Champange for One

I soon had proof of what I had been hearing and reading, that the forty-eight-hour rain in New York had been snow a little to the north. At Hawthorne Circle it was already there at the roadside, and the farther I rolled on the Taconic State Parkway the more there was of it. The sun was on it now, glancing off the slopes of the drifts and banks, and it was very pleasant, fighting the hardships of an old-fashioned winter by sailing along on the concrete at fifty-eight m.p.h. with ridges of white four and five feet high only a step from the hubcaps. When I finally left the parkway and took a secondary road through the hills, the hardships closed in on me some for a few miles, and when I turned in at an entrance between two stone pillars, with “Grantham House“ on one of them, and headed up a curving driveway climbing a hill, only a single narrow lane had been cleared, and as I rounded a sharp curve the hubcaps scraped the ridge.

Coming out of another curve, I braked and stopped. I was blocked, though not by snow. There were nine or ten of them standing there facing me, pink-faced and bright-eyed in the sunshine, in an assortment of jackets and coats, no hats, some with gloves and some without. They would have been taken anywhere for a bunch of high-school girls except for one thing: they were all too bulky around the middle. They stood and gri

I cranked the window down and stuck my head out. “Good morning. What do you suggest?”

One in front, with so much brown hair that only the middle of her face showed, called out,” What paper are you from?”

“No paper. I’m sorry if I ought to be. I’m just an errand boy. Can you get by?”

Another one, a blonde, had advanced to the fender. “The trouble is,” she said, “that you’re right in the centre. If you edge over we can squeeze past.” She turned and commanded, “Back up and give him room.”

They obeyed. When they were far enough away I eased the car forward and to the right until the fender grazed the snowbank, and stopped. They said that was fine and started down the alley single file. As they passed the front fender they turned sidewise, every darned one, which seemed to me to be faulty tactics, since their spread fore and aft was more than from side to side. Also they should have had their backs to the car so their fronts would be against the soft snow, but no, they all faced me. A couple of them made friendly remarks as they went by, and one with a sharp little chin and dancing dark eyes reached in and pulled my nose. I stuck my head out to see that they were all clear, waved good-bye, and pressed gently on the gas.

Grantham House, which had once been somebody’s mansion, sprawled over about an acre, surrounded by evergreen trees loaded with snow and other trees still in their winter skeletons. A space had been cleared with enough room to turn around, barely, and I left the car there, followed a path across a terrace to a door, opened it, entered, crossed the vestibule, and was in a hall about the size of Mrs Robilotti’s drawing-room. A man who would never see eighty again came hobbling over, squeaking at me, “What’s your name?”

I told him. He said Mrs Irwin was expecting me, and led me into a smaller room where a woman was sitting at a desk. As I entered she spoke, with a snap.” I hope to goodness you didn’t run over my girls.”

“Absolutely not,” I assured her.” I stopped to let them by.”

“Thank you.” She motioned to a chair.” Sit down. The snow has tried to smother us, but they have to get air and exercise. Are you a newspaperman?”

I told her no and was going to elaborate, but she had the floor. “Mr Byne said your name is Archie Goodwin and you’re a friend of his. According to the newspaper there was an Archie Goodwin at that party at Mrs Robilotti’s. Was that you?”

I was at a disadvantage. With her smooth hair, partly grey, her compact little figure, and her quick brown eyes wide apart, she reminded me of Miss Clark, my high-school geometry teacher out in Ohio , and Miss Clark had always had my number. I had waited until I saw her to decide just what line to take. First I had to decide whether to say it was me or it was I.

“Yes,” I said, “that was me. It also said in the paper that I work for a private detective named Nero Wolfe.”

“I know it did. Are you here as a detective?”

She certainly liked to come to the point. So had Miss Clark. But I hoped I was man enough not to be afraid of a woman. “The best way to answer that,” I told her, “is to explain why I came. You know what happened at that party and you know I was there. The idea seems to be that Faith Usher committed suicide. I have got the impression that the police may settle for that. But on account of what I saw, and what I didn’t see, I doubt it. My personal opinion is that she was murdered, and if she was, I would hate to see whoever did it get away witty it. But before I start howling about it in public I want to do a little checking, and I thought the best place to check on Faith Usher herself was here with you.”

“I see.” She sat straight and her eyes were straight. “Then you’re a knight with a plume?”

“Not at all. I’d feel silly with a plume. My pride is hurt. I’m a professional detective and I try to be a good one, and I believe that someone committed murder right before my eyes, and how do you think I like that?”

“Why do you believe it was murder?”

“As I said, on account of what I saw and what I didn’t see. A question of observation. I would prefer to let it go at that if you don’t mind.”

She nodded. “The professional with his secrets. I have them too; I have a medical degree. Did Mrs Robilotti send you here?”

That decision wasn’t hard to make. Grantham House wasn’t dependent on Mrs Robilotti, since it had been provided for by Albert Grantham’s will, and it was ten to one that I knew what Mrs Irwin thought of Mrs Robilotti. So I didn’t hesitate.

“Good heavens, no. To have a suicide in her drawing-room was bad enough. If she knew I was here looking for support for my belief that it was murder she’d have a fit.”

“Mrs Robilotti doesn’t have fits, Mr Goodwin.”

“Well, you know her better than I do. If she ever did have a fit this would call for one. Of course, I may be sticking my neck out. If you prefer suicide to murder as much as she does I’ve wasted a lot of gas driving up here.”

She looked at me, sizing me up.” I don’t,” she said bluntly.

“Good for you,” I said.

She lifted her chin. “I see no reason why I shouldn’t tell you what I have told the police. Of course, it’s possible that Faith did kill herself, but I doubt it. I get to know my girls pretty well, and she was here nearly five months, and I doubt it. I knew about the bottle of poison she had—she didn’t tell me, but one of the other girls did—and that was a problem, whether to get it away from her. I decided not to, because it would have been dangerous. As long as she had it and went on showing it and talking about using it, that was her outlet for her nerves, and if I took it away she would have to get some other outlet, and there was no telling what it might be. One reason I doubt if she killed herself is that she still had that bottle of poison.”

I smiled. “The police would love that.”

“They didn’t, naturally. Another reason is that if she had finally decided to use the poison she wouldn’t have done it there at that party, with all those people. She would have done it somewhere alone, in the dark, and she would have left a note for me. She knew how I felt about my girls, and she would have known it would hurt me, and she would have left a note. Still another reason is the fact that she was actually pretty tough. That bottle of poison was merely the enemy that she intended to defeat somehow—it was death, and she was going to conquer it. The spirit she had, down deep, showed sometimes in a flash in her eyes. You should have seen that flash.”