Paul Thayer threw his head back and haw-hawed. It didn’t go over as well as it had when he and I were together in his room. They all looked at him, not admiringly, and when he subsided they transferred the looks to Theodore Huck. He was regarding Wolfe thoughtfully.
“I am wondering,” he said, “if it would help for me to have a talk with my brother-in-law.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” Sylvia Marcy said so positively that everyone glanced at her in surprise. Immediately she cooed. “I just mean,” she cooed, “that he’s a case. He is definitely a case.”
Huck looked at Dorothy Riff. “What do you think?”
She didn’t hesitate. The gray-green eyes were alert and determined. “I would like to know what it would take to convince Mr. Wolfe.” She looked at him.
“That depends,” Wolfe told her. “If, for instance, the source of the poison that killed Mrs. Huck has been satisfactorily established, and if none of you was connected with in in any way, I would be well on the road to conviction. According to Mr. Lewent, it was ptomaine, and all of you were on the premises at the time. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Good God,” Paul Thayer protested, “you don’t really mean it! You’re actually going to ask us?”
“I’ll ask you, Mr. Thayer, since you are not suspected by Mr. Lewent. Where did Mrs. Huck die? Here?”
Thayer looked at Huck. “What about it, Uncle Theodore? Do you want me to play?”
Huck nodded slowly. “I suppose so. Yes.”
“Whatever you say.” Thayer looked at Wolfe. “My aunt died in this house, in her bed, just about a year ago.”
“Were you here?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about it. Just tell it, and I’ll ask questions as required.”
“Well.” Thayer cleared his throat. “It was my uncle’s birthday, and there was a little celebration here in this room. We were all here, we who are here now, and a few other people, four or five — old friends of my aunt and uncle. Do you want to know who they were?”
“Later, perhaps. Now just the event.”
“We had drinks and things, and afterward a buffet dinner served in this room, plenty of wine — my aunt liked wine, and so does Uncle Theodore — finishing up with champagne, and some of us were fairly high, including me. In fact I finally got slightly objectionable, so my aunt said, and I left before the party broke up and went up to my room and made music. Did you ever play the piano while you were lit?”
Wolfe said no.
“Try it sometime. By the way, will you kindly tell me something? Why did one of these women poison my aunt? What for?”
“Speaking for Mr. Lewent, because she was on intimate terms with your uncle and wanted to marry him. Where there is room for a deed there is always room for a motive. That can—”
“You dare!” Mrs. O’Shea blazed. She was back in her chair.
“No, madam, I don’t. I am only trying to learn if there is any cause for daring. Go on, Mr. Thayer?”
Thayer shrugged. “At some hour I quit making music and went to bed. In the morning I was told that my aunt had died, and the way it was described to me — it was quite horrible.”
“Who described it?”
“Miss Marcy, and Mrs. O’Shea some.”
Wolfe’s eyes moved. “You saw it then, Miss Marcy?”
“Yes, I did.” She was not cooing. “To say that one of us poisoned her, that’s terrible.”
“I agree. What did you see?”
“I was sleeping on the floor above this, and so was Mrs. Huck. She came and got me up; she was in great pain and didn’t want to disturb her husband. I got her back to bed and called a doctor — it was after midnight — and I got Mrs. O’Shea, but there wasn’t much we could do until the doctor came. It was a question about telling Mr. Huck — he couldn’t even go in the room where she was, because the door was too narrow for his chair, but of course we had to tell him. She died about eight o’clock.”
Wolfe went to Huck. “Naturally there was some inquiry — a death under those circumstances.”
“Certainly.” Huck was curt.
“Was there an autopsy?”
“Yes. It was ptomaine.”
“Was the source identified?”
“Not by analysis.” A spasm ran over Huck’s face. He was having a little trouble with the controls. “Before dinner there had been a large assortment of hors d’oeuvres, and among them was a kind of pickled artichoke which my wife was very fond of. No one else had taken any of them, and apparently she had eaten them all, since there were none left. Since no one else was ill, it was assumed that the ptomaines, which were definitely present, had been in the artichokes.”
Wolfe grunted. “I’m not a ptomaine scholar, but this afternoon I looked them up a little. Do you know how thoroughly the possibility of the presence of a true alkaloid was excluded?”
“No. I don’t know what you mean.”
“Isn’t ptomaine an alkaloid?” Dorothy Riff asked.
“Yes,” Wolfe conceded, “but cadaveric. However, for that there is the record. You were here the night of Mrs. Huck’s death, Miss Riff?”
“I was here for the party. I left around eleven o’clock.”
“Did you know that she was fond of pickled artichokes?”
“We all did. It was a kind of standing joke.”
“How did you know that ptomaines are alkaloids?”
She flushed a little. “When Mrs. Huck died I read up about them.”
“Why? Was there something about her death or about the artichokes that made you suspect something?”
“No! Of course not!”
Wolfe’s head went right and left. “Did any of you suspect that Mrs. Huck’s death was not accidental?”
He got a unanimous negative with no abstentions, but he insisted, “Have any of you felt, at any time, that the possibility of foul play was insufficiently explored?”
Unanimous again. Mrs. O’Shea snapped, “Why should we feel that if we didn’t suspect anything?”
Wolfe nodded. “Why indeed?” He leaned back, cleared his throat, and looked judicious. “I am impressed, naturally, by the total absence of any currents of mistrust among you. Three women like you — young, smart, alive to opportunity, inevitably competitive in a household like this — are ideal soil for the seeds of suspicion if there are any around, but evidently none have sprouted in you. That is more than indicative, it is almost conclusive, and I could not expect, here in an hour or so, to reach the haven of certainty. It would be unreasonable to challenge you to convince me utterly; the law itself assumes innocence until guilt is demonstrated; and that leaves us only with the question, how much is it worth to you to have me employ my talent and energy to persuade Mr. Lewent that his suspicions are unfounded, and to keep him persuaded? Shall we say one hundred thousand dollars?”
They were unanimous again, this time with gasps. Miss Riff, quickest to find words, cried, “I told you it was blackmail!”
Wolfe showed them his palms. “If you please. I am indifferent to what you call it, blackmail or brigandage, but it would be childish for you to suppose I would perform so great a service for you as a benefaction. My spring of philanthropy is not so torrential. The sum I named would surely not be exorbitant. I’ll be considerate on details; I don’t even insist on an IOU; it will be sufficient if Mr. Huck will state, all of us hearing him, that he guarantees payment of the full amount to me within one month. With one provision, which I insist on, that no word of this arrangement ever reaches Mr. Lewent. On that I must have explicit and firm assurance. I require the guarantee from Mr. Huck because I know he is good for it and I know nothing of the financial status of any of the rest of you, and of course it is to his interest as well as yours that Mr. Lewent should be persuaded that his suspicions are unfounded.”