And Be a Villain

Chapter Twenty

I have to admit that for me the toss to Elinor Vance was a passed ball. It went by me away out of reach. I half-way expected that now at last we would get some hired help, but when I asked Wolfe if I should line up Saul and Fred and Orrie he merely grunted. I wasn't much surprised, since it was in accordance with our new policy of letting the cops do it. It was a cinch that Cramer's first move on returning to his headquarters would be to start a pack sniffing for anonymous letters about Elinor Vance.

After lunch I disposed of a minor personal problem by getting Wolfe's permission to pay a debt, though that wasn't the way I put it. I told him that I would like to call Lon Cohen and give him the dope on how subscriptions to Track Almanac and What to Expect had been procured, of course without any hint of a patient ruthless master mind who didn't exist, and naming no names. My arguments were (a) that Wolfe had fished it up himself and therefore Cramer had no copyright, (b) that it was desirable to have a newspaper under an obligation, (c) that it would serve them right for the vicious editorial they had run, and (d) that it might possibly start a fire somewhere that would give us a smoke signal. Wolfe nodded, but I waited until he had gone up to the plant rooms to phone Lon to pay up. If I had done it in his hearing he's so damn' suspicious that some word, or a shade of a tone, might have started him asking questions.

Another proposal I made later on didn't do so well. He turned it down flat.

Since it was to be assumed that I had forgotten the name Arnold Zeck, I used Duncan instead. I reminded Wolfe that he had told Cramer that it was likely that an employee of Duncan's had seen the killer of Beula Poole, and could even name him. What I proposed was to call the Midland number and leave a message for Duncan to phone Wolfe. If and when he did so Wolfe would make an offer: if Duncan would come through on the killer, not for quotation of course, Wolfe would agree to forget that he had ever heard tell of anyone whose name began with Z-pardon me, D.

All I got was my head snapped off. First, Wolfe would make no such bargain with a criminal, especially a dysgenic one; and second, there would be no further communication between him and that nameless buzzard unless the buzzard started it. That seemed shortsighted to me. If he didn't intend to square off with the bird unless he had to, why not take what he could get? After dinner that evening I tried to bring it up again, but he wouldn't discuss it.

The following morning, Friday, we had a pair of visitors that we hadn't seen for quite a while: Walter B. Anderson, the Starlite president, and Fred Owen, the director of public relations. When the doorbell rang a little before noon and I went to the front and saw them on the stoop, my attitude was quite different from what it had been the first time. They had no photographers along, and they were clients in good standing entitled to one hell of a beef if they only knew it, and there was a faint chance that they had a concealed weapon, maybe a hatpin, to stick into Wolfe. So without going to the office to check I welcomed them across the threshold.

Wolfe greeted them without any visible signs of rapture, but at least he didn't grump. He even asked them how they did. While they were getting seated he shifted in his chair so he could give his eyes to either one without excessive exertion for his neck muscles. He actually apologized: “It isn't astonishing if you gentlemen are getting a little impatient. But if you are exasperated, so am I. I had no idea it would drag on like this. No murderer likes to be caught, naturally; but this one seems to have an extraordinary aversion to it. Would you like me to describe what has been accomplished?”

“We know pretty well,” Owen stated. He was wearing a dark brown double-breasted pin-stripe that must have taken at least five fittings to get it the way it looked.

We know too well,” the president corrected him. Usually I am tolerant of the red-faced, plump type, but every time that geezer opened his mouth I wanted to shut it and not by talking.

Wolfe frowned. “I've admitted your right to exasperation. You needn't insist on it.”

“We're not exasperated with you, Mr Wolfe,” Owen declared.

“I am,” the president corrected him again. “With the whole damn' thing and everything and every one connected with it. For a while I've been willing to string along with the idea that there can't be any argument against a Hooper in the high twenties, but I've thought I might be wrong and now I know I was. My God, blackmail! Were you responsible for that piece in the Gazette this morning?”

“Well…” Wolfe was being judicious. “I would say that the responsibility rests with the man who conceived the scheme. I discovered and disclosed it-”

“It doesn't matter.” Anderson waved it aside. “What does matter is that my company and my product cannot and will not be connected in the public mind with blackmail. That's dirty. That makes people gag.”

“I absolutely agree,” Owen asserted.

“Murder is moderately dirty too,” Wolfe objected.

“No,” Anderson said flatly. “Murder is sensational and exciting, but it's not like blackmail and anonymous letters. I'm through. I've had enough of it.”

He got his hand in his breast pocket and pulled out an envelope, from which he extracted an oblong strip of blue paper. “Here's a cheque for your fee, the total amount. I can collect from the others-or not. I'll see. Send me a bill for expenses to date. You understand, I'm calling it off.”

Owen had got up to take the cheque and hand it to Wolfe. Wolfe took a squint at it and let it drop to the desk.

“Indeed.” Wolfe picked up the cheque, gave it another look, and dropped it again. “Have you consulted the other parties to our arrangement?”

“No, and I don't intend to. What do you care? That's the full amount, isn't it?”

“Yes, the amount's all right. But why this headlong retreat? What has suddenly scared you so?”

“Nothing has scared me.” Anderson came forward in his chair. “Look, Wolfe. I came down here myself to make sure there's no slip-up on this. The deal is off, beginning right now. If you listened to the Fraser programme this morning you didn't hear my product mentioned. I'm paying that off too, and clearing out. If you think I'm scared you don't know me. I don't scare. But I know how to take action when the circumstances require it, and that's what I'm doing.”

He left his chair, leaned over Wolfe's desk, stretched a short fat arm, and tapped the cheque with a short stubby forefinger. “I'm no welcher! I'll pay your expenses just like I'm paying this! I'm not blaming you, to hell with that, but from this minute-you-are-not-working-for-me!”

With the last six words the finger jabbed the desk, at the rate of about three jabs to a word.

“Come on, Fred,” the president commanded, and the pair tramped out to the hall.

I moseyed over as far as the office door to see that they didn't make off with my new twenty-dollar grey spring hat, and, when they were definitely gone, returned to my desk, sat, and commented to Wolfe: “He seems to be upset.”

“Take a letter to him.”

I got my notebook and pen. Wolfe cleared his throat.

“Not dear Mr Anderson, dear sir. Regarding our conversation at my office this morning, I am engaged with others as well as you, and, since my fee is contingent upon a performance, I am obliged to continue until the performance is completed. The cheque you gave me will be held in my safe until that time.”

I looked up. “Sincerely?”

“I suppose so. There's nothing insincere about it. When you go out to mail it go first to the bank and have the cheque certified.”

“That shifts the contingency,” I remarked, opening the drawer where I kept letterheads, “to whether the bank stays solvent or npt.”

