“Damn all the words!” Vukcic gestured impatiently. “What do you mean, Nero, you won’t do anything about Berin?”
“No. I mean we won’t discuss purses and fees. Certainly I shall do something about Berin, I had already decided to before you came, but I won’t take money from my hosts for it. And there is no time to lose, and I want to be alone here to consider the matter. But since you are here-” His eyes moved to Constanza. “Miss Berin. You seem to be convinced that your father didn’t kill Mr. Laszio. Why?”
Her eyes widened at him. “Why… you’re convinced too. You said so. My father wouldn’t.”
“Never mind about me. Speaking to the law, which is what we’re dealing with, what evidence have you? Any?”
“Why… only… it’s absurd! Anyone-”
“I see. You haven’t any. Have you any notion, or any evidence, as to who did kill Laszio?”
“No! And I don’t care! Only anyone would know-”
“Please, Miss Berin. I warn you, we have a difficult task and little time for it. I suggest that on leaving here you go to your room, compose your emotions, and in your mind thoroughly recapitulate-go back over-all you have seen and heard, everything, since your arrival at Kanawha Spa. Do it thoroughly. Write down anything that appears to have the faintest significance. Remember this is a job, and the only one you can perform that offers any chance of helping your father.”
He moved his eyes again. “Mr. Servan. First, the same questions as Miss Berin. Proof of Berin’s innocence, or surmise or evidence of another’s guilt. Have you any?”
Servan slowly shook his head.
“That’s too bad. I must warn you, sir, that it will probably develop that the only way of clearing Berin is to find where the guilt belongs and fasten it there. We can’t clear everybody; after all, Laszio’s dead. If you know of anything that would throw suspicion elsewhere, and withhold it, you can’t pretend to be helping Berin.”
The dean of the masters shook his head again. “I know of nothing that would implicate anybody.”
“Very well. About Berin’s list of the sauces. He handed it to you himself?”
“Yes, immediately on leaving the dining room.”
“It bore his signature?”
“Yes. I looked at each one before putting it in my pocket, to be sure they could be identified.”
“How sure are you that no one had a chance to change Berin’s list after he handed it to you, before you gave it to Mr. Tolman?”
“Positive. Absolutely. The lists were in my inside breast pocket every moment. Of course, I showed them to no one.”
Wolfe regarded him a little, sighed, and turned to Vukcic. “You, Marko. What do you know?”
“I don’t know a damned thing.”
“Did you ask Mrs. Laszio to dance with you?”
“I… what’s that got to do with it?”
Wolfe eyed him and murmured, “Now, Marko. At the moment I haven’t the faintest idea how I shall discover what must be discovered, and I must be permitted any question short of insult. Did you ask Mrs. Laszio to dance, or did she ask you?”
Vukcic wrinkled his forehead and sat. Finally he growled, “I think she suggested it. I might have if she didn’t.”
“Did you ask her to turn on the radio?”
“No.”
“Then the radio and the dancing at that particular moment were her ideas?”
“Damn it.” Vukcic was scowling at his old friend. “I swear I don’t see, Nero-”
“Of course you don’t. Neither do I. But sometimes it’s astonishing how the end of a tangled knot gets buried. It is said that two sure ways to lose a friend are to lend him money and to question the purity of a woman’s gesture to him. I wouldn’t lose your friendship. It is quite likely that Mrs. Laszio found the desire to dance with you irresistible.-No, Marko, please; I mean no flippancy. And now, if you don’t mind… Miss Berin? Mr. Servan? I must consider this business.”
They got up. Servan tried, delicately, to mention the purse again, but Wolfe brushed it aside. Constanza went over and took Wolfe’s hand and looked at him with an expression that may or may not have been pure but certainly had appeal in it. Vukcic hadn’t quite erased his scowl, but joined the others in their thanks and seemed to mean it. I went to the foyer with them to open the door.
Returning, I sat and watched Wolfe consider. He was leaning back in his favorite position, though by no means as comfortably as in his own chair at home, with his eyes closed. He might have been asleep but for the faint movement of his lips. I did a little considering on my own hook, but I admit mine was limited. It looked to me like Berin, but I was willing to let in either Vukcic or Blanc in case they insisted. As far as I could see, everyone else was absolutely out. Of course there was still the possibility that Laszio had been absent from the dining room only temporarily, during Vukcic’s session with the dishes, and had later returned and Vallenko or Rossi had mistaken him for a pincushion before or after tasting, but I couldn’t see any juice in that. I had been in the large parlor the entire evening, and I tried to remember whether I had at any time noticed anyone enter the small parlor-or rather, whether I would have been able to swear that no one had. I thought I would. After over half an hour of overworking my brain, it still looked to me like Berin, and I thought it just as well Wolfe had turned down two offers of a fee, since it didn’t seem very probable he was going to earn one.
I saw Wolfe stir. He opened his mouth but not his eyes.
“Archie. Those two colored men on duty in the main foyer of Pocahontas Pavilion last evening. Find out where they are.
I went to the phone in my room, deciding that the quickest way was to get hold of my friend Odell and let him do it. In less than ten minutes I was back again with the report.
“They went on at Pocahontas again at six o’clock. The same two. It is now 6:07. Their names-”
“No, thanks. I don’t need the names.” Wolfe pulled himself up and looked at me. “We have an enemy who has sealed himself in. He fancies himself impregnable, and he well may be-no door, no gate, no window in his walls-or hers. Possibly hers. But there is one little crack, and we’ll have to see if we can pry it open.” He sighed. “Amazing what a wall that is; that one crack is all I see. If that fails us…” He shrugged. Then he said bitterly, “As you know, we are dressing for dinner this evening. I would like to get to the pavilion as quickly as possible. What the tongue has promised the body must submit to.”
He began operations for leaving his chair.
7
IT WAS STILL twenty minutes short of seven o’clock when we got to Pocahontas. Wolfe had done pretty well with the black and white, considering that Fritz Brenner was nearly a thousand miles away, and I could have hired out as a window dummy.
Naturally I had some curiosity about Wolfe’s interest in the greenjackets, but it didn’t get satisfied. In the main hall, after we had been relieved of our hats, he motioned me on in to the parlor, and he stayed behind. I noted that Odell’s information was correct; the two colored men were the same that had been on duty the evening before.