Rex Stout - Champagne for One

"Good morning, sir," I said. "A pleasant day. Mr Wolfe will be down shortly."

It got him. He darted a glance at the others, saw that no eye was on him, handed me his hat, and said, "Quite. Thank you, Goodwin."

That made the day for me personally, no matter how it turned out professionally. I took him to the office and then went to the kitchen, buzzed the plant rooms on the house phone, and told Wolfe the cast had arrived.

"Mrs Usher?" he asked.

"Okay. In her room. She’ll stay put."

"Mr Byne?"

"Also okay. In the office with the others, with Saul glued to him."

"Very well. I’ll be down."

I went and joined the mob. They were scattered around, some seated and some standing. I permitted myself a private grin when I saw that Cramer, finding the red leather chair gone, had moved one of the yellow ones to its exact position and put Mrs Robilotti in it, and was on his feet beside it, bending down to her. As I threaded my way through to my desk the sound of the elevator came, and in a moment Wolfe entered.

No pronouncing of names was required, since he had met the Robilottis and the Grantham twins at the time of the jewellery hunt. He made it to his desk, sent his eyes around, and sat. He looked at Cramer.

"You have explained the purpose of this gathering, Mr Cramer?"

"Yes. You’re going to prove that Goodwin is either wrong or right."

"I didn’t say ‘prove’. I said I intend to satisfy myself and deal with him accordingly." He surveyed the audience. "Ladies and gentlemen. I will not keep you long-at least, not most of you. I have no exhortation for you and no questions to ask. To form an opinion of Mr Goodwin’s competence as an eye-witness, I need to see, not what he saw, since these quarters are too cramped for that, but an approximation of it. You cannot take your positions precisely as they were last Tuesday evening, or re-enact the scene with complete fidelity, but we’ll do the best we can. Archie?"

I left my chair to stage-manage. Thinking that Mrs Robilotti and her Robert were the most likely to baulk, I left them till the last. First I put Hackett behind the table, which was the bar, and Laidlaw and Helen Yarmis at one end of it. Then Rose Tuttle and Beverly Kent, on chairs over where the globe had stood. Then Celia Grantham and Paul Schuster by the wall to the right of Wolfe’s desk, with her sitting and him standing. Then I put Saul Panzer on a chair near the door to the hall, and told the audience, "Mr Panzer here is Faith Usher. The distance is wrong and so are the others, but the relative positions are about right." Then I put an ashtray on a chair to the right of the safe, and told them, "This is Faith Usher’s bag, containing the bottle of poison." With all that arranged, I didn’t think Mrs Robilotti would protest when I asked her and her husband to take their places in front of the bar, and she didn’t.

That was all, except for Ethel Varr and me, and I got her and stood with her at a corner of my desk, and told Wolfe, "All set."

"Miss Tuttle and I were much farther away," Beverly Kent objected.

"Yes, sir," Wolfe agreed. "It is not presumed that this is identical. Now." His eyes went to the group at the bar. "Mr Hackett, I understand that when Mr Grantham went to the bar for champagne for himself and Miss Usher, two glasses were there in readiness. You had poured one of them a few minutes previously, and the other just before he arrived. Is that correct?"

"Yes, sir." Hackett had fully recovered from our brush in the hall and was back in character. "I have stated to the police that one of the glasses had been standing there three or four minutes."

"Please pour a glass now and put it in place."

The bottles in the cooler on the table were champagne, and good champagne-Wolfe had insisted on it. Fritz had opened two of them. Pouring champagne is always nice to watch, but I doubt if any pourer ever had as attentive an audience as Hackett had, as he took a bottle from the cooler and filled a glass.

"Keep the bottle in your hand," Wolfe directed him. "I’ll explain what I’m after and then you may proceed. I want to see it from various angles. You will pour another glass, and Mr Grantham will come and get the two glasses and go with them to Mr Panzer-that is to say, to Miss Usher. He will hand him one, and Mr Goodwin will be there and take the other one. Meanwhile you will be pouring two more glasses, and Mr Grantham will come and get them and go with them to Miss Tuttle, and hand her one, and again Mr Goodwin will be there and take the other one. You will do the same with Miss Varr and Miss Grantham. Not with Miss Yarmis and Mrs Robilotti, since they are there at the bar. That way I shall see it from all sides. Is that clear, Mr Hackett?"

"Yes, sir."

"It’s not clear to me," Cecil said. "What’s the idea? I didn’t do that. All I did was get two glasses and take one to Miss Usher."

"I’m aware of that," Wolfe told him. "As I said, I want to get various angles on it. If you prefer, Mr Panzer can move to the different positions, but this is simpler. I only request your cooperation. Do you find my request unreasonable?"

"I find it pretty damn nutty. But it’s all nutty, in my opinion, so a little more won’t hurt, if I can keep a glass for myself when I’ve performed." He moved, then turned. "What’s the order again?"

"The order is unimportant. After Mr Panzer, Misses Tuttle, Varr, and Grantham, in any order you please."

"Right. Start pouring, Hackett. Here I come."

The show started. It did seem fairly nutty, at that, especially my part. Hackett pouring, and Cecil carrying, and the girls taking-there was nothing odd about that; but me racing around, taking the second glass, deciding what to do with it, doing it, and getting to the next one in time to be there waiting when Cecil arrived-of all the miscellaneous chores I had performed at Wolfe’s direction over the years, that took the prize. At the fourth and last one, for Celia Grantham, by the wall to the right of Wolfe’s desk, Cecil cheated. After he had handed his sister hers he ignored my out-stretched hand, raised his glass, said, "Here’s to crime," and took a mouthful of the bubbles. He lowered the glass and told Wolfe, "I hope that didn’t spoil it."

"It was in bad taste," Celia said.

"I meant it to be," he retorted. "This whole thing has been in bad taste from the beginning."

Wolfe, who had straightened up to watch the performance, let his shoulders down. "You didn’t spoil it," he said. His eyes went around. "I invite comment. Did anyone notice anything worthy of remark?"

"I don’t know whether it’s worthy of remark or not," Paul Schuster, the lawyer, said, "but this exhibition can’t possibly be made the basis for any conclusion. The conditions were not the same at all."

"I must disagree," Wolfe disagreed. "I did get a basis for a conclusion, and for the specific conclusion I had hoped for. I need support for it, but would rather not suggest it. I appeal to all of you: did anything about Mr Grantham’s performance strike your eye?"

A growl came from the door to the hall. Sergeant Purley Stebbins was standing there on the sill, his big frame half filling the rectangle. "I don’t know about a conclusion," he said, "but I noticed that he carried the glasses the same every time. The one in his right hand, his thumb and two fingers were on the bowl and the one in his left hand, he held that lower down, by the stem. And he kept the one in his right hand and handed them the one in his left hand. Every time."