It was at that moment, the moment when I was putting the paper in the typewriter, that Wolfe really settled down to work on the Orchard case. He leaned back, shut his eyes, and began exercising his lips. He was like that when I left on my errand, and still like that when I got back. At such times I don't have to tiptoe or keep from rustling papers; I can bang the typewriter or make phone calls or use the vacuum cleaner and he doesn't hear it.

All the rest of that day and evening, up till bedtime, except for intermissions for meals and the afternoon conclave in the plant rooms, he kept at it, with no word or sign to give me a hint of what kind of trail he had found, if any. In a way it was perfectly jake with me, for at least it showed he had decided we would do our own cooking, but in another way it wasn't so hot. When it goes on hour after hour, as it did that Friday, the chances are that he's finding himself just about cornered, and there's no telling how desperate he'll be when he picks a hole to bust out through. A couple of years ago, after spending most of a day figuring one out, he ended up with a charade that damn near got nine human beings asphyxiated with ciphogene, including him and me, not to mention Inspector Cramer.

When both the clock and my wrist watch said it was close to midnight, and there he still was, I inquired politely: “Shall we have some coffee to keep awake?”

His mutter barely reached me: “Go to bed.”

I did so.

Chapter Twenty-One I needn't have worried. He did give birth, but not to one of his fantastic freaks. The next morning, Saturday, when Fritz returned to the kitchen after taking up the breakfast tray he told me I was wanted.

Since Wolfe likes plenty of air at night but a good warm room at breakfast time it had been necessary, long ago, to install a contraption that would automatically close his window at 6 a.m. As a result the eight o'clock temperature permits him to have his tray on a table near the window without bothering to put on a dressing gown. Seated there, his hair not yet combed, his feet bare, and all the yardage of his yellow pyjamas dazzling in the morning sun, he is something to blink at, and it's too bad that Fritz and I are the only ones who ever have the privilege.

I told him it was a nice morning, and he grunted. He will not admit that a morning is bearable, let alone nice, until, having had his second cup of coffee, he has got himself fully dressed.

“Instructions,” he growled.

I sat down, opened my notebook, and uncapped my pen. He instructed: “Get some ordinary plain white paper of a cheap grade; I doubt if any of ours will do. Say five by eight. Type this on it, single-spaced, no date or salutation.”

He shut his eyes. “Since you are a friend of Elinor Vance, this is something you should know. During her last year at college the death of a certain person was ascribed to natural causes and was never properly investigated. Another incident that was never investigated was the disappearance of a jar of cyanide from the electroplating shop of Miss Vance's brother. It would be interesting to know if there was any connection between those two incidents. Possibly an inquiry into both of them would suggest such a connection.”

“That all?”

“Yes. No signature. No envelope. Fold the paper and soil it a little; give it the appearance of having been handled. This is Saturday, but an item in the morning paper tells of the withdrawal of Starlite from sponsorship of Miss Fraser's programme, so I doubt if those people will have gone off for weekends.

You may even find that they are together, conferring; that would suit our purpose best. But either together or singly, see them; show them the anonymous letter; ask if they have ever seen it or one similar to it; be insistent and as pestiferous as possible.”

“Including Miss Vance herself?”

“Let circumstances decide. If they are together and she is with them, yes.

Presumably she has already been alerted by Mr drainer's men.”

“The professor? Savarese?”

“No, don't bother with him.” Wolfe drank coffee. “That's all.”

I stood up. “I might get more or better results if I knew what we're after. Are we expecting Elinor Vance to break down and confess? Or am I nagging one of them into pulling a gun on me, or what?”

I should have known better, with him still in his pyjamas and his hair tousled.

“You're following instructions,” he said peevishly. “If I knew what you're going to get I wouldn't have had to resort to this shabby stratagem.”

“Shabby is right,” I agreed, and left him.

I would, of course, obey orders, for the same reason that a good soldier does, namely, he'd better, but I was not filled with enough zeal to make me hurry my breakfast. My attitude as I set about the preliminaries of the operation was that if this was the best he could do he might as well have stayed dormant. I did not believe that he had anything on Elinor Vance. He does sometimes hire Saul or Orrie or Fred without letting me know what they're up to, or more rarely, even that they're working for him, but I can always tell by seeing if money has been taken from the safe. The money was all present or accounted for.

You can judge my frame of mind when I state that I halfway suspected that he had picked on Elinor merely because I had gone to a little trouble to have her seated nearest me the night of the party.

He was, however, right about the weekends. I didn't start on the phone calls until nine-thirty, not wanting to get them out of bed for something which I regarded as about as useful as throwing rocks at the moon. The first one I tried, Bill Meadows, said he hadn't had breakfast yet and he didn't know when he would have some free time, because he was due at Miss Eraser's apartment at eleven for a conference and there was no telling how long it would last. That indicated that I would have a chance to throw at two or more moons with one stone, and another couple of phone calls verified it. There was a meeting on. I did the morning chores, buzzed the plant rooms to inform Wolfe, and left a little before eleven and headed uptown.

To show you what a murder case will do to people's lives, the password routine had been abandoned. But it by no means followed that it was easier than it had been to get up to apartment 10B. Quite the contrary. Evidently journalists and others had been trying all kinds of dodges to get a ride in the elevator, for the distinguished-looking hallman wasn't a particle interested in what I said my name was, and he steeled himself to betray no sign of recognition. He simply used the phone, and in a few minutes Bill Meadows emerged from the elevator and walked over to us. We said hello.

“Strong said you'd probably show up,” he said. Neither his tone nor his expression indicated that they had been pacing up and down waiting for me. “Miss Fraser wants to know if it's something urgent.”

“Mr Wolfe thinks it is.”

“All right, come on.”

He was so preoccupied that he went into the elevator first.

I decided that if he tried leaving me alone in the enormous living-room with the assorted furniture, to wait until I was summoned, I would just stick to his heels, but that proved to be unnecessary. He couldn't have left me alone there because that was where they were.

Madeline Fraser was on the green burlap divan, propped against a dozen cushions.

Deborah Koppel was seated on the piano bench. Elinor Vance perched on a corner of the massive old black walnut table. Tully Strong had the edge of his sitter on the edge of the pink silk chair, and Nat Traub was standing. That was all as billed, but there was an added attraction. Also standing, at the far end of the long divan, was Nancylee Shepherd.

“It was Goodwin,” Bill Meadows told them, but they would probably have deduced it anyhow, since I had dropped my hat and coat in the hall and was practically at his elbow. He spoke to Miss Fraser: “He says it's something urgent.

Miss Fraser asked me briskly, “Will it take long, Mr Goodwin?” She looked clean and competent, as if she had had a good night's sleep, a shower, a healthy vigorous rub, and a thorough breakfast.

I told her I was afraid it might.

