mix-up, started by Peggy when she saw Pyle had been served and gave hers to Nero Wolfe. Try having any girl bring in a second plate — or bring in two at once if you still think that might have happened — without either serving Pyle or starting a second mix-up.”

My memory has had a long stiff training under the strains and pressures Wolfe has put on it, but I wouldn’t undertake to report all the combinations they tried, huddled around me on the floor, even if I thought you cared. They stuck to it for half an hour or more. The most persistent was Peggy Choate, the redhead. After the others had given up she stayed with it, frowning and biting her lip, propped first on one hand and then the other. Finally she said, “Nuts,” stretched an arm to make a jumble of all the pieces of paper, guests and girls, got up, and returned to her chair. I did likewise.

“It’s just a trick,” said Carol Annis, perched on the couch again.

“I still don’t believe it,” Nora Jaret declared. “I do not believe that one of us deliberately poisoned a man — one of us sitting here.” Her big brown eyes were at me. “Good lord, look at us! Point at her! Point her out! I dare you to!”

That, of course, was what I was there for — not exactly to point her out, but at least to get a hint. I had had a vague idea that one might come from watching them maneuver the pieces of paper, but it hadn’t. Nor from anything any of them had said. I had been expecting Helen Iacono to introduce the subject of Vincent Pyle’s modus operandi with girls, but apparently she had decided it was up to me. She hadn’t spoken more than twenty words since we arrived.

“If I could point her out,” I said, “I wouldn’t be bothering the rest of you. Neither would the cops if they could point her out. Sooner or later, of course, they will, but it begins to look as if they’ll have to get at it from the other end. Motive. They’ll have to find out which one of you had a motive, and they will — sooner or later — and on that maybe I can help. I don’t mean help them, I mean help you — not the one who killed him, the rest of you. That thought occurred to me after I learned that Helen Iacono had admitted that she had gone out with Pyle a few times last winter. What if she had said she hadn’t? When the police found out she had lied, and they would have, she would have been in for it. It wouldn’t have proved she had killed him, but the going would have been mighty rough. I understand that the rest of you have all denied that you ever had anything to do with Pyle. Is that right? Miss Annis?”