Champange for One

Laidlaw’s head jerked to me.” Did you?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Have you told anybody? Either of you?”

“Plainly,” Wolfe said, “you are distressed and so must be indulged. But nothing has happened to release either Mr Goodwin or me from our pledge of confidence. If and when it does you will first be notified. I suggest that you retire and cool off a little.”

“Cool off, hell.” The client rubbed the chair arms with his palms, eyeing Wolfe. “Then it wasn’t you. All right. When I left here this morning I went to my office, and my secretary said the District Attorney’s office had been trying to reach me, and I phoned and was told they wanted to see me immediately, and I went. I was taken in to Bowen, the District Attorney himself, and he asked if I wished to change my statement that I had never met Faith Usher before Tuesday evening, and I said no. Then he showed me a note that he said had come in the mail. It was typewritten. There wasn’t any signature. It said, ‘Have you found out yet that Edwin Laidlaw is the father of Faith Usher’s baby? Ask him about his trip to Canada in August nineteen fifty-six .’ Bowen didn’t let me take it. He held on to it. I sat and stared at it.”

Wolfe grunted. “It was worth a stare, even if it had been false. Did you collapse?”

“No! By God, I didn’t! I don’t think I decided what to do while I sat there staring at it; I think my subconscious mind had already decided what to do. Sitting there staring at it, I was too stu

“You admitted nothing?”

“No.”

“Not even that you had taken a trip to Canada in August of nineteen fifty-six ?”

“No. I admitted nothing . I didn’t answer a single question.”

“Satisfactory,” Wolfe said. “Highly satisfactory. This is indeed welcome, Mr Laidlaw. We have—”

“Welcome!” the client squawked. “Welcome? ”

“Certainly. We have at last goaded someone to action. I am gratified. If there was any small shadow of doubt that Miss Usher was murdered, this removes it. They have all claimed to have had no knowledge of Miss Usher prior to that party; one of them lied, he has been driven to move. True, it is still possible that you yourself are the culprit, but I now think it extremely improbable. I prefer to take it that the murderer has felt compelled to create a diversion, and that is most gratifying. Now he is doomed.”

“But good God! They know about—about me!”

“They know no more than they knew before. They get a dozen accusatory unsigned letters every day, and have learned that the charges in most of them are groundless. As for your refusal to answer questions, a man of your standing might be expected to take that position until he got legal advice. It’s a neat situation, very neat. They will of course make every effort to find confirmation of that note, but it is a reasonable assumption that no one can supply it except the person who sent the note, and if he dares to do so we’ll have him. We’ll challenge him, but we’ll have him.” He glanced up at the wall clock. “However, we shall not merely twiddle our thumbs and wait for that. I have thirty minutes. You told me Wednesday morning that no one on earth knew of your dalliance with Miss Usher; now we know you were wrong. We must review every moment you spent in her company when you might have been seen or heard. When I leave, at four o’clock, Mr Goodwin will continue with you. Start with the day she first attracted your notice, when she waited on you at Cordoni’s. Was anyone you knew present?”

When Wolfe undertakes that sort of thing, getting someone to recall every detail of a past experience, he is worse than a housewife bent on finding a speck of dust that the maid overlooked. Once I sat for eight straight hours, from nine in the evening until daylight came, while he took a chauffeur over every second of a drive, made six months before, to New Haven and back. This time he wasn’t quite that fussy, but he did no skipping. When four o’clock came, time for him to go up and play with the orchids, he had covered the episode at Cordoni’s, two di

I carried on for more than an hour, following Wolfe’s modus operandi more or less, but my pulse wasn’t pounding from the thrill of it. It seemed to me that it could have been handled just as well by putting one question: “Did you at any time, anywhere, when she was with you, including Canada, see or hear anyone who knew you?” and then make sure there were no gaps in his memory. As for chances that they had been seen but he hadn’t known it, there had been plenty. Aside from restaurants, he had had her in his car, in midtown, in daylight, seven times. The morning they left for Canada he had parked his car, with her in it, in front of his club, while he went in to leave a message for somebody.

But I carried on, and we were working on the third day in Canada , somewhere in Quebec , when the doorbell rang and I went to the hall for a look through the one-way glass and saw Inspector Cramer of Homicide.

I wasn’t much surprised, since I knew there had been a pointer for them if they were interested enough; and just as Laidlaw’s subconscious had made his decision in advance, mine had made mine. I went to the rack and got Laidlaw’s hat and coat, stepped back into the office, and told the client, “Inspector Cramer is here looking for you. This way out. Come on, move—”

“But how did—”

“No matter how.” The doorbell rang.” Damn it, move!”

He came, and followed me to the kitchen. Fritz was at the big table, doing something to a duck. I told him, “Mr Laidlaw wants to leave the back way in a hurry, and I haven’t time because Cramer wants in. Show him quick, and you haven’t seen him.”

Fritz headed for the back door, which opens on our private enclosed garden if you want to call it that, whose fence has a gate into the passage between buildings which leads to Thirty-fourth Street . As the door closed behind them and I turned, the doorbell rang. I went to the front, not in a hurry, put the chain bolt on, opened the door to the two-inch crack the chain allowed, and spoke through it politely.

“I suppose you want me? Since you know Mr Wolfe won’t be available until six o’clock.”

“Open up, Goodwin.”

“Under conditions. You know damn well what my orders are: no callers admitted between four and six unless it’s just for me.”

“I know. Open up.”

I took that for a commitment, and he knew I did. Also it was conceivable that some character—Sergeant Stebbins, for instance—was on his way with a search warrant, and if so it would take the I edge off to admit Cramer without one. So I said, “Okay, if it’s me you want,” removed the bolt, and swung the door wide; and he stepped in, marched down the hall, and entered the office.

I shut the door and went to join him, but by the time I arrived he wasn’t there. The co

I was hurt.” I thought you wanted me. If I had—”

“Where’s Laidlaw?”

“Search me. There’s lots of Laidlaws, but I haven’t got one. If you mean—”

He made for the door to the hall, passing within arm’s length of me en route.

The rules for dealing with officers of the law are contradictory. Whether you may restrain them by force or not depends. It was okay to restrain Cramer from entering the house by the force of the chain bolt. It would have been okay to restrain him from going upstairs if there had been a locked door there and I had refused to open it, but I couldn’t restrain him by standing on the first step and not letting him by, no matter how careful I was not to hurt him. That may make sense to lawyers, but not to me.