Rex Stout - And be a Villian

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I've sent Savarese and Strong telegrams signed A, but what if they don't get them on time?”

So there were five. Wolfe doesn't like to be seen, by anyone but Fritz or me, sitting around waiting for people, I imagine on the theory that it's bad for his prestige, and therefore he didn't come down to the office until I passed him the word that all five were there. Then he favoured us by appearing. He entered, bowed to them, crossed to his chair, and got himself comfortable. It was cosier and more intimate than it had been three days earlier, with the gate-crashers absent.

There was a little conversation. Traub offered some pointed remarks about Wolfe's refusal to admit reporters for an interview. Ordinarily, with an opening like that, Wolfe counters with a nasty crusher, but now he couldn't be bothered.

He merely waved it away.

“I got you people down here,” he said perfectly friendly, “for a single purpose, and if you're not to be late for your dinners we'd better get at it. Tuesday evening I told you that you were all lying to me, but I didn't know then how barefaced you were about it. Why the devil didn't you tell me about the piece of tape on Miss Fraser's bottle?”

They all muffed it badly, even Miss Fraser, with the sole exception of Traub. He alone looked just bewildered.

“Tape?” he asked. “What tape?”

It took the other four an average of three seconds even to begin deciding what to do about their faces.

“Who is going to tell me about it?” Wolfe inquired. “Not all of you at once.

Which one?”

“But,” Bill Meadows stammered, “we don't know what you're talking about.”

“Nonsense.” Wolfe was less friendly. “Don't waste time on that. Miss Shepherd spent most of the day here and I know all about it.” His eyes stopped on Miss Fraser. “She couldn't help it, madam. She did quite well for a child, and she surrendered only under the threat of imminent peril to you.”

What's this all about?” Traub demanded.

“It's nothing, Nat,” Miss Fraser assured him. “Nothing of any importance. Just a little…a sort of joke…among us…that you don't know about…”

“Nothing to it!” Bill Meadows said, a little too loud. There's a perfectly simple-”

“Wait, Bill.” Deborah Koppel's voice held quiet authority. Her gaze was on Wolfe. “Will you tell us exactly what Nancylee said?”

“Certainly,” Wolfe assented. “The bottle served to Miss Fraser on the broadcast is always identified with a strip of Scotch tape. That has been going on for months, nearly a year. The tape is either brown, the colour of the bottle, or transparent, is half an inch wide, and encircles the neck of the bottle near the shoulder.”

“Is that all she told you?”

“That's the main thing. Let's get that explained. What's the tape for?”

“Didn't Nancylee tell you?”

“She said she didn't know.”

Deborah was frowning. “Why, she must know! It's quite simple. As we told you, when we get to the studio the day of a broadcast Miss Vance takes the bottles from the cabinet and puts them in the refrigerator. But that gives them only half an hour or a little longer to get cold, and Miss Fraser likes hers as cold as possible, so a bottle for her is put in earlier and the tape put on to tell it from the others.”

“Who puts it there and when?”

Well-that depends. Sometimes one of us puts it there the day before…sometimes, it's one left over from the preceding broadcast…”

“Good heavens,” Wolfe murmured. “I didn't know you were an imbecile, Miss Koppel.”

“I am not an imbecile, Mr Wolfe.”

“I'll have to have more than your word for it. I presume the explanation you have given me was concocted to satisfy the casual curiosity of anyone who might notice the tape on the bottle-and, incidentally, I wouldn't be surprised if it was offered to Miss Shepherd and after further observation she rejected it.

That's one thing she didn't tell me. For that purpose the explanation would be adequate-except with Miss Shepherd-but to try it on me! I'll withdraw the 'imbecile', since I blurted it at you without warning, but I do think you might have managed something a little less flimsy.”

“It may be flimsy,” Bill Meadows put in aggressively, “but it happens to be true.”

“My dear sir.” Wolfe was disgusted. “You too? Then why didn't it satisfy Miss Shepherd, if it was tried on her, and why was she sworn to secrecy? Why weren't all the bottles put in the refrigerator in advance, to get them all cold, instead of just the one for Miss Fraser? There are-”

“Because someone-” Bill stopped short.

“Precisely,” Wolfe agreed with what he had cut off. “Because hundreds of people use that studio between Miss Fraser's broadcasts, and someone would have taken them from the refrigerator, which isn't locked. That's what you were about to say, but didn't, because you realized there would be the same hazard for one bottle as for eight.” Wolfe shook his head. “No, it's no good. I'm tired of your lies; I want the truth; and I'll get it because nothing else can meet the tests I am now equipped to apply. Why is the tape put on the bottle?”

They looked at one another.

“No,” Deborah Koppel said to anybody and everybody.

“What is all this?” Traub demanded peevishly.

No one paid any attention to him.

“Why not?” Wolfe inquired, “try me with the same answer you have given the police?”

No reply.

Elinor Vance spoke, not to Wolfe. “It's up to you, Miss Fraser. I think we have to tell him.”

“No,” Miss Koppel insisted.

“I don't see any other way out of it, Debby,” Madeline Fraser declared. “You shouldn't have told him that silly lie. It wasn't good enough for him and you know it.” Her grey-green eyes went to Wolfe. “It would be fatal for me, for all of us, if this became known. I don't suppose you would give me your word to keep it secret?”

“How could I, madam?” Wolfe turned a palm up. “Under the circumstances? But I'll share it as reluctantly, and as narrowly, as the circumstances will permit.”

“All right. Damn that Cyril Orchard, for making this necessary. The tape on the bottle shows that it is for me. My bottle doesn't contain Starlite. I can't drink Starlite.”

“Why not?”

“It gives me indigestion.”

“Good God!” Nathan Traub cried, his smooth low-pitched voice transformed into a squeak.

“I can't help it, Nat,” Miss Fraser told him firmly, “but it does.”

“And that,” Wolfe demanded, “is your desperate and fatal secret?”

She nodded. “My Lord, could anything be worse? If that got around? If Leonard Lyons got it, for instance? I stuck to it the first few times, but it was no use. I wanted to cut that from the programme, serving it, but by that time the Starlite people were crazy about it, especially Anderson and Owen, and of course I couldn't tell them the truth. I tried faking it, not drinking much, but even a few sips made me sick. It must be an allergy.”

“I congratulate you,” Wolfe said emphatically.

“Good God,” Traub muttered. He pointed a finger at Wolfe. “It is absolutely essential that this gets to no one. No one whatever!”

“It's out now,” Miss Koppel said quietly but tensely. “It's gone now.”

“So,” Wolfe asked, “you used a substitute?”

“Yes.” Miss Fraser went on: “It was the only way out. We used black coffee. I drank gallons of it anyhow, and I like it either hot or cold. With sugar in it.

It looks enough like Starlite, which is dark brown, and of course in the bottle it can't be seen anyway, and we changed to dark blue glasses so it couldn't be seen that it didn't fizz.”

“Who makes the coffee?”