Champange for One

“Who told Mrs Robilotti that Miss Usher had the poison? And when?”

“I don’t know.” Wolfe gestured.” Confound it, must I shine your shoes for you?”

“No, I’ll manage. You’ve shined enough. You say the risk was slight. It wasn’t slight when she got Miss Usher’s bag and took out the bottle and took some of the poison.”

“I doubt if she did that. I doubt if she ever went near that bag. If she knew that the poison Miss Usher carried around was cyanide, and several people did, she probably got some somewhere else, which isn’t difficult, and had it at hand. I suggest that that is worth inquiry, whether she recently had access to a supply of cyanide. You might even find that she had actually procured some.” Wolfe gestured again.” I do not pretend that I am showing you a ripened fruit which you need only to pick. I undertook merely to satisfy myself whether Mr Goodwin was right or wrong. I am satisfied. Are you?”

Cramer never said. Mrs Robilotti was on her feet. I had the idea then that what moved her was Wolfe’s mentioning the possibility that she had got hold of cyanide somewhere else, and learned a few days later that I had been right, when Purley Stebbins told me that they had found out where she got it, and could prove it. Anyhow, she was on her feet, and moving, but had taken only three steps when she had to stop. Cramer and Purley were both there blocking the way, and together they weigh four hundred pounds and are over four feet wide.

“Let me pass,” she said.” I’m going home.”

I have seldom felt sorry for that pair, but I did then, especially Cramer.

“Not right now,” he said gruffly. “I’m afraid you’ll have to answer some questions.”

Chapter 17

One item. You may remember my mentioning that one day, the day after the murderer of Faith Usher was convicted, I was discussing with a friend what was the most conceited remark we had ever heard? It was that same day that I caught sight of Edwin Laidlaw in the men’s bar at the Churchill and decided to do a good deed. Besides, I had felt that the amount on the bill we had sent him, which he had paid promptly without a murmur, had been pretty stiff, and he had something coming. So I approached him, and after greetings had been exchanged I performed the deed.

“I didn’t want to mention it,” I said, “while her mother was on trial for murder, but now I can tell you, in case you’re interested. One day during that commotion I was talking with Celia Grantham, and your name came up, and she said, ‘I may marry him some day. If he gets into a bad jam I’ll marry him now.’ I report it only because I thought you might want to take some dancing lessons.”

“I don’t have to,” he said.” I appreciate it, and many thanks, but we’re getting married next week. On the quiet. We put it off until the trial was over. Let me buy you a drink.”

There you are. I’m one good deed shy.