Champange for One

But that’s the rule, and it didn’t matter that he had said he knew our rules before I let him in. So when he crossed the hall to the stairs I didn’t waste my breath to yell at him; I saved it for climbing the three flights, which I did, right behind him. Since he was proving that in a pinch he had no honour and no ma

I don’t know whether he is off orchids because Wolfe is on them, or is just colour blind, but on the few occasions that I have seen him in the plant rooms he has never shown the slightest sign that he realizes that the benches are occupied. Of course in that house his mind is always occupied or he wouldn’t be there, and that could account for it. That day, in the cool room, long panicles of Odontoglossums, yellow, rose, white with spots, crowded the aisle on both sides; in the tropical room, Miltonia hybrids and Phalaenopsis splashed pinks and greens and browns clear to the glass above; and in the intermediate room the Cattleyas were grandstanding all over the place as always. Cramer might have been edging his way between rows of dried-up cornstalks.

The door from the intermediate room to the potting room was closed as usual. When Cramer opened it and I followed him in, I didn’t stop to shut it but circled around him and raised my voice to a

Theodore Horstma

Cramer stood in the middle of the room, returning the glare. “Some day,” he said, and stopped.

“Some day what? You will recover your senses?”

Cramer advanced two paces. “So you’re horning in again,” he said. “Goodwin turns a suicide into a murder, and here you are. Yesterday you had those girls here. This morning you had those men here. This afternoon Laidlaw is called downtown to show him something which he refuses to discuss, and when he leaves he heads for you. So I know he has been here. So I come—”

“If you weren’t an inspector,” I cut in,” I’d say that’s a lie. Since you are, make it a fib. You do not know he has been here.”

“I know he hopped a taxi and gave the driver this address, and when he saw he was being followed he went to a booth and phoned, and took another taxi to a place that runs through the block, and left by the other street. Where would I suppose he went?”

“Correction. You suppose he has been here.”

“All right, I do.” He took another step, towards Wolfe. “Have you seen Edwin Laidlaw in the last three hours?”

“This is quite beyond belief,” Wolfe declared. “You know how rigidly I maintain my personal schedule. You know that I resent any attempt to interfere with these two hours of relaxation. But you get into my house by duplicity and then come charging up here to ask me a question to which you have no right to an answer. So you don’t get one. Indeed, in these circumstances, I doubt if you could put a question about anything whatever that I would answer.” He turned, giving us the broad expanse of his rear, and picked up a seedling.

“I guess,” I told Cramer sympathetically, “your best bet would be to get a search warrant and send a gang to look for evidence, like cigarette ashes from the kind he smokes. I know where it hurts. You’ve never forgotten the day you did come with a warrant and a crew to look for a woman named Clara Fox and searched the whole house, including here, and didn’t find her, and later you learned she had been in this room in a packing case, covered with osmundine that Wolfe was spraying water on. So you thought if you rushed up before I could give the alarm you’d find Laidlaw here, and now that he isn’t you’re stuck. You can’t very well demand to know why Laidlaw rushed here to discuss something with Wolfe that he wouldn’t discuss downtown. You ought to take your coat off when you’re in the house or you’ll catch cold when you leave. I’m just talking to be sociable while you collect yourself. Of course Laidlaw was here this morning with the others, but apparently you know that. Whoever told you should—”

He turned and was going. I followed.

Chapter 11

At five minutes past six Saul Panzer phoned. That was routine; when one or more of them are out on a chore they call at noon , and again shortly after six, to report progress or lack of it and to learn if there are new instructions. He said he was talking from a booth in a bar and grill on Broadway near Eighty-sixth Street . Wolfe, who had just come down from the plant rooms, did him the honour of reaching for the phone on his desk to listen in.

“So far,” Saul reported,” we’re only scouting. Marjorie Betz lives with Mrs Elaine Usher at the address on Eighty-seventh Street . Mrs Usher is the tenant. I got in to see Miss Betz by one of the standard lines, and got nowhere. Mrs Usher left Wednesday night, and she doesn’t know where she is or when she’ll be back. We have seen two elevator men, the janitor, five neighbours, fourteen people in local shops and stores, and a hackie Mrs Usher patronizes, and Orrie is now after the maid, who left at five-thirty. Do you want Mrs Usher’s description?”

Wolfe said no and I said yes simultaneously. “Very well,” Wolfe said, “oblige him.”

“Around forty. We got as low as thirty-three and as high as forty-five. Five feet six, hundred and twenty pounds, blue eyes set close, oval face, takes good care of good skin, hair was light brown two years ago, now blonde, wears it loose, medium cut. Dresses well but a little flashy. Gets up around noon . Hates to tip. I think that’s fairly accurate, but this is a guess with nothing specific, that she has no job but is never short of money, and she likes men. She has lived in that apartment for eight years. Nobody ever saw a husband. Six of them knew the daughter, Faith, and liked her, but it has been four years since they last saw her and Mrs Usher never mentions her.”

Wolfe grunted.” Surely that will do.”

“Yes, sir. Do we proceed?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’ll wait to see if Orrie gets anywhere with the maid, and if not I have a couple of ideas. Miss Betz may go out this evening, and the lock on the apartment door is only a Wyatt.”

“The hackie she patronizes,” I said. “She didn’t patronize him Wednesday night?”

“According to him, no. Fred found him. I haven’t seen him. Fred thinks he got it straight.”

“You know,” I said, “you say only a Wyatt, but you need more than a paper clip for a Wyatt. I could run up there with an assortment, and we could go into conference—”

“No,” Wolfe said firmly.” You’re needed here.”

For what, he didn’t say. After we hung up all he did was ask how I had disposed of Laidlaw and then ask for a report of the hour and a quarter I had spent with him, and I could have covered that in one sentence just by saying it had been a washout. But he kept pecking at it until di

But back in the office after di