It wont 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 youll answer a question. Will you?
Ask it.
Something you said last night when I wasnt therewhen 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? Thats the question.
Because I thought it.
Please dont be smart, Archie. Why did you think it?
Because I had to. I was forced to by circumstances. If you think Im dodging, I am. I would like to oblige a girl who dances as well as you do, but Im not going to answer your questionnot now. Im sorry, but nothing doing.
Do you still think she was murdered?
Yes.
But why ?
I dont hang up on people. I thought I might have to that time, but she finally gave up, just as Wolfes elevator jolted to a stop at the bottom. He entered, crossed to his chair behind his desk, got his bulk arranged in it to his satisfaction, glanced through the mail, looked at his calendar, and leaned back to read a three-page letter from an orchid-hunter in New Guinea. He was on the third page when the doorbell rang. I got up and stepped to the hall, saw, through the one-way glass panel of the front door, a burly frame and a round red face, and went and opened the door.
Good Lord, I said, dont you ever sleep?
Not much, he said, crossing the sill.
I got the collar of his coat as he shed it. This is an honour, since you must be calling on me. Why not invite me downCramer!
He had headed for the office. My calling him Cramer instead of Inspector was so unexpected that he stopped and about-faced. Why, I demanded, dont you ever learn? You know damn well he hates to have anyone march in on him, even you, or especially you, and you only make it harder. Isnt it me you want?
Yes, but I want him to hear it.
Thats obvious, or you would have sent for me instead of coming. If you will kindly
Wolfes bellow came out to us. Confound it, come in here!
Cramer wheeled and went, and I followed. Wolfes only greeting was a scowl. I cannot, he said coldly, read my mail in an uproar.
Cramer took his usual seat, the red leather chair near the end of Wolfes desk. I came, he said, to see Goodwin, but I
I heard you in the hall. You would enlighten me? Thats why you want me present?
Cramer took a breath. The day I try to enlighten you they can send me to the loony house. Its just that I know Goodwin is your man and I want you to understand the situation. I thought the best way would be to discuss it with him with you present. Is that sensible?
It may be. Ill know when I hear the discussion.
Cramer aimed his sharp grey eyes at me. I dont intend to go all over it again, Goodwin. Ive questioned you twice myself, and Ive read your statement. Im only after one point, the big point. To begin with, Ill tell you something that is not to be repeated. There is not a thing, not a word, in what any of the others have said that rules out suicide. Not a single damn thing. And theres a lot that makes suicide plausible, even probable. Im saying that if it wasnt for you suicide would be a reasonable assumption, and it seems likely, I only say likely, that that would be the final verdict. You see what that means.
I nodded. Yeah. Im the fly in the soup. I dont like it any better than you do. Flies dont like being swamped in soup, especially when its hot.
He got a cigar from a pocket, rolled it in his palms, put it between his teeth, which were white and even, and removed it. Ill start at the beginning, he said. Your being there when it happened. I know what you say, and its in your statementthe phone call from Austin Byne and the one from Mrs Robilotti. Of course that happened. When you say anything that can be checked it will always check. But did you or Wolfe help it to happen? Knowing Wolfe, and knowing you, I have got to consider the possibility that you wanted to be there, or Wolfe wanted you to, and you made arrangements. Did you?
I was yawning and had to finish it. I beg your pardon. I could just say no, but lets cover it. How and why I was there is fully explained in my statement. Nothing related to it was omitted. Mr Wolfe thought I shouldnt go because I would demean myself.
38
None of the people who were there was or is Wolfes client?
Mrs Robilotti was a couple of years ago. The job was finished in nine days. Except for that, no.
His eyes went to Wolfe. You confirm that?
Yes. This is gratuitous, Mr Cramer.
With you and Goodwin its hard to tell what is and what isnt. He came back to me. Im going to tell you how it stands up to now. First, it was cyanide. Thats settled. Second, it was in the champagne. It was in what spilled on the floor when she dropped the glass, and anyway it acts so fast it must have been. Third, a two-ounce plastic bottle in her bag was half full of lumps of sodium cyanide. The laboratory calls them amorphous fragments; I call them lumps. Fourth, she had shown that bottle to various people and told them she wanted to kill herself; she had been doing that for more than a year.
He shifted in the chair. He always sat so as to have Wolfe head on, but now he was at me. Since the bag was on a chair fifteen feet away from her, and the bottle was in it, she couldnt have taken a lump from it when Grantham brought her the champagne, or just before, but she could have taken it any time during the preceding hour or so and had it concealed in her handkerchief. Testing the handkerchief for traces is out because she dropped it and it fell in the spilled champagneor rather, its not out but its no help. So thats the set-up for suicide. Do you see holes in it?
I killed a yawn. Certainly not. Its perfect. I dont say she mightnt have committed suicide, I only say she didnt. As you know, I have good eyes, and she was only twenty feet from me. When she took the champagne from Grantham with her right hand her left hand was on her lap, and she didnt lift it. She took the glass by the stem, and when Grantham raised his glass and said something she raised hers a little higher than her mouth and then lowered it and drank. Are you by any chance hiding an ace? Does Grantham say that when he handed her the glass she dropped something in it before she took hold of it?
No. He only says she might have put something in it before she drank; he doesnt know.
Well, I do. She didnt.
Yeah. You signed your statement. He pointed the cigar at me.
Look, Goodwin. You admit there are no holes in the set-up for suicide; how about the set-up for murder? The bag was there on the chair in full view. Did someone walk over and pick it up and open it and take out the bottle and unscrew the cap and shake out a lump and screw the cap back on and put the bottle back in the bag and drop it on the chair and walk away? That must have taken nerve.
Nuts. Youre stacking the deck. All someone had to do was get the bagof course I started watching itand take it to a room that could be locked on the insidethere was one handyand get a lump and conceal it in his or her handkerchiefthank you for suggesting the handkerchiefand return the bag to the chair. That would take care, but no great nerve, since if he had any reason to think he had been seen taking the bag or returning it he wouldnt use the lump. He might or might not have a chance to use it, anyway. A yawn got me.