“Then I'll have to ask you to wait.” She was asking a favour. She certainly had the knack of being personal without making you want to back off. “Mr Traub has to leave soon for an appointment, and we have to make an important decision. You know, of course, that we have lost a sponsor. I suppose I ought to feel low about it, but I really don't. Do you know how many firms we have had offers from, to take the Starlite place? Sixteen!”

“Wonderful!” I admired. “Sure, I'll wait.” I crossed to occupy a chair outside the conference zone.

They forgot, immediately and completely, that I was there. All but one:

Nancylee. She changed position so she could keep her eyes on me, and her expression showed plainly that she considered me tricky, ratty, and unworthy of trust.

“We've got to start eliminating,” Tully Strong declared. He had his spectacles off, holding them in his hand. “As I understand it there are just five serious contenders.”

“Four,” Elinor Vance said, glancing at a paper she held. “I've crossed off Fluff, the biscuit dough. You said to, didn't you, Lina?”

“It's a good company,” Traub said regretfully. “One of the best. Their radio budget is over three million.”

You're just making it harder, Nat,” Deborah Koppel told him. “We can't take all of them. I thought your favourite was Meltettes.”

“It is,” Traub agreed, “but these are all very fine accounts. What do you think of Meltettes, Miss Fraser?” He was the only one of the bunch who didn't call her Lina.

“I haven't tried them.” She glanced around. “Where are they?”

Nancylee, apparently not so concentrated on me as to miss any word or gesture of her idol, spoke up: “There on the piano, Miss Fraser. Do you want them?”

“We have got to eliminate,” Strong insisted, stabbing the air with his spectacles for emphasis. “I must repeat, as representative of the other sponsors, that they are firmly and unanimously opposed to Sparkle, if it is to be served on the programme as Starlite was. They never liked the idea and they don't want it resumed.”

“It's already crossed off,” Elinor Vance stated. “With Fluff and Sparkle out, that leaves four.”

Not on account of the sponsors,” Miss Fraser put in. “We just happen to agree with them. They aren't going to decide this. We are.”

“You mean you are, Lina.” Bill Meadows sounded a little irritated. “What the hell, we all know that. You don't want Fluff because Cora made some biscuits and you didn't like 'em. You don't want Sparkle because they want it served on the programme, and God knows I don't blame you.”

Elinor Vance repeated, “That leaves four.”

“All right, eliminate!” Strong persisted.

“We're right where we were before,” Deborah Koppel told them. “The trouble is, there's no real objection to any of the four, and I think Bill's right, I think we have to put it up to Lina.”

“I am prepared,” Nat Traub announced, in the tone of a man burning bridges, “to say that I will vote for Meltettes.”

For my part, I was prepared to say that I would vote for nobody. Sitting there taking them in, as far as I could tell the only strain they were under was the pressure of picking the right sponsor. If, combined with that, one of them was contending with the nervous wear and tear of a couple of murders, he was too good for me. As the argument got warmer it began to appear that, though they were agreed that the final word was up to Miss Fraser, each of them had a favourite among the four entries left. That was what complicated the elimination.

Naturally, on account of the slip of paper I had in my pocket, I was especially interested in Elinor Vance, but the sponsor problem seemed to be monopolizing her attention as completely as that of the others. I would, of course, have to follow instructions and proceed with my errand as soon as they gave me a chance, but I was beginning to feel silly. While Wolfe had left it pretty vague, one thing was plain, that I was supposed to give them a severe jolt, and I doubted if I had what it would take. When they got worked up to the point of naming the winner-settling on the lucky product that would be cast for the role sixteen had applied for-bringing up the subject of an anonymous letter, even one implying that one of them was a chronic murderer, would be an anticlimax. With a serious problem like that just triumphantly solved, what would they care about a little thing like murder?

But I was dead wrong. I found that out incidentally, as a by-product of their argument. It appeared that two of the contenders were deadly rivals, both clawing for children's dimes: a candy bar called Happy Andy and a little box of tasty delights called Meltettes. It was the latter that Traub had decided to back unequivocally, and he, when the question came to a head which of those two to eliminate, again asked Miss Fraser if she had tried Meltettes. She told him no. He asked if she had tried Happy Andy. She said yes. Then, he insisted, it was only fair for her to try Meltettes.

“All right,” she agreed. There on the piano, Debby, that little red box. Toss it over.”

“No!” a shrill voice cried. It was Nancylee. Everyone looked at her. Deborah Koppel, who had picked up the little red cardboard box, asked her: “What's the matter?”

“It's dangerous!” Nancylee was there, a hand outstretched. “Give it to me. I'll eat one first!”

It was only a romantic kid being dramatic, and all she rated from that bunch, if I had read their pulses right, was a laugh and a brush-off, but that was what showed me I had been dead wrong. There wasn't even a snicker. No one said a word. They all froze, staring at Nancylee, with only one exception. That was Deborah Koppel. She held the box away from Nancylee's reaching hand and told her contemptuously: “Don't be silly.”

“I mean it!” the girl cried. “Let me-”

“Nonsense.” Deborah pushed her back, opened the flap of the box, took out an object, popped it into her mouth, chewed once or twice, swallowed, and then spat explosively, ejecting a spray of little particles.

I was the first, by maybe a tenth of a second, to realize that there was something doing. It wasn't so much the spitting, for that could conceivably have been merely her way of voting against Meltettes, as it was the swift, terrible contortion of her features. As I bounded across to her she left the piano bench with a spasmodic jerk, got erect with her hands flung high, and screamed: “Lina. Don't! Don't let-”

I was at her, with a hand on her arm, and Bill Meadows was there too, but her muscles all in convulsion took us along as she fought towards the divan, and Madeline Fraser was there to meet her and get supporting arms around her. But somehow the three of us together failed to hold her up or get her on to the divan. She went down until her knees were on the floor, with one arm stretched rigid across the burlap of the divan, and would have gone the rest of the way but for Miss Fraser, also on her knees.

I straightened, wheeled, and told Nat Traub: “Get a doctor quick.” I saw Nancylee reaching to pick up the little red cardboard box and snapped at her: “Let that alone and behave yourself.” Then to the rest of them: “Let everything alone, hear me?”

Chapter Twenty-Two Around four o'clock I could have got permission to go home if I had insisted, but it seemed better to stay as long as there was a chance of picking up another item for my report. I had already phoned Wolfe to explain why I wasn't following his instructions.

All of those who had been present at the conference were still there, very much so, except Deborah Koppel, who had been removed in a basket when several gangs of city scientists had finished their part of it. She had been dead when the doctor arrived. The others were still alive but not in a mood to brag about it.

