Rex Stout: Champagne for One

I was introduced around and was served a champagne cocktail. The first sip of the cocktail told me something was wrong, and I worked closer to the bar to find out what. Cecil Grantham, the son of the first husband, who was mixing, was committing worse than murder. I saw him. Holding a glass behind and below the bar top, he put in a half-lump of sugar, a drop or two of bitters, and a twist of lemon peel, filled it half full of soda water, set it on the bar, and filled it nearly to the top from a bottle of Cordon Rouge. Killing good champagne with junk like sugar and bitters and lemon peel is of course a common crime, but the soda water was adding horror to homicide. The motive was pure, reducing the voltage to protect the guests of honour, but faced with temptation and given my choice of self-control or soda water in champagne, I set my jaw. I was going to keep an eye on Cecil to see if he did to himself as he was doing to others, but another guest arrived and I had to go to be introduced. He made up the dozen.

By the time our hostess led the way through the arch and up the broad marble stairs to the dining-room on the floor above, I had them sorted out, with names fitted to faces. Of course I had previously met Robilotti and the twins, Cecil and Celia. Paul Schuster was the one with the thin nose and quick dark eyes. Beverly Kent was the one with the long narrow face and big ears. Edwin Laidlaw was the little guy who hadn’t combed his hair, or if he had, it refused to oblige.

I had had a sort of an idea that with the girls the best way would be as an older brother who liked sisters and liked to kid them, of course with tact and refinement, and their reactions had been fairly satisfactory. Helen Yarmis, tall and slender, a little too slender, with big brown eyes and a wide curved mouth that would have been a real asset if she had kept the corners up, was on her dignity and apparently had some. Ethel Varr was the one I would have picked for my doom if I had been shopping. She was not a head-turner, but she carried her own head with an air, and she had one of those faces that you keep looking back at because it changes as it moves and catches different angles of light and shade.

I would have picked Faith Usher, not for my doom, but for my sister, because she looked as if she needed a brother more than the others. Actually she was the prettiest one of the bunch, with a dainty little face and greenish flecks in her eyes, and her figure, also dainty, was a very nice job, but she was doing her best to cancel her advantages by letting her shoulders sag and keeping her face muscles so tight she would soon have wrinkles. The right kind of brother could have done wonders with her, but I had no chance to get started during the meal because she was across the table from me, with Beverly Kent on her left and Cecil Grantham on her right.

At my left was Rose Tuttle, who showed no signs of needing a brother at all. She had blue eyes in a round face, a pony tail, and enough curves to make a contribution to Mrs Robilotti and still be well supplied; and she had been born cheerful and it would take more than an accidental baby to smother it. In fact, as I soon learned, it would take more than two of them. With an oyster balanced on her fork, she turned her face to me and asked, "Goodwin? That’s your name?"

"Right. Archie Goodwin."

"I was wondering," she said, "because that woman told me I would sit between Mr Edwin Laidlaw and Mr Austin Byne, but now your name’s Goodwin. The other day I was telling a friend of mine about coming here, this party, and she said there ought to be unmarried fathers here too, and you seem to have changed your name-are you an unmarried father?"

Remember the tact, I warned myself. "I’m half of it," I told her. "I’m unmarried. But not, as far as I know, a father. Mr Byne has a cold and couldn’t come and asked me to fill in for him. His bad luck and my good luck."

She ate the oyster, and another one-she ate cheerfully too-and turned again. "I was telling this friend of mine that if all society men are like the ones that were here the other time, we weren’t missing anything, but I guess they’re not. Anyway, you’re not. I noticed the way you made Helen laugh-Helen Yarmis. I don’t think I ever did see her laugh before. I’m going to tell my friend about you if you don’t mind."

"Not at all." Time out for an oyster. "But I don’t want to mix you up. I’m not society. I’m a working man."

"Oh!" She nodded. "That explains it. What kind of work?"

Remember the discretion, I warned myself. Miss Tuttle should not be led to suspect that Mrs Robilotti had got a detective there to keep an eye on the guests of honour. "You might," I said, "call it trouble-shooting. I work for a man named Nero Wolfe. You may have heard of him."

"I think I have." The oysters gone, she put her fork down. "I’m pretty sure… Oh, I remember, that murder, that woman, Susan somebody. He’s a detective."

"That’s right. I work for him. But I-"

"You too. You’re a detective!"

"I am when I’m working, but not this evening. Now I’m playing. I’m just enjoying myself-and I am, too. I was wondering what you meant-"

Hackett and two female assistants were removing the oyster service, but it wasn’t that that stopped me. The interruption was from Robert Robilotti, across the table, between Celia Grantham and Helen Yarmis, who was demanding the general ear; and as other voices gave way, Mrs Robilotti raised hers. "Must you, Robbie? That flea again?"

He smiled at her. From what I had seen of him during the jewellery hunt I had not cottoned to him, smiling or not. I’ll try to be fair to him, and I know there is no law against a man having plucked eyebrows and a thin moustache and long polished nails, and my suspicion that he wore a girdle was merely a suspicion, and if he had married Mrs Albert Grantham for her money I freely admit that no man marries without a reason and with her it would have been next to impossible to think up another one, and I concede that he may have had hidden virtues which I had missed. One thing sure, if my name were Robert and I had married a woman fifteen years older than me for a certain reason and she was composed entirely of angles, I would not let her call me Robbie.

I’ll say this for him: he didn’t let her gag him. What he wanted all ears for was the story about the advertising agency executive who did a research job on the flea, and by gum he stuck to it. I had heard it told better by Saul Panzer, but he got the point in, with only fair audience response. The three society men laughed with tact, discretion, and refinement. Helen Yarmis let the corners of her mouth come up. The Grantham twins exchanged a glance of sympathy. Faith Usher caught Ethel Varr’s eye across the table, shook her head, just barely moving it, and dropped her eyes. Then Edwin Laidlaw chipped in with a story about an author who wrote a book in invisible ink, and Beverly Kent followed with one about an army general who forgot which side he was on. We were all one big happy family-well, fairly happy-by the time the squabs were served. Then I had a problem. At Wolfe’s table we tackle squabs with our ringers, which is of course the only practical way, but I didn’t want to wreck the party. Then Rose Tuttle got her fork on to hers with one hand, and with the other grabbed a leg and yanked, which settled it.

Miss Tuttle had said something that I wanted to go into, tactfully, but she was talking with Edwin Laidlaw, on her left, and I gave Ethel Varr, on my right, a look. Her face was by no means out of surprises. In profile, close up, it was again different, and when it turned and we were eye to eye, once more it was new.