Champange for One

Robilotti was there, taking her arm. “It’s no use, Louise. It’s horrible, but it’s no use. Come and sit down.” He looked at me. “Why do you think she was murdered? Why do you say that?”

Paul Schuster, the promising young lawyer, spoke up. “I was going to ask that, Goodwin. She had a bottle of poison in her bag.”

“How do you know she did?”

“One of the guests told me. Miss Varr.”

“One of them told me too. That’s why I asked Miss Turtle to guard the bag. I still think she was murdered, but I’ll save my reason for the police. You people might—”

Celia Grantham came ru

“Yes. Did you get a doctor?”

“Yes, he’s coming. I couldn’t get ours. I got—What good is a doctor if she’s dead?”

“Nobody is dead until a doctor says so. It’s a law.” Some of the others were jabbering, and I turned and raised my voice. “You

people might as well rest your legs and there are plenty of chairs, but stay away from the one the bag is on. If you want to leave the room I can’t stop you, but I advise you not to. The police might misunderstand it, and you’d only have more questions to answer.” A buzzer sounded and Hackett was going, but I stopped him. “No, Hackett, you’d better stay, you’re one of us now. Mr Johnson will let them in.”

He was doing so. There was no sound of the door opening because doors on mansions do not make noises3 but there were voices in the reception hall, and everybody turned to face the arch. In they came, a pair, two precinct men in uniform. They marched in and stopped, and one of them asked,” Mr Robert Robilotti?”

“I’m Robert Robilotti,” he said.

“This your house? We got—”

“No,” Mrs Robilotti said.” It’s my house.”

Chapter 4

When I mounted the seven steps of the stoop of the old brownstone at twelve minutes after seven Wednesday morning and let myself in, I was so pooped that I was going to drop my topcoat and hat on the hall bench, but breeding told, and I put the coat on a hanger and the hat on a shelf and went to the kitchen.

Fritz, at the refrigerator, turned and actually left the refrigerator door open to stare at me.

“Behold!” he said. He had told me once that he had got that out of his French-English dictionary, many years ago, as a translation

of voila.

“I want,” I said, “a quart of orange juice, a pound of sausage, six eggs, twenty griddle cakes, and a gallon of coffee.”

“No doughnuts with honey?”

“Yes. I forgot to mention them.” I dropped on to the chair I occupy at breakfast, groaning.” Speaking of honey, if you want to make a friend who will never fail you, you might employ the eggs in a hedgehog omelet, with plenty– No. It would take too long. Just fry ‘em.”

“I never fry eggs.” He was stirring a bowl of batter. “You have had a night?”

“I have. A murder with all the trimmings.”

“Ah! Terrible! A client, then?”

I do not pretend to understand Fritz’s attitude towards murder. He deplores it. To him the idea of one human being killing another io insupportable; he has told me so, and he meant it. But he never has the slightest interest in the details, not even who the victim was, or the murderer, and if I try to tell him about any of the fine points it just bores him. Beyond the bare fact that again a human being has done something insupportable, the only question he wants answered is whether we have a client.

“No client,” I told him.

“There may be one, if you were there. Have you had nothing to eat?”

“No. Three hours ago they offered to get me a sandwich at the District Attorney’s office, but my stomach said no. It preferred to wait for something that would stay down.” He handed me a glass of orange juice.” Many, many thanks. That sausage smells marvellous.”

He didn’t like to talk or listen when he was actually cooking, even something as simple as broiling sausage, so I picked up the Times, there on my table as usual, and gave it a look. A murder has to be more than run-of-the-mill to make the front page of the Times, but this one certainly qualified, having occurred at the famous unmarried-mothers party at the home of Mrs Robert Robilotti, and it was there, with a three-column lead on the bottom half of the page, carried over to page 23. But the account didn’t amount to much, since it had happened so late, and there were no pictures, not even of me. That settled, I propped the paper on the reading rack and tackled a sausage and griddle cake.

I was arranging two poached eggs on the fourth cake when the house phone buzzed, and I reached for it and said good morning and had Wolfe’s voice.

“So you’re here. When did you get home?”

“Half an hour ago. I’m eating breakfast. I suppose it was on the seven-thirty newscast.”

“Yes. I just heard it. As you know, I dislike the word ‘newscast’. Must you use it?”

“Correction. Make it the seven-thirty radio news broadcast. I don’t feel like arguing, and my cake is getting cold.”

“You will come up when you have finished.”

I said I would. When I had cradled the phone Fritz asked if he was in humour, and I said I didn’t know and didn’t give a damn. I was still sore at myself.

I took my time with the meal, treating myself to three cups of coffee instead of the usual two, and was taking the last swallow when Fritz returned from taking up the breakfast tray. I put the cup down, got up, had a stretch and a yawn, went to the hall, mounted the flight of stairs in no hurry, turned left, tapped on a door, and was told to come in.

Entering, I blinked. The morning sun was streaking in and glancing off the vast expanse of Wolfe’s yellow pyjamas. He was seated at a table by a window, barefooted, working on a bowl of fresh figs with cream. When I was listing the cash requirements of the establishment I might have mentioned that fresh figs in March, by air from Chile , are not hay.

He gave me a look. “You are dishevelled,” he stated.

“Yes, sir. Also disgruntled. Also disslumbered. Did the broadcast say she was murdered?”

“No. That she died of poison and the police are investigating. Your name was not mentioned. Are you involved?”

“Up to my chin. I had been told by a friend of hers that she had a bottle of cyanide in her bag, and I was keeping an eye on her. We were together in the drawing-room, dancing, all twelve of us, not counting the butler and the band, when a man brought her a glass of champagne, and she took a gulp, and in eight minutes she was dead. It was cyanide, that’s established, and the way it works it had to be in the champagne, but she didn’t put it there. I was watching her, and I’m the one that says she didn’t. Most of the others, maybe all of them, would like to have it that she did. Mrs Robilotti would like to choke me, and some of the others would be glad to lend a hand. A suicide at her party would be bad enough, but a homicide is murder. So I’m involved.”

He swallowed a bite of fig. “You are indeed. I suppose you considered whether it would be well to reserve your conclusion.”

I appreciated that—his not questioning my eyesight or my faculty of attention. It was a real tribute, and the way I felt, I needed one. I said,” Sure I considered it. But I had to include that I had been told she had cyanide in her bag, since the girl who told me would certainly include it, and Cramer and Stebbins and Rowcliff would know damn well that in that case I would have had my eyes open, so I had no choice. I couldn’t tell them yes, I was watching her and the bag, and yes, I was looking at her when Grantham took her the champagne and she drank it, and yes, she might have put something in the champagne before she drank when I was absolutely certain she hadn’t.”