At four o'clock Lieutenant Rowcliff and an assistant DA were sitting on the green burlap divan, arguing whether the taste of cyanide should warn people in time to refrain from swallowing. That seemed pointless, since whether it should or not it usually doesn't, and anyway the onjy ones who could qualify as experts are those who have tried it, and none of them is available. I moved on. At the big oak table another lieutenant was conversing with Bill Meadows, meanwhile referring to.notes on loose sheets of paper. I went on by. In the dining-room a sergeant and a private were pecking away at Elinor Vance. I passed through. In the kitchen a dick with a pugnose was holding a sheet of paper, one of a series, flat on the table while Cora, the female wrestler, put her initials on it.

Turning and going back the way I had come, I continued on to the square hall, opened a door at its far end, and went through. This, the room without a name, was mote densely populated than the others. Tully Strong and Nat Traub were on chairs against opposite walls. Nancylee was standing by a window. A dick was seated in the centre of the room, another was leaning against a wall, and Sergeant Purley Stebbins was sort of strolling around.

That called the roll, for I knew that Madeline Fraser was in the room beyond, her bedroom, where I had first met the bunch of them, having a talk with Inspector Cramer. The way I knew that, I had just been ordered out by Deputy Commissioner O’Hara, who was in there with them.

The first series of quickies, taking them one at a time on a gallop, had been staged in the dining-room by Cramer himself. Cramer and an assistant DA had sat at one side of the table, with the subject across from them, and me seated a little to the rear of the subject's elbow. The theory of that arrangement was that if the subject's memory showed a tendency to conflict with mine, I could tip Cramer off by sticking out my tongue or some other signal without being seen by the subject. The dick-stenographer had been at one end of the table, and other units of the personnel had hung around.

Since they were by no means strangers to Cramer and he was already intimately acquainted with their biographies, he could keep it brief and concentrate chiefly on two points: their positions and movements during the conference, and the box of Meltettes. On the former there were some contradictions on minor details, but only what you might expect under the circumstances; and I, who had been there, saw no indication that anyone was trying to fancy it up.

On the latter, the box of Meltettes, there was no contradiction at all. By noon Friday, the preceding day, the news had begun to spread that Starlite was bowing out, though it had not yet been published. For some time Meltettes had been on the Fraser waiting list, to grab a vacancy if one occurred. Friday morning Nat Traub, whose agency had the Meltettes account, had phoned his client the news and the client had rushed him a carton of its product by messenger. A carton held forty-eight of the little red cardboard boxes. Traub, wishing to lose no time on a matter of such urgency and importance, and not wanting to lug the whole carton, had taken one little box from it and dropped it in his pocket, and hotfooted it to the F.B.C. building, arriving at the studio just before the conclusion of the Fraser broadcast. He had spoken to Miss Fraser and Miss Koppel on behalf of Meltettes and handed the box to Miss Koppel.

Miss Koppel had passed the box on to Elinor Vance, who had put it in her bag-the same bag that had been used to transport sugared coffee in a Starlite bottle.

The three women had lunched in a nearby restaurant and then gone to Miss Fraser's apartment, where they had been joined later by Bill Meadows and Tully Strong for an exploratory discussion of the sponsor problem. Soon after their arrival at the apartment Elinor had taken the box of Meltettes from her bag and given it to Miss Fraser, who had put it on the big oak table in the living-room.

That had been between two-thirty and three o'clock Friday afternoon, and that was as far as it went. No one knew how or when the box had been moved from the oak table to the piano. There was a blank space, completely blank, of about eighteen hours, ending around nine o'clock Saturday morning, when Cora, on a dusting mission, had seen it on the piano. She had picked it up for a swipe of the dustcloth on the piano top and put it down again. Its next appearance was two hours later, when Nancylee, soon after her arrival at the apartment, had spotted it and been tempted to help herself, even going so far as to get her clutches on it, but had been scared off when she saw that Miss Koppel's eye was on her. That, Nancylee explained, was how she had known where the box was when Miss Fraser had asked.

As you can see, it left plenty of coom for inch-by-inch digging and sifting, which was lucky for everybody from privates to inspectors who are supposed to earn their pay, for there was no other place to dig at all. Relationships and motives and suspicions had already had all the juice squeezed out of them. So by four o'clock Saturday afternoon a hundred grown men, if not more, were scattered around the city, doing their damnedest to uncover another little splinter of a fact; any old fact, about that box of Meltettes. Some of them, of course, were getting results. For instance, word had come from the laboratory that the box, as it came to them, had held eleven Meltettes; that one of them, which had obviously been operated on rather skilfully, had about twelve grains of cyanide mixed into its insides; and that the other ten were quite harmless, with no sign of having been tampered with. Meltettes, they said, fitted snugly into the box in pairs, and the cyanided one had been on top, at the end of the box which opened.

And other reports, including, of course, fingerprints. Most of them had been relayed to Cramer in my presence. Whatever he may have thought they added up to, it looked to me very much like a repeat performance by the artist who had painted the sugared coffee picture: so many crossing lines and overlapping colours that no resemblance to any known animal or other object was discernible.

Returning to the densely populated room with no name after my tour of inspection, I made some witty remark to Purley Stebbins and lowered myself into a chair. As I said, I could probably have bulled my way out and gone home, but I didn't want to. What prospect did it offer? I would have fiddled around until Wolfe came down to the office, made my report, and then what? He would either have grunted in disgust, found something to criticize, and lowered his iron curtain again, or he would have gone into another trance and popped out around midnight with some bright idea like typing an anonymous letter about Bill Meadows flunking in algebra his last year in high school. I preferred to stick around in the faint hope that something would turnup.

And something did. I had abandoned the idea of making some sense out of the crossing lines and overlapping colours, given up trying to get a rise out of Purley, and was exchanging hostile glares with Nancylee, when the door from the square hall opened and a lady entered. She darted a glance around and told Purley Inspector Cramer had sent for her. He crossed to the far door which led to Miss Eraser's bedroom, opened it, and closed it after she had passed through.

I knew her by sight but not her name, and even had an opinion of her, namely, that she was the most presentable of all the female dicks I had seen. With nothing else to do, I figured out what Cramer wanted with her, and had just come to the correct conclusion when the door opened again and I got it verified.

Cramer appeared first, then Deputy Commissioner O’Hara. Cramer spoke to Purley: “Get 'em all in here.”

Purley flew to obey. Nat Traub asked wistfully: “Have you made any progress, Inspector?”

Cramer didn't even have the decency to growl at him, let alone reply. That seemed unnecessarily rude, so I told Traub: “Yeah, they've reached an important decision. You're all going to be frisked.”

It was ill-advised, especially with O’Hara there, since he has never forgiven me for being clever once, but I was frustrated and edgy. O’Hara gave me an evil look and Cramer told me to close my trap.

