Rex Stout - Champange for One

“Remarkable?” I shook my head.” No.”

“Then that is one possibility. Actually,” he told Byne,” I am not sorry that this must wait until Monday, for it does have a drawback. The samples collected from the machines must be compared with the communication received by the police, and it is in their hands. I don’t like that, but there’s no other way. At least, if my guess is good, I will have exposed the sender of the communication, and that will be helpful. On this point, sir, I do not threaten to go to the police; I am forced to.”

“You goddamn snoop,” Byne said through his teeth.

Wolfe’s brows went up. “I must have made a lucky guess. It’s the machine at the vault?”

Byne’s head jerked to Mrs Usher.” Beat it, Elaine. I want to talk to him.”

Austin Byne sat straight and stiff. When Saul had escorted Mrs Usher to the front room, staying there with her, I had told Dinky he would be more comfortable in the red leather chair, but from the way he looked at me I suspected that he had forgotten what “comfortable“ meant.

“You win,” he told Wolfe. “So I spill my guts. Where do you want me to start?”

Wolfe was leaning back with his elbows on the chair arms and his palms together. “First, let’s clear up a point or two. Why did you send that thing about Laidlaw to the police?”

“I haven’t said I sent it.”

“Pfui.” Wolfe was disgusted. “Either you’ve submitted or you haven’t. I don’t intend to squeeze it out drop by drop. Why did you send it?”

Byne did have to squeeze it out. His lips didn’t want to part. “Because,” he finally managed, “they were going on with the investigation and there was no telling what they might dig up. They might find out that I knew Faith’s mother, and about my—about the arrangement. I still thought Faith had killed herself, and I still do, but if she had been murdered I thought Laidlaw must have done it and I wanted them to know about him and Faith.”

“Why must he have done it? You invented that, didn’t you? About him and Miss Usher?”

“I did not. I sort of kept an eye on Faith, naturally. I don’t mean I was with her, I just kept an eye on her. I saw her with Laidlaw twice, and the day he left for Canada I saw her in his car. I knew he went to Canada because a friend got a card from him. I didn’t have to invent it.”

Wolfe grunted. “You realize, Mr Byne, that everything you say is now suspect. Assuming that you knew that Laidlaw and Miss Usher had in fact been intimate, why did you surmise that he had killed her? Was she menacing him?”

“Not that I know of. If he had a reason for killing her I didn’t know what it was. But he was the only one of the people there that night who had had anything to do with her.”

“No. You had.”

“Damn it, I wasn’t there!”

“That’s true, but those who were there can also plead lack of opportunity. In the circumstances as I have heard them described, no one could have poisoned Miss Usher’s champagne with any assurance that it would get to her. And you alone, of all those involved, had a motive, and not a puny one. An increase in annual income of 127,000 or more, tax exempt, is an alluring prospect. If I were you I would accept almost any alternative to a disclosure of that agreement to the District Attorney.”

“I am. I’m sitting here while you pile it on.”

“So you are.” Wolfe looked at his palms and put them on the chair arms. “Now. Did you know that Miss Usher kept a bottle of poison on her person?”

No hesitation.” I knew that she said she did. I never saw it. Her mother told me, and Mrs Irwin at Grantham House mentioned it to me once.”

“Did you know what kind of poison it was?”

“No.”

“Was it Mrs Usher’s own idea to seclude herself in a hotel under another name, or did you suggest it?”

“Neither one. I mean I don’t remember. She phoned me Thursday—no, Wednesday—and we decided she ought to do that. I don’t remember who suggested it.”

“Who suggested your meeting this evening?”

“She did. She phoned me this morning. I told you that,”

“What did she want?”

“She wanted to know what I was going to do about payments, with Faith dead. She knew that by the agreement it was left to my discretion. I told her that for the present I would continue to send her half.”

“Had she been using any of the money you sent her to support her daughter?”

“I don’t think so. Not for the last four or five years, but it wasn’t her fault. Faith wouldn’t take anything from her. Faith wouldn’t live with her. They couldn’t get along. Mrs Usher is very—unconventional. Faith left when she was sixteen, and for over a year we didn’t know where she was. When I found her she was working in a restaurant. A waitress.”

“But you continued to pay Mrs Usher her full share?”

“Yes.”

“Is that fund in your possession and control without supervision?”

“Certainly.”

“It has never been audited?”

“Certainly not. Who would audit it?”

“I couldn’t say. Would you object to an audit by an accountant of my selection? Now that I know of the agreement?”

“I certainly would. The fund is my property and 1 am accountable to no one but myself, as long as I pay Mrs Usher her share.”

“I must see that agreement.” Wolfe pursed his lips and slowly shook his head. “It is extremely difficult,” he said, “to circumvent the finality of death. Mr Grantham made a gallant try, but he was hobbled by his vain desire to guard his secret even after he became food for worms. He protected you and Mrs Usher, each against the frailty or knavery of the other, but what if you joined forces in a threat to his repute? He couldn’t preclude that.” He lifted a hand to brush it aside. “A desire to defeat death makes any man a fool. I must see that agreement. Meanwhile, a few points remain. You told Mr Goodwin that your selection of Miss Usher to be invited to that party was fortuitous, but now that won’t do. Then why?”

“Of course,” Byne said.” I knew that was coming.”

“Then you’ve had time to devise an answer.”

“I don’t have to devise it. I was a damn fool. When I got the list from Mrs Irwin and saw Faith’s name on it—well, there it was. The idea of having Faith as a guest at my aunt’s house—it just appealed to me. Mrs Robilotti is only my aunt by marriage, you know. My mother was Albert Grantham’s sister. You’ve got to admit there was a kick in the idea of having Faith sitting at my aunt’s table. And then…”

He left it hanging. Wolfe prodded him. “Then?”

“That suggested another idea, to have Laidlaw there too. I know j was a damn fool, but there it was. Laidlaw seeing Faith there, and Faith seeing him. Of course, my aunt could cross Faith off and tell Mrs Irwin—“He stopped. In a second he went on, “I mean you never knew what Faith would do, she might refuse to go, but Laidlaw wouldn’t know she had been asked, so what the hell. So I suggested that to my aunt, to invite Laidlaw, and she did.”

“Did Miss Usher know that Albert Grantham had fathered her?”

“My God, no. She thought her father had been a man named Usher who had died before she was born.”

“Did she know you were the source of her mother’s income?”

“No. I think– No, I don’t think, I know. She suspected that her mother’s income came from friends. From men she knew. That was why she left. About my picking Faith to be invited to that party and suggesting Laidlaw, after I had done that I got cold feet. I realized something might happen. At least Faith might walk out when she saw him, and it might be something worse, and I didn’t want to be there, so I decided to get someone to go in my place. The first four or five I tried couldn’t make it, and I thought of Archie Goodwin.”