Rex Stout - Champagne for One

"No client," I told him.

"There may be one, if you were there. Have you had nothing to eat?"

"No. Three hours ago they offered to get me a sandwich at the District Attorney’s office, but my stomach said no. It preferred to wait for something that would stay down." He handed me a glass of orange juice. "Many, many thanks. That sausage smells marvellous."

He didn’t like to talk or listen when he was actually cooking, even something as simple as broiling sausage, so I picked up the Times, there on my table as usual, and gave it a look. A murder has to be more than run-of-the-mill to make the front page of the Times, but this one certainly qualified, having occurred at the famous unmarried-mothers party at the home of Mrs Robert Robilotti, and it was there, with a three-column lead on the bottom half of the page, carried over to page 23. But the account didn’t amount to much, since it had happened so late, and there were no pictures, not even of me. That settled, I propped the paper on the reading rack and tackled a sausage and griddle cake.

I was arranging two poached eggs on the fourth cake when the house phone buzzed, and I reached for it and said good morning and had Wolfe’s voice.

"So you’re here. When did you get home?"

"Half an hour ago. I’m eating breakfast. I suppose it was on the seven-thirty newscast."

"Yes. I just heard it. As you know, I dislike the word ‘newscast’. Must you use it?"

"Correction. Make it the seven-thirty radio news broadcast. I don’t feel like arguing, and my cake is getting cold."

"You will come up when you have finished."

I said I would. When I had cradled the phone Fritz asked if he was in humour, and I said I didn’t know and didn’t give a damn. I was still sore at myself.

I took my time with the meal, treating myself to three cups of coffee instead of the usual two, and was taking the last swallow when Fritz returned from taking up the breakfast tray. I put the cup down, got up, had a stretch and a yawn, went to the hall, mounted the flight of stairs in no hurry, turned left, tapped on a door, and was told to come in.

Entering, I blinked. The morning sun was streaking in and glancing off the vast expanse of Wolfe’s yellow pyjamas. He was seated at a table by a window, barefooted, working on a bowl of fresh figs with cream. When I was listing the cash requirements of the establishment I might have mentioned that fresh figs in March, by air from Chile, are not hay.

He gave me a look. "You are dishevelled," he stated.

"Yes, sir. Also disgruntled. Also disslumbered. Did the broadcast say she was murdered?"

"No. That she died of poison and the police are investigating. Your name was not mentioned. Are you involved?"

"Up to my chin. I had been told by a friend of hers that she had a bottle of cyanide in her bag, and I was keeping an eye on her. We were together in the drawing-room, dancing, all twelve of us, not counting the butler and the band, when a man brought her a glass of champagne, and she took a gulp, and in eight minutes she was dead. It was cyanide, that’s established, and the way it works it had to be in the champagne, but she didn’t put it there. I was watching her, and I’m the one that says she didn’t. Most of the others, maybe all of them, would like to have it that she did. Mrs Robilotti would like to choke me, and some of the others would be glad to lend a hand. A suicide at her party would be bad enough, but a homicide is murder. So I’m involved."

He swallowed a bite of fig. "You are indeed. I suppose you considered whether it would be well to reserve your conclusion."

I appreciated that-his not questioning my eyesight or my faculty of attention. It was a real tribute, and the way I felt, I needed one. I said, "Sure I considered it. But I had to include that I had been told she had cyanide in her bag, since the girl who told me would certainly include it, and Cramer and Stebbins and Rowcliff would know damn well that in that case I would have had my eyes open, so I had no choice. I couldn’t tell them yes, I was watching her and the bag, and yes, I was looking at her when Grantham took her the champagne and she drank it, and yes, she might have put something in the champagne before she drank when I was absolutely certain she hadn’t."

"No," he agreed. He had finished the figs and taken one of the ramekins of shirred eggs with sausage from the warmer. "Then you’re in for it. I take it that we expect no profitable engagement."

"We do not. God knows, not from Mrs Robilotti."

"Very well." He put a muffin in the toaster. "You may remember my remarks yesterday."

"I do. You said I would demean myself. You did not say I would get involved in an unprofitable homicide. I’ll deposit the cheques this morning."

He said I should go to bed, and I said if I did it would take a guided missile to get me up again.

After a shower and shave and tooth brush, and clean shirt and socks, and a walk to the bank and back, I began to think I might last the day out. I had three reasons for making the trip to the bank: first, people die, and if the signer of a cheque dies before the cheque reaches his bank the bank won’t pay it; second, I wanted air; and third, I had been told at the District Attorney’s office to keep myself constantly available, and I wanted to uphold my constitutional freedom of movement. However, the issue wasn’t raised, for when I returned Fritz told me that the only phone call had been from Lon Cohen of the Gazette.

Lon has done us various favours over the years, and besides, I like him, so I gave him a ring. What he wanted was an eye-witness story of the last hours of Faith Usher, and I told him I’d think it over and let him know. His offer was five hundred bucks, which would have been not for Nero Wolfe but for me, since my presence at the party had been strictly personal, and of course he pressed-journalists always press-but I stalled him. The bait was attractive, five C’s and my picture in the paper, but I would have to include the climax, and if I reported that exactly as it happened, letting the world know that I was the one obstacle to calling it suicide, I would have everybody on my neck from the District Attorney to the butler. I was regretfully deciding that I would have to pass when the phone rang, and I answered it and had Celia Grantham’s voice. She wanted to know if I was alone. I told her yes but I wouldn’t be in six minutes, when Wolfe would descend from the plant rooms.

"It won’t take that long." Her voice was croaky, but not necessarily from drink. Like all the rest of them, including me, she had done a lot of talking in the past twelve hours. "Not if you’ll answer a question. Will you?"

"Ask it."

"Something you said last night when I wasn’t there-when I was phoning for a doctor. My mother says that you said you thought Faith Usher was murdered. Did you?"

"Yes."

"Why did you say it? That’s the question."

"Because I thought it."

"Please don’t be smart, Archie. Why did you think it?"

"Because I had to. I was forced to by circumstances. If you think I’m dodging, I am. I would like to oblige a girl who dances as well as you do, but I’m not going to answer your question-not now. I’m sorry, but nothing doing."