The others came straggling in with their escorts. I surveyed the lot and would have felt genuinely sorry for them if I had known which one to leave out. There was no question now about the kind of strain they were under, and it had nothing to do with picking a sponsor.

Cramer addressed them: “I want to say to you people that as long as you co-operate with us we have no desire to make it any harder for you than we have to. You can't blame us for feeling we have to bear down on you, in view of the fact that all of you lied, and kept on lying, about the bottle that the stuff came out of that killed Orchard. I called you in here to tell you that we're going to search your persons. The position is this, we would be justified in taking you all down and booking you as material witnesses, and that's what we'll do if any of you object to the search. Miss Fraser made no objection. A policewoman is in there with her now. The women will be taken in there one at a time. The men will be taken by Lieutenant Rowcliff and Sergeant Stebbins, also one at a time, to another room.

Does anyone object?”

It was pitiful. They were in no condition to object, even if he had announced his intention of having clusters of Meltettes tattooed on their chests. Nobody made a sound except Nancylee, who merely shrilled: “Oh, I never!”

I crossed my legs and prepared to sit it out. And so I did, up to a point.

Purley and Rowcliff took Tully Strong first. Soon the female dick appeared and got Elinor Vance. Evidently they were being thorough, for it was a good eight minutes before Purley came back with Strong and took Bill Meadows, and the lady took just as long with Elinor Vance. The last two on the list were Nancylee in one direction and Nat Traub in the other.

That is, they were the last two as I had it. But when Rowcliff and Purley returned with Traub and handed Cramer some slips of paper, O’Hara barked at them: “What about Goodwin?”

“Oh, him?” Rowcliff asked.

“Certainly him! He was here, wasn't he?”

Rowcliff looked at Cramer. Cramer looked at me.

I grinned at O’Hara. “What if I object, Commissioner?”

“Try it! That won't help you any!”

“The hell it won't It will either preserve my dignity or start a string of firecrackers. What do you want to bet my big brother can't lick your big brother?”

He took a step toward me. “You resist, do you?”

“You're damn' right I do.” My hand did a half-circle. “Before twenty witnesses.”

He wheeled. “Send him down, Inspector. To my office. Charge him. Then have him searched.”

“Yes, sir.” Cramer was frowning. “First, would you mind stepping into another room with me? Perhaps I haven't fully explained the situation-”

“I understand it perfectly! Wolfe has co-operated, so you say-to what purpose?

What has happened? Another murder! Wolfe has got you all buffaloed, and I'm sick and tired of it! Take him to my office!”

“No one has got me buffaloed,” Cramer rasped. “Take him, Purley. I'll phone about a charge.”

Chapter Twenty-Three There were two things I liked about Deputy Commissioner O’Hara's office. First, it was there that I had been clever on a previous occasion, and therefore it aroused agreeable memories, and second, I like nice surroundings and it was the most attractive room at Centre Street, being on a corner with six large windows, and furnished with chairs and rugs and other items which had been paid for by O’Hara's rich wife.

I sat at ease in one of the comfortable chairs. The contents of my pockets were stacked in a neat pile on a corner of O’Hara's big shiny mahogany desk, except for one item which Purley Stebbins had in his paw. Purley was so mad his face was a red sunset, and he was stuttering.

“Don't be a g-goddam fool,” he exhorted me. “If you clam it with O’Hara when he gets here he'll jug you sure as hell, and it's after six o'clock so where'll you spend the night?” He shook his paw at me, the one holding the item taken from my pocket. “Tell me about this!”

I shook my head firmly. “You know, Purley,” I said without rancour, “this is pretty damn' ironic. You frisked that bunch of suspects and got nothing at all-I could tell that from the way you and Rowcliff looked. But on me, absolutely innocent of wrongdoing, you find what you think is an incriminating document. So here I am, sunk, facing God knows what kind of doom. I try to catch a glimpse of the future, and what do I see?”

“Oh, shut up!”

“No, I've got to talk to someone.” I glanced at my wrist. “As you say, it's after six o'clock. Mr Wolfe has come down from the plant rooms, expecting to find me awaiting him in the office, ready for my report of the day's events.

He'll be disappointed. You know how he'll feel. Better still, you know what he'll do. He'll be so frantic he'll start looking up numbers and dialling them himself. I am offering ten to one that he has already called the Fraser apartment and spoken to Cramer. How much of it do you want? A dime? A buck?”

“Can it, you goddam ape.” Purley was resigning. “Save it for O’Hara, he'll be here pretty soon. I hope they give you a cell with bedbugs.”

“I would prefer,” I said courteously, “to chat.”

“Then chat about this.”

“No. For the hundredth time, no. I detest anonymous letters and I don't like to talk about them.”

He went to a chair and sat facing me. I got up, crossed to bookshelves, selected Crime and Criminals, by Mercier, and returned to my seat with it.

Purley had been wrong. O’Hara was not there pretty soon. When I glanced at my wrist every ten minutes or so I did it on the sly because I didn't want Purley to think I was getting impatient. It was a little past seven when I looked up from my book at the sound of a buzzer. Purley went to a phone on the desk and had a talk with it. He hung up, returned to his chair, sat, and after a moment spoke: “That was the Deputy Commissioner. He is going to have his dinner. I'm to keep you here till he comes.”

“Good,” I said approvingly. “This is a fascinating book.”

“He thinks you're boiling. You bastard.”

I shrugged.

I kept my temper perfectly for another hour or more, and then, still there with my book, I became aware that I was starting to lose control. The trouble was that I had begun to feel hungry, and that was making me sore. Then there was another factor: what the hell was Wolfe doing? That, I admit, was unreasonable.

Any phoning he did would be to Cramer or O’Hara, or possibly someone at the DA's office, and with me cooped up as I was I wouldn't hear even an echo. If he had learned where I was and tried to get me, they wouldn't have put him through, since Purley had orders from O’Hara that I was to make no calls. But what wj,th feeling hungry and getting no word from the outside world, I became aware that I was beginning to be offended, and that would not do. I forced my mind away from food and other aggravating aspects, including the number of revolutions the minute hand of my watch had made, and turned another page.

It was ten minutes to nine when the door opened and O’Hara and Cramer walked in.

Purley stood up. I was in the middle of a paragraph and so merely flicked one eye enough to see who it was. O’Hara hung his hat and coat on a rack, and Cramer dropped his on a chair. O’Hara strode to his desk, crossing my bow so close that I could easily have tripped him by stretching a leg.

Cramer looked tired. Without spending a glance on me he nodded at Purley.

“Has he opened up?”

“No, sir. Here it is.” Purley handed him the item.

They had both had it read to them on the phone, but they wanted to see it.

Cramer read it through twice and then handed it to O’Hara. While that was going on I went to the shelves and replaced the book, had a good stretch and yawn, and returned to my chair.

Cramer glared down at me. “What have you got to say?”

