Rex Stout - Champagne for One

"No," Dinky said.

Of course. He had had time to realize that it wouldn’t do. If he had gone to see her because her daughter was at Grantham House, how had he learned that she was Faith’s mother? Not from the records and not from Mrs Irwin. From one of the other girls? It was too tricky.

"What do you substitute for it?" Wolfe asked.

"I told Goodwin that because the real explanation would have been embarrassing for Mrs Usher. Now I can’t help it. I met her some time ago, three years ago, and for about a year I was intimate with her. She’ll probably deny it. I’m pretty sure she will. Naturally she would."

"No doubt. And your meeting her this evening was accidental?"

"No," Dinky said. He had also had time to realize that that was too fishy. He went on, "She phoned me this morning and said she was at the Christie Hotel, registered as Edith Upson. She had known that I was Mrs Robilotti’s nephew, and she said she wanted to see me and ask me about her daughter who had died. I told her I hadn’t been there Tuesday evening, and she said she knew that, but she wanted to see me. I agreed to see her because I didn’t want to offend her. I didn’t want it to get out that I had been intimate with Faith Usher’s mother. We arranged to meet at that restaurant."

"Had you known previously that she was Faith Usher’s mother?"

"I had known that she had a daughter, but not that her name was Faith. She had spoken of her daughter when we-when I had known her."

"What did she ask you about her daughter this evening?"

"She just wanted to know if I knew anything that hadn’t been in the papers. Anything about the people there or exactly what had happened. I could tell her about the people, but I didn’t know any more about what had happened than she did."

"Do you wish to elaborate on any of this? Or add anything?"

"There’s nothing to add."

"Then I’ll see Mrs Usher. After I speak with her I’ll ask you in again, with her present. Archie, take Mr Byne and bring Mrs Usher."

He came like a lamb. He had thrown away his discard and made his draw and his bets, and was ready for the show-down. I opened the door for him, held it for Mrs Usher to enter, closed it, and returned to my desk. She went to the red leather chair, so Wolfe had to swivel to face her. Another item of Saul’s report on her had been that she liked men, and there were indications that men probably liked her-the way she handled her hips when she walked, the tilt of her head, the hint of a suggestion in her eyes, even now, when she was under pressure and when the man she was looking at was not a likely candidate for a frolic. And she was forty. At twenty she must have been a treat.

Wolfe breathed deep again. Exertion right after a meal was pretty rugged. "Of course, madam," he said, "my reason for speaking with you and Mr Byne separately is transparent: to see if your account will agree with his. Since you have had no opportunity for collusion, agreement would be, if not conclusive, at least persuasive."

She smiled. "You use big words, don’t you?" Something in her tone and her look conveyed the notion that for years she had been wanting to meet a man who used big words.

Wolfe grunted. "I try to use words that say what I mean."

"So do I," she declared, "but sometimes it’s hard to find the ones I want. I don’t know what Mr Byne told you, but all I can do is tell you the truth. You want to know how I happened to be with him there tonight, isn’t that it?"

"That’s it."

"Well, I phoned him this morning and said I wanted to see him and he said he would meet me there at Tom’s Joint, I had never heard of it before, at a quarter past seven. So I went. That’s not very thrilling, is it?"

"Only moderately. Have you known him long?"

"I don’t really know him at all. I met him somewhere about a year ago, and I wish I could tell you where, but I’ve been trying to remember and I simply can’t. It was a party somewhere, but I can’t remember where. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter. But yesterday I was sitting at the window thinking about my daughter. My dear daughter Faith." She stopped to gulp, but it wasn’t very impressive. "And I remembered meeting a man named Byne, Austin Byne, and someone telling me, maybe he told me himself, that he was the nephew of the rich Mrs Robilotti who used to be Mrs Albert Grantham. And my daughter had died at Mrs Robilotti’s house, so maybe he could tell me about her, and maybe he could get Mrs Robilotti to see me so I could ask her about her. I wanted to learn all I could about my daughter." She gulped.

It didn’t look good. In fact, it looked bad. Byne had been smart enough to invent one that she couldn’t be expected to corroborate; he had even warned that she would probably deny it; and what was worse, it was even possible that he hadn’t invented it. He might have been telling the truth, like a gentleman. The meeting of Wolfe’s two bright ideas at Tom’s Joint, which had looked so rosy when Saul told me they were together, might fizzle out entirely. Maybe he wasn’t a genius after all.

If he was sharing my gloom it didn’t show. He asked, "Since your rendezvous with Mr Byne was innocuous, why were you alarmed by his threat to call the police? What were her words, Archie?"

" ‘Not the cops. My God, not the cops.’ "

"Yes. Why, Mrs Usher?"

"I don’t like cops. I never have liked cops."

"Why did you leave your home and go to a hotel and register under another name?"

"Because of how I felt, what my daughter had done. I didn’t want to see people. I knew newspapermen would come. And cops. I wanted to be alone. You would too if-"

The doorbell rang, and I went. Sometimes I let Fritz answer it when I am engaged, but with her there and Byne in the front room I thought I had better see who it was, and besides, I was having a come-down and felt like moving. It was only Orrie Gather. I opened up and greeted him, and he crossed the sill, and I shut the door. When he removed his coat there was disclosed a leather thing, a zippered case, that he had had under it.

"What’s that?" I asked. "Your week-end bag?"

"No," he said. "It’s Mrs Usher’s sec-"

My hand darted to clap on his mouth. He was startled, but he can take a hint, and when I headed down the hall and turned right to the dining-room he followed.

I shut the door, moved away from it, and demanded, "Mrs Usher’s what?"

"Her secret sin." There was a gleam in his eye. "I want to give it to Mr Wolfe myself."

"You can’t. Mrs Usher is in the office with him. Where did-"

"She’s here? How come?"

"That can wait. Where did you get that thing?"

I may have sounded magisterial, but my nerves were a little raw. It put Orrie on his dignity. His chin went up. "It’s a pleasure to report, Mr Goodwin. Mr Panzer and I were covering the Christie Hotel. When the subject appeared and hopped a taxi he followed in one before I could join him. That left me loose and I phoned in. Mr Wolfe asked me if there had been any indication how long she would be gone, and I said yes, since she took a taxi it certainly wouldn’t be less than half an hour and probably longer, and he said it would be desirable to take a look at her room, and I said fine. It took a while to get in. Do you want the details?"