Rex Stout - The Christmas-Party Murder

She stopped for breath. Wolfe inquired, “Who did?”

She nodded. “I’ll tell you. Margot Dickey and Kurt were having an affair. A few months ago Kurt began on me, and it was hard for me because I–I—” She frowned for a word, and found one. “I had a feeling for him. I had a strong feeling. But you see, I am a virgin, and I wouldn’t give in to him. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t known he was having an affair with Margot, but I did know, and I told him the first man I slept with would be my husband. He said he was willing to give up Margot, but even if he did he couldn’t marry me on account of Mrs. Jerome, because she would stop backing him with her money. I don’t know what he was to Mrs. Jerome, but I know what she was to him.”

Her hands opened and closed again to be fists. “That went on and on, but Kurt had a feeling for me too. Last night late, it was after midnight, he phoned me that he had broken with Margot for good and he wanted to marry me. He wanted to come and see me, but I told him I was in bed and we would see each other in the morning. He said that would be at the studio with other people there, so finally I said I would go to his apartment for breakfast, and I did, this morning. But I am still a virgin, Mr. Wolfe.”

He was focused on her with half-closed eyes. “That is your privilege, madam.”

“Oh,” she said. “Is it a privilege? It was there, at breakfast, that he told me about you, your arranging to be Santa Claus. When I got to the studio I was surprised to see Margot there, and how friendly she was. That was part of her plan, to be friendly and cheerful with everyone. She has told the police that Kurt was going to marry her, that they decided last night to get married next week. Christmas week. I am a Christian.”

Wolfe stirred in his chair. “Have we reached the point? Did Miss Dickey kill Mr. Bottweill?”

“Yes. Of course she did.”

“Have you told the police that?”

“Yes. I didn’t tell them all I have told you, but enough.”

“With evidence?”

“No. I have no evidence.”

“Then you’re vulnerable to an action for slander.”

She opened her fists and turned her palms up. “Does that matter? When I know I’m right? When I know it? But she was so clever, the way she did it, that there can’t be any evidence. Everybody there today knew about the poison, and they all had a chance to put it in the bottle. They can never prove she did it. They can’t even prove she is lying when she says Kurt was going to marry her, because he is dead. She acted today the way she would have acted if that had been true. But it has got to be proved somehow. There has got to be evidence to prove it.”

“And you want me to get it?”

She let that pass. “What I was thinking, Mr. Wolfe, you are vulnerable too. There will always be the danger that the police will find out who Santa Claus was, and if they find it was you and you didn’t tell them—”

“I haven’t conceded that,” Wolfe snapped.

“Then we’ll just say there will always be the danger that I’ll tell them what Kurt told me, and you did concede that that would be unpleasant. So it would be better if the evidence proved who killed Kurt and also proved who Santa Claus was. Wouldn’t it?”

“Go on.”

“So I thought how easy it would be for you to get the evidence. You have men who do things for you, who would do anything for you, and one of them can say that you asked him to go there and be Santa Claus, and he did. Of course it couldn’t be Mr. Goodwin, since he was at the party, and it would have to be a man they couldn’t prove was somewhere else. He can say that while he was in the dressing room putting on the costume he heard someone in the office and peeked out to see who it was, and he saw Margot Dickey get the bottle from the desk drawer and put something in it and put the bottle back in the drawer, and go out. That must have been when she did it, because Kurt always took a drink of Pernod when he came back from lunch.”

Wolfe was rubbing his lip with a fingertip. “I see,” he muttered.

She wasn’t through. “He can say,” she went on, “that he ran away because he was frightened and wanted to tell you about it first. I don’t think they would do anything to him if he went to them tomorrow morning and told them all about it, would they? Just like me. I don’t think they would do anything to me if I went to them tomorrow morning and told them I had remembered that Kurt told me that you were going to be Santa Claus, and this afternoon he told me you were in the dressing room putting on the costume. That would be the same kind of thing, wouldn’t it?”

Her little carved mouth thinned and widened with a smile. “That’s what I want,” she chirped. “Did I say it so you understand it?”

“You did indeed,” Wolfe assured her. “You put it admirably.”

“Would it be better, instead of him going to tell them, for you to have Inspector Cramer come here, and you tell him? You could have the man here. You see, I know how you do things, from all I have read.”

“That might be better,” he allowed. His tone was dry but not hostile. I could see a muscle twitching beneath his right ear, but she couldn’t. “I suppose, Miss Quon, it is futile to advance the possibility that one of the others killed him, and if so it would be a pity—”

“Excuse me. I interrupt.” The chirp was still a chirp, but it had hard steel in it. “I know she killed him.”

“I don’t. And even if I bow to your conviction, before I could undertake the stratagem you propose I would have to make sure there are no facts that would scuttle it. It won’t take me long. You’ll hear from me tomorrow. I’ll want—”

She interrupted again. “I can’t wait longer than tomorrow morning to tell them what Kurt told me.”

“Pfui. You can and will. The moment you disclose that, you no longer have a whip to dangle at me. You will hear from me tomorrow. Now I want to think. Archie?”

I left my chair. She looked up at me and back at Wolfe. For some seconds she sat, considering, inscrutable of course, then stood up.

“It was very exciting to be here,” she said, the steel gone, “to see you here. You must forgive me for not phoning. I hope it will be early tomorrow.” She turned and headed for the door, and I followed.

After I had helped her on with her hooded coat, and let her out, and watched her picking her way down the seven steps, I shut the door, put the chain-bolt on, returned to the office, and told Wolfe, “It has stopped snowing. Who do you think will be best for it, Saul or Fred or Orrie or Bill?”

“Sit down,” he growled. “You see through women. Well?”

“Not that one. I pass. I wouldn’t bet a dime on her one way or the other. Would you?”

“No. She is probably a liar and possibly a murderer. Sit down. I must have everything that happened there today after I left. Every word and gesture.”

I sat and gave it to him. Including the question period, it took an hour and thirty-five minutes. It was after one o’clock when he pushed his chair back, levered his bulk upright, told me good night, and went up to bed.

At half past two the following afternoon, Saturday, I sat in a room in a building on Leonard Street, the room where I had once swiped an assistant district attorney’s lunch. There would be no need for me to repeat the performance, since I had just come back from Ost’s restaurant, where I had put away a plateful of pig’s knuckles and sauerkraut.

As far as I knew, there had not only been no steps to frame Margot for murder; there had been no steps at all. Since Wolfe is up in the plant rooms every morning from nine to eleven, and since he breakfasts from a tray up in his room, and since I was expected downtown at ten o’clock, I had buzzed him on the house phone a little before nine to ask for instructions and had been told that he had none. Downtown, Assistant DA Farrell, after letting me wait in the anteroom for an hour, had spent two hours with me, together with a stenographer and a dick who had been on the scene Friday afternoon, going back and forth and zigzag, not only over what I had already reported, but also over my previous association with the Bottweill personnel. He only asked me once if I knew anything about Santa Claus, so I only had to lie once, if you don’t count my omitting any mention of the marriage license. When he called a recess and told me to come back at two-thirty, on my way to Ost’s for the pig’s knuckles I phoned Wolfe to tell him I didn’t know when I would be home, and again he had no instructions. I said I doubted if Cherry Quon would wait until after New Year’s to spill the beans, and he said he did too and hung up.