“More of the same,” I told him. “I've explained to the sergeant, who has had nothing to eat, by the way, that that thing has no connection whatever with any murder or any other crime, and therefore questions about it are out of order.”

“You've been charged as a material witness.”

“Yeah, I know, Purley showed it to me. Why don't you ask Mr Wolfe? He might be feeling generous.”

“The hell he might. We have. Look, Goodwin-”

“I'll handle him, Inspector.” O’Hara speaking. He was an energetic cuss. He had gone clear around his desk to sit down, but now he arose and came clear around it again to confront me. I looked up at him inquiringly, not a bit angry.

He was trying to control himself. “You can't possibly get away with it,” he stated. “It's incredible that you have the gall to try it, both you and Wolfe.

Anonymous letters are a central factor in this case, a vital factor. You went up to that apartment today to see those people, and you had in your pocket an anonymous letter about one of them, practically accusing her of murder. Do you mean to tell me that you take the position that that letter has no connection with the crimes under investigation?”

“I sure do. Evidently Mr Wolfe does too.” I made a gesture. “Corroboration.”

“You take and maintain that position while aware of the penalty that may be imposed upon conviction for an obstruction of justice?”

“I do.”

O’Hara turned and blurted at Cramer, “Get Wolfe down here! Damn it, we should have hauled him in hours ago!”

This, I thought to myself, is something like. Now we ought to see some fur fly.

But we didn't, at least not as O’Hara had it programmed. What interfered was a phone call. The buzzer sounded, and Purley, seeing that his superiors were too worked up to hear it, went to the desk and answered. After a word he told Cramer, Tor you, Inspector,” and Cramer crossed and got it. O’Hara stood glaring down at me, but, having his attention called by a certain tone taken by Cramer's voice, turned to look that way. Finally Cramer hung up. The expression on his face was that of a man trying to decide what it was he just swallowed.

“Well?” O’Hara demanded.

“The desk just had a call,” Cramer said, “from the WPIT newsroom. WPIT is doing the script for the ten o'clock newscast, and they're including an announcement received a few minutes ago from Nero Wolfe. Wolfe announces that he has solved the murder cases, all three of them, with no assistance from the police, and that very soon, probably sometime tomorrow, he will be ready to tell the District Attorney the name of the murderer and to furnish all necessary information. WPIT wants to know if we have any comment.”

Of course it was vulgar, but I couldn't help it. I threw back my head and let out a roar. It wasn't so much the news itself as it was the look on O’Hara's face as the full beauty of it seeped through to him.

“The fat bum!” Purley whimpered.

I told O’Hara distinctly: The next time Cramer asks you to step into another room with him I'd advise you to step.”

He didn't hear me.

“It wasn't a question,” Cramer said, “of Wolfe having me buffaloed. With him the only question is what has he got and how and when will he use it. If that goes on the air I would just as soon quit.”

“What-” O’Hara stopped to wet his lips. “What would you suggest?”

Cramer didn't answer. He pulled a cigar from his pocket, slow motion, got it between his teeth, took it out again and hurled it for the wastebasket, missing by two feet, walked to a chair, sat down, and breathed.

“There are only two things,” he said. “Just let it land is one. The other is to ask Goodwin to call him and request him to recall the announcement-and tell him he'll be home right away to report.” Cramer breathed again. “I won't ask Goodwin that. Do you want to?”

“No! It's blackmail!” O’Hara yelled in pain.

“Yeah,” Cramer agreed. “Only when Wolfe does it there's nothing anonymous about it The newscast will be on in thirty-five minutes.”

O’Hara would rather have eaten soap. “It may be a bluff,” he pleaded.”Pure bluff!”

“Certainly it may. And it may not. It's easy enough to call it-just sit down and wait. If you're not going to call on Goodwin I guess I'll have to see if I can get hold of the Commissioner.” Cramer stood up.

O’Hara turned to me. I have to hand it to him, he looked me in the eye as he asked:

Will you do it?”

I grinned at him. “That warrant Purley showed me is around somewhere. It will be vacated?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I've got witnesses.” I crossed to the desk and began returning my belongings to the proper pockets. The anonymous letter was there where O’Hara had left it when he had advanced to overwhelm me, and I picked it up and displayed it. “I'm taking this,” I said, “but I'll let you look at it again if you want to May I use the phone?”

I circled the desk, dropped into O’Hara's personal chair, pulled the instrument to me, and asked the male switchboard voice to get Mr Nero Wolfe. The voice asked who I was and I told it. Then we had some comedy. After I had waited a good two minutes there was a knock on the door and O’Hara called come in. The door swung wide open and two individuals entered with guns in their hands, stern and alert. When they saw the arrangements they stopped dead and looked foolish.

“What do you want?” O’Hara barked.

“The phone,” one said. “Goodwin. We didn't know…”

“For Christ's sake!” Purley exploded. “Ain't I here?” It was a breach of discipline, with his superiors present They bumped at the threshold, getting out, pulling the door after them. I couldn't possibly have been blamed for helping myself to another hearty laugh, but mere's a limit to what even a Deputy Commissioner will take, so I choked it off and sat tight until there was a voice in my ear that I knew better than any other voice on earth.

“Archie,” I said.

“Where are you?” The voice was icy with rage, but not at me.

“I'm in O’Hara's office, at his desk, using his phone. I am half-starved.

O’Hara, Cramer, and Sergeant Stebbins are present To be perfectly fair, Cramer and Purley are innocent. This bone- headed play was a solo by O’Hara. He fully realizes his mistake and sincerely apologizes. The warrant for my arrest is a thing of the past. The letter about Miss Vance is in my pocket. I have conceded nothing. I'm free to go where I please, including home. O’Hara requests, as a personal favour, that you kill the an- nouncement you gave WPI T. Can that be done?”

“It can if I choose. It was arranged through Mr Richards.”

“So I suspected. You should have seen O’Hara's face when the tidings reached him. If you choose, and all of us here hope you do, go ahead and kill it and I'll be there in twenty minutes or less. Tell Fritz I'm hungry.”

“Mr O’Hara is a nincompoop. Tell him I said so. I'll have the announcement suspended temporarily, but there will be condi- tions. Stay there. I'll phone you shortly.”

I cradled the phone, leaned back, and grinned at the three inquiring faces.

“He'll call back. He thinks he can head it off temporarily, but he's got some idea about conditions.” I focused on O’Hara. “He said to tell you that he says you're a nincompoop, but I think it would be more tactful not to mention it, so I won't.”

“Some day,” O’Hara said through his teeth, “he'll land on his nose.”

