And be a Villian

No reply.

Elinor Vance spoke, not to Wolfe. “It's up to you, Miss Fraser. I think we have to tell him.”

“No,” Miss Koppel insisted.

“I don't see any other way out of it, Debby,” Madeline Fraser declared. “You shouldn't have told him that silly lie. It wasn't good enough for him and you know it.” Her grey-green eyes went to Wolfe. “It would be fatal for me, for all of us, if this became known. I don't suppose you would give me your word to keep it secret?”

“How could I, madam?” Wolfe turned a palm up. “Under the circumstances? But I'll share it as reluctantly, and as narrowly, as the circumstances will permit.”

“All right. Damn that Cyril Orchard, for making this necessary. The tape on the bottle shows that it is for me. My bottle doesn't contain Starlite. I can't drink Starlite.”

“Why not?”

“It gives me indigestion.”

“Good God!” Nathan Traub cried, his smooth low-pitched voice transformed into a squeak.

“I can't help it, Nat,” Miss Fraser told him firmly, “but it does.”

“And that,” Wolfe demanded, “is your desperate and fatal secret?”

She nodded. “My Lord, could anything be worse? If that got around? If Leonard Lyons got it, for instance? I stuck to it the first few times, but it was no use. I wanted to cut that from the programme, serving it, but by that time the Starlite people were crazy about it, especially Anderson and Owen, and of course I couldn't tell them the truth. I tried faking it, not drinking much, but even a few sips made me sick. It must be an allergy.”

“I congratulate you,” Wolfe said emphatically.

“Good God,” Traub muttered. He pointed a finger at Wolfe. “It is absolutely essential that this gets to no one. No one whatever!”

“It's out now,” Miss Koppel said quietly but tensely. “It's gone now.”

“So,” Wolfe asked, “you used a substitute?”

“Yes.” Miss Fraser went on: “It was the only way out. We used black coffee. I drank gallons of it anyhow, and I like it either hot or cold. With sugar in it.

It looks enough like Starlite, which is dark brown, and of course in the bottle it can't be seen anyway, and we changed to dark blue glasses so it couldn't be seen that it didn't fizz.”

“Who makes the coffee?”

“My cook, in my apartment.”

“Who bottles it?”

“She does-my cook-she puts it in a Starlite bottle, and puts the cap on.”

“When, the day of the broadcast?”

“No, because it would still be hot, or at least warm, so she does it the day before and puts it in the refrigerator.”

“Not at the broadcasting studio?”

“Oh, no, in my kitchen.”

“Does she put the tape on it?”

“No, Miss Vance does that. In the morning she gets it-she always comes to my apartment to go downtown with me-and she puts the tape on it, and takes it to the studio in her bag, and puts it in the refrigerator there. She has to be careful not to let anyone see her do that.”

“I feel better,” Bill Meadows a

“Why?”Wolfe asked him.

“Because I knew this had to come sooner or later and I'm glad it was you that got it instead of the.cops. It's been a cock-eyed farce, all this digging to find out who had it in for this guy Orchard. Nobody wanted to poison Orchard.

The poison was in the coffee and Orchard got it by mistake.”

That finished Traub. A groan came from him, his chin went down, and he sat shaking his head in despair.

Wolfe was frowning. “Are you trying to tell me that the police don't know that the poisoned bottle held coffee?”

“Oh, sure they know that.” Bill wanted to help now. “But they've kept it under their hats. You notice it hasn't been in the papers. And none of us has spilled it, you can see why we wouldn't. They know it was coffee all right, but they think it was meant for Orchard, and it wasn't, it was meant for Miss Fraser.”

Bill leaned forward and was very earnest. “Damn it, don't you see what we're up against? If we tell it and it gets known, God help the programme! We'd get hooted off the air. But as long as we don't tell it, everybody thinks the poison was meant for Orchard, and that's why I said it was a farce. Well, we didn't tell, and as far as I'm concerned we never would.”

“How have you explained the coffee to the police?”

“We haven't explained it. We didn't know how the poison got in the bottle, did we? Well, we didn't know how the coffee got there either. What else could we say?”

“Nothing, I suppose, since you blackballed the truth. How have you explained the tape?”

“We haven't explained it.”

“Why not?”

“We haven't been asked to.”

“Nonsense. Certainly you have.”

“I haven't.”

“Thanks, Bill.” It was Madeline Fraser, smiling at him. “But there's no use trying to save any pieces.” She turned to Wolfe. “He's trying to protect me from-don't they call it tampering with evidence? You remember that after the doctor came Mr Strong took the four bottles from the table and started off with them, just a foolish impulse he had, and Mr Traub and I took them from him and put them back on the table.”

Wolfe nodded.

“Well, that was when I removed the tape from the bottle.”

“I see. Good heavens! It's a wonder all of you didn't collectively gather them up, and the glasses, and march to the nearest sink to wash up.” Wolfe went back to Bill. “You said Mr Orchard got the poisoned coffee by mistake. How did that happen?”

“Traub gave it to him. Traub didn't-”

Protests came at him from both directions, all of them joining in. Traub even left his chair to make it emphatic.

Bill got a little flushed, but he was stubborn and heedless. “Since we're telling it,” he insisted, “we'd better tell it all.”

“You're not sure it was Nat,” Miss Koppel said firmly.

“Certainly I'm sure! You know damn' well it was! You know damn' well we all saw-all except Lina-that Orchard had her bottle, and of course it was Traub that gave it to him, because Traub was the only one that didn't know about the tape.

Anyhow I saw him!-that's the way it was, Mr Wolfe. But when the cops started on us apparently we all had the same idea-I forget who started it-that it would be best not to remember who put the bottle in front of Orchard. So we didn't. Now that you know about the tape, I do remember, and if the others don't they ought to.”

“Quit trying to protect me, Bill,” Miss Fraser scolded him. “It was my idea, about not remembering. I started it.”

Again several of them spoke at once. Wolfe showed them a palm: “Please! Mr Traub. Manifestly it doesn't matter whether you give me a yes or a no, since you alone were not aware that one of the bottles had a distinction; but I ask you pro forma, did you place that bottle before Mr Orchard?”

“I don't know,” Traub said belligerently, “and I don't care. Meadows doesn't know either.”

“But you did help pass the glasses and bottles around?”

“I've told you I did. I thought it was fun.” He threw up both hands. “Fun!”

“There's one thing,” Madeline Fraser put in, for Wolfe. “Mr Meadows said that they all saw that Mr Orchard had my bottle, except me. That's only partly true.

I didn't notice it at first, but when I lifted the glass to drink and smelled the Starlite I knew someone else had my glass. I went ahead and faked the drinking, and as I went on with the script I saw that the bottle with the tape on it was a little nearer to him than to me-as you know, he sat across from me.

I had to decide quickly what to do-not me with the Starlite but him with the coffee. I was afraid he would blurt out that it tasted like coffee, especially since he had taken two big gulps. I was feeling relieved that apparently he wasn't going to, when he sprang up with that terrible cry…so what Mr Meadows said was only partly true. I suppose he was protecting me some more, but I'm tired of being protected by everybody.”