Rex Stout - Champagne for One

"As you tell it," I conceded, "I wouldn’t buy it. But I have two comments. The first one is that there is one person who did know which glass Faith Usher would get. He handed it to her."

"Oh? You put it on Grantham?"

"I don’t put it on anybody. I merely say that you omitted a detail."

"Not an important one. If Grantham dropped the poison in at the bar before he picked up the glasses, there were five people right there, and that did take nerve. If he dropped it in while he was crossing to Faith Usher it was quite a trick, with a glass in each hand. If he dropped it in after he handed her the glass you would have seen him. What’s your second comment?"

"That I have not implied, in my sessions with you and the others, that I have the slightest notion who did it, or how or why. What you have just told me was mostly news to me. My attention was divided between my companion, Ethel Varr, and the bag, and Faith Usher. I didn’t know who was at the bar when Grantham came and got the champagne, or who had been there since Hackett poured the glasses that Grantham took. And I still have no notion who did it, or why or how. I only know that Faith Usher put nothing whatever in the champagne before she drank it, and therefore if it was poison in the champagne that killed her she did not commit suicide. That’s the one thing I know."

"And you won’t discuss it."

"I won’t? What are we doing?"

"I mean you won’t discuss the possibility that you’re wrong."

"That, no. You wouldn’t expect me to discuss the possibility that I’m wrong in thinking you’re Inspector Cramer; you’re Willie Mays."

He regarded me a long moment with narrowed eyes, then moved to his normal position in the red leather chair, confronting Wolfe. "I’m going to tell you," he said, "exactly what I think."

Wolfe grunted. "You often have."

"I know I have, but I hoped it wouldn’t come to this. I hoped Goodwin had realized that it wouldn’t do. I think I know what happened. Rose Tuttle told him that Faith Usher had a bottle of cyanide in her bag, and that she was afraid she might use it right there, and Goodwin told her to forget it, that he would see that nothing happened, and from then on he kept surveillance on both Faith Usher and the bag. That is admitted."

"It is stated."

"Okay, stated. When he sees her drink champagne and collapse and die, and smells the cyanide, what would his reaction be? You know him and so do I. You know how much he likes himself. He would be hit where it hurts. He would hate it. So, without stopping to consider, he tells them that he thinks she was murdered. When the police come, he knows that what he said will be reported, so he repeats it to them, and then he’s committed, and when Sergeant Stebbins and I arrive he repeats it to us. But to us he has to give a reason, so he has one, and a damn good one, and as long as there was a decent possibility that she was murdered we gave it full weight. But now- You heard me explain how it is. I was hoping that when he heard me and realized the situation he would see that his best course is to say that maybe he has been a little too positive. That he can’t absolutely swear that she didn’t put something in the champagne. He has had time to think it over, and he is too intelligent not to see that. That’s what I think. I hope you will agree."

"It’s not a question of agreement, it’s a question of fact." Wolfe turned to me. "Archie?"

"No, sir. Nobody likes me better than I do, but I’m not that far gone."

"You maintain your position?"

"Yes. He contradicts himself. First he says I acted like a double-breasted sap and then he says I’m intelligent. He can’t have his suicide and eat me too. I stand pat."

Wolfe lifted his shoulders an eighth of an inch, lowered them, and turned to Cramer. "I’m afraid you’re wasting your time, Mr Cramer. And mine."

I was yawning.

Cramer’s red face was getting redder, a sure sign that he had reached the limit of something and was about to cut loose, but a miracle happened: he put on the brake in time. It’s a pleasure to see self-control win a tussle. He moved his eyes to me.

"I’m not taking this as final, Goodwin. Think it over. Of course, we’re going on with the investigation. If we find anything at all that points to homicide we’ll follow it up. You know that. But it’s only fair to warn you. If our final definite opinion is that it was suicide, and we say so, and you give your friend Lon Cohen of the Gazette a statement for publication saying that you know it was murder, you’ll regret it. That, or anything like it. Why in hell it had to be that you were there, God only knows. Such a statement from you, as an eye-witness-"

The doorbell rang. I arose, asked Cramer politely to excuse me, stepped to the hall, and through the one-way glass saw a recent social acquaintance, though it took me a second to recognize him because his forty-dollar fedora covered the uncombed hair. I went and opened the door, confronted him, said, "Ssshhh," patted my lips with a forefinger, backed up, and beckoned him in. He hesitated, looking slightly startled, then crossed the threshold. I shut the door and, without stopping to relieve him of his hat and coat, opened the door to the front room, which is on the same side of the hall as the office, motioned him in, followed him, and shut the door.

"It’s all right here," I told him. "Soundproofed, doors and all."

"All right for what?" Edwin Laidlaw asked.

"For privacy. Unless you came to see Inspector Cramer of Homicide?"

"I don’t know what you’re talking about. I came to see you."

"I thought you might have, and I also thought you might prefer not to collide with Cramer. He’s in the office chatting with Mr Wolfe, and is about ready to go, so I shunted you in here."

"I’m glad you did. I’ve seen all I want of policemen for a while." He glanced around. "Can we talk here?"

"Yes, but I must go and see Cramer off. I’ll be back soon. Have a chair."

I went to the door to the hall and opened it, and there was Cramer heading for the front. He didn’t even look at me, let alone speak. I thought if he could be rude I could too, so I let him get his own hat and coat and let himself out. When the door had closed behind him I went to the office and crossed to Wolfe’s desk. He spoke.

"I will make one remark, Archie. To bedevil Mr Cramer for a purpose is one thing; to do so merely for pastime is another."

"Yes, sir. I wouldn’t dream of it. You’re asking me if my position with you, privately, is the same as it was with him. The answer is yes."

"Very well. Then he’s in a pickle."

"That’s too bad. Someone else is too, apparently. Yesterday when I was invited to the party and given the names of the male guests, I wanted to know who they were and phoned Lon Cohen. One of them, Edwin Laidlaw, is a fairly important citizen for a man his age. He used to be pretty loose around town, but three years ago his father died and he inherited ten million dollars, and recently he bought a controlling interest in the Malvin Press, book publishers, and apparently he intends to settle down and-"

"Is this of interest?"

"It may be. He’s in the front room. He came to see me, and since my only contact with him was last night it could be of interest. I can talk with him there, but I thought I should tell you because you might possibly want to sit in-or stand in. At the hole. In case I need a witness."