They all sat down and began exchanging comments. I didn't listen because my mind was occupied. I was willing to chalk up for Wolfe a neat and well-timed swagger, and to admit that it got the desired results, but now what? Did he really have anything at all, and if so how much? It had better be fairly good. Cramer and Stebbins were not exactly ready to clasp our hands across the corpses, and as for O’Hara, I only hoped to God that when Wolfe called back he wouldn't tell me to slap the Deputy Commissioner on the back and tell him it had been just a prank and wasn't it fun? All in all, it was such a gloomy outlook that when the buzzer sounded and I reached for the phone I would just as soon have been somewhere else.

Wolfe's voice asked if they were still there and I said yes. He said to tell them that the announcement had been postponed and would not be broadcast at ten o'clock, and I did so. Then he asked for my report of the day's events.

Now?” I demanded. “On the phone?”

“Yes,” he said. “Concisely, but including all essentials. If there is a contradiction to demolish I must know it.”

Even with the suspicion gnawing at me that I had got roped in for a supporting role in an enormous bluff, I did enjoy it. It was a situation anyone would appreciate. There I was, in O’Hara's chair at his desk in his office, giving a detailed report to Wolfe of a murder I had witnessed and a police operation I had helped with, and for over half an hour those three bozos simply utterly had to sit and listen. Whatever position they might be in all too soon, all they could do now was take it and like it. I did enjoy it. Now and then Wolfe interrupted with a question, and when I had finished he took me back to fill in a few gaps. Then he proceeded to give me instructions, and as I listened it became apparent that if it was a bluff at least he wasn't going to leave me behind the enemy lines to fight my way out. I asked him to repeat it to make sure I had it straight. He did so.

“Okay,” I said. Tell Fritz I'm hungry.” I hung up and faced the three on chairs:

“I'm sorry it took so long, but he pays my salary and what could I do? As I told you, the announcement has been postponed. He is willing to kill it, but that sort of depends. He thinks it would be appropriate for Inspector Cramer and Sergeant Stebbins to help with the wind-up. He would appreciate it if you will start by delivering eight people at his office as soon as possible. He wants the five who were at the Fraser apartment today, not including the girl, Nancylee, or Cora the cook. Also Savarese. Also Anderson, president of the Starlite Company, and Owen, the public relations man. All he wants you to do is to get them there, and to be present yourselves, but with the understanding that he will run the show. With that provision, he states that when you leave you will be prepared to make an arrest and take the murderer with you, and the announcement he gave WPIT will not be made. You can do the announcing.” I arose and moved, crossing to a chair over by the wall near the door to reclaim my hat and coat. Then I turned: “It's after ten o'clock, and if this thing is on I'm not going to start it on an empty stomach. In my opinion, even if all he has in mind is a game of blind man's buff, which I doubt, it's well worth it. Orchard died twenty-five days ago. Beula Poole nine days. Miss Koppel ten hours. You could put your inventory on a postage stamp.” I had my hand on the doorknob. “How about it? Feel like helping?”

Cramer growled at me, “Why Anderson and Owen? What does he want them for?”

“Search me. Of course he likes a good audience.”

“Maybe we can't get them.”

“You can try. You're an inspector and murder is a very bad crime.”

“It may take hours.”

Teah, it looks like an all-night party. If I can stand it you can, not to mention Mr Wolfe. All right, then we'll be seeing you.” I opened the door and took a step, but turned: “Oh, I forgot, he told me to tell you, this anonymous letter about Elinor Vance is just some home-made bait that didn't get used. I typed it myself this morning. If you get a chance tonight you can do a sample on my machine and compare.”

O’Hara barked ferociously: “Why the hell didn't you say so?”

“I didn't like the way I was asked, Commissioner. The only man I know of more sensitive than me is Nero Wolfe.”

It was not surprising that Cramer delivered the whole order. Certainly none of those people could have been compelled to go out into the night, and let themselves be conveyed to Nero Wolfe's office, or any place else, without slapping a charge on them, but it doesn't take much compelling when you're in that kind of a fix. They were all there well before midnight, Wolfe stayed up in his room until they all arrived. I had supposed that while I ate my warmed-over cutlets he would have some questions or instructions for me, and probably both, but no. If he had anything he already had it and needed no contributions from me. He saw to it that my food was hot and my salad crisp and then beat it upstairs.

The atmosphere, as they gathered, was naturally not very genial, but it wasn't so much tense as it was glum. They were simply sunk. As soon as Elinor Vance got on to a chair she rested her elbows on her knees and buried her face in her hands, and stayed that way. Tully Strong folded his arms, let his head sag until his chin met his chest, and shut his eyes. Madeline Eraser sat in the red leather chair, which I got her into before President Anderson arrived, looking first at one of her fellow-beings and then at another, but she gave the impression that she merely felt she ought to be conscious of something and they would do as well as anything else.

Bill Meadows, seated near Elinor Vance, was leaning back with his hands clasped behind his head, glaring at the ceiling. Nat Traub was a sight, with his necktie off centre, his hair mussed, and his eyes bloodshot. His facial growth was the kind that needs shaving twice a day, and it hadn't had it. He was so restless he couldn't stay in his chair, but when he left it there was no place he wanted to go, so all he could do was sit down again. I did not, on that account, tag him for it, since he had a right to be haggard. A Meltette taken from a box delivered by him had poisoned and killed someone, and it wasn't hard to imagine how his client had reacted to that.

Two conversations were going on. Professor Savarese was telling Purley Stebbins something at length, presumably the latest in formulas, and Purley was making himself an accessory by nodding now and then. Anderson and Owen, the Starlite delegates, were standing by the couch talking with Cramer, and, judging from the snatches I caught, they might finally decide to sit down and they might not.

They had been the last to arrive. I, having passed the word to Wolfe that the delivery had been completed, was wondering what was keeping him when I heard the sound of his elevator.

They were so busy with their internal affairs that Traub and I were the only ones who were aware that our host had joined us until he reached the corner of his desk and turned to make a survey. The conversations stopped. Savarese bounded across to shake hands. Elinor Vance lifted her head, showing such a woebegone face that I had to restrain an impulse to take the anonymous letter from my pocket and tear it up then and there. Traub sat down for the twentieth time. Bill Meadows unclasped his hands and pressed his fingertips against his eyes. President Anderson sputtered: “Since when have you been running the Police Department?”

That's what a big executive is supposed to do, go straight to the point.

Wolfe, getting loose from Savarese, moved to his chair and got himself arranged in it. I guess it's partly his size, unquestionably impressive, which holds people's attention when he is in motion, but his manner and style have a lot to do with it. You get both suspense and surprise. You know he's going to be clumsy and wait to see it, but by gum you never do. First thing you know there he is, in his chair or wherever he was bound for, and there was nothing clumsy about it at all. It was smooth and balanced and efficient.

He looked up at the clock, which said twenty to twelve, and remarked to the audience: “It's late, isn't it?” He regarded the Starlite president: “Let's not start bickering, Mr Anderson. You weren't dragged here by force, were you? You were impelled either by concern or curiosity. In either case you won't leave until you hear what I have to say, so why not sit down and listen? If you want to be contentious wait until you learn what you have to contend with. It works better that way.”

He took in the others. “Perhaps, though, I should answer Mr Andersen's question, though it was obviously rhetorical. I am not running the Police Department, far from it. I don't know what you were told when you were asked to come here, but I assume you know that nothing I say is backed by any official authority, for I have none. Mr Cramer and Mr Stebbins are present as observers. That is correct, Mr Cramer?”

The Inspector, seated on the corner of the couch, nodded.

“They understand that.”

“Good. Then Mr Anderson's question was not only rhetorical, it was gibberish. I shall-”

“I have a question!” a voice said, harsh and strained.

“Yes, Mr Meadows, what is it?”

“If this isn't official, what happens to the notes Goodwin is making?”

“That depends on what we accomplish. They may never leave this house, and end up by being added to the stack in the cellar. Or a transcription of them may be accepted as evidence in a courtroom. I wish you'd sit down, Mr Savarese. It's more tranquil if everyone is seated.”

Wolfe shifted his centre of gravity. During his first ten minutes in a chair minor adjustments were always required.

“I should begin,” he said with just a trace of peevishness, “by admitting that I am in a highly vulnerable position. I have told Mr Cramer that when he leaves here he will take a murderer with him; but though I know who the murderer is, I haven't a morsel of evidence against him, and neither has anyone else. Still-”

“Wait a minute,” Cramer growled.

Wolfe shook his head. “It's important, Mr Cramer, to keep this unofficial-until I reach a certain point, if I ever do-so it would be best for you to say nothing whatever.” His eyes moved. “I think the best approach is to explain how I learned the identity of the murderer-and by the way, here's an interesting point; though I was already close to certitude, it was clinched for me only two hours ago, when Mr Goodwin told me that there were sixteen eager candidates for the sponsorship just abandoned by Starlite. That removed my shred of doubt.”

“For God's sake,” Nat Traub blurted, “let the fine points go! Let's have it!”

“You'll have to be patient, sir,” Wolfe reproved him. “I'm not merely reporting, I'm doing a job. Whether a murderer gets arrested, and tried, and convicted, depends entirely on how I handle this. There is no evidence and if I don't squeeze it out of you people now, tonight, there may never be any. The trouble all along, both for the police and for me, has been that no finger pointed without wavering. In going for a murderer as well concealed as this one it is always necessary to trample down improbabilities to get a path started, but it is foolhardy to do so until a direction is plainly indicated. This time there was no such plain indication, and, frankly, I had begun to doubt if there would be one-until yesterday morning, when Mr Anderson and Mr Owen visited this office. They gave it to me.”

“You're a liar!” Anderson stated.

“You see?” Wolfe upturned a palm. “Some day, sir, you're going to get on the wrong train by trying to board before it arrives. How do you know whether I'm a liar or not until you know what I'm saying? You did come here. You gave me a cheque for the full amount of my fee, told me that I was no longer in your hire, and said that you had withdrawn as a sponsor of Miss Fraser's programme. You gave as your reason for withdrawal that the practice of blackmail had been injected into the case, and you didn't want your product connected in the public mind with blackmail because it is dirty and makes people gag. Isn't that so?”

“Yes. But-”

“I'll do the butting. After you left I sat in this chair twelve straight hours, with intermissions only for meals, using my brain on you. If I had known then that before the day was out sixteen other products were scrambling to take your Starlite place, I would have reached my conclusion in much less than twelve hours, but I didn't. What I was exploring was the question, what had happened to you? You had been so greedy for publicity that you had even made a trip down here to get into a photograph with me. Now, suddenly, you were fleeing like a comely maiden from a smallpox scare. Why?”

“I told you-”

“I know. But that wasn't good enough. Examined with care, it was actually flimsy. I don't propose to recite all my twistings and windings for those twelve hours, but first of all I rejected the reason you gave. What, then? I considered every possible circum- stance and all conceivable combinations. That you were yourself the murderer and feared I might sniff you out; that you were not the murderer, but the blackmailer; that, yourself innocent, you knew the identity of one of the culprits, or both, and did not wish to be associated with the disclosure; and a thousand others. Upon each and all of my conjectures I brought to bear what I knew of you-your position, your record, your temperament, and your character. At the end only one supposition wholly satisfied me. I concluded that you had somehow become convinced that someone closely connected with that programme, which you were sponsoring, had committed the murders, and that there was a possibility that that fact would be discovered. More: I concluded that it was not Miss Koppel or Miss Vance or Mr Meadows or Mr Strong, and certainly not Mr Savarese. It is the public mind that you are anxious about, and in the public mind those people are quite insignificant. Miss Fraser is that programme, and that programme is Miss Fraser. It could only be her. You knew, or thought you knew, that Miss Fraser herself had killed Mr Orchard, and possibly Miss Poole too, and you were getting as far away from her as you could as quickly as you could. Your face tells me that you don't like that!”

“No,” Anderson said coldly, “and you won't either before you hear the last of it. You through?”

“Good heavens, no. I've barely started. As I say, I reached that conclusion, but it was nothing to crow about. What was I to do with it? I had a screw I could put on you, but it seemed unwise to be hasty about it, and I considered a trial of other expedients. I confess that the one I chose to begin with was feeble and even sleazy, but it was at breakfast this morning, before I had finished my coffee and got dressed, and Mr Goodwin was fidgety and I wanted to give him something to do. Also, I had already made a suggestion to Mr Cramer which was designed to give everyone the impression that there was evidence that Miss Vance had been blackmailed, that she was under acute suspicion, and that she might be charged with murder at any moment. There was a chance, I thought, that an imminent threat to Miss Vance, who is a personable young woman, might impel somebody to talk.”

“So you started that,” Elinor Vance said dully.

Wolfe nodded. “I'm not boasting about it. I've confessed it was worse than second-rate, but I thought Mr Cramer might as well try it; and this morning, before I was dressed, I could devise nothing better than for Mr Goodwin to type an anonymous letter about you and take it up there-a letter which implied that you had committed murder at least twice.”

“Goddam pretty,” Bill Meadows said.

“He didn't do it,” Elinor said.

“Yes, he did,” Wolfe disillusioned her. “He had it with him, but didn't get to use it. The death of Miss Koppel was responsible not only for that, but for other things as well-for instance, for this gathering. If I had acted swiftly and energetically on the conclusion I reached twenty-four hours ago, Miss Koppel might be alive now. I owe her an apology but I can't get it to her. What I can do is what I'm doing.”

Wolfe's eyes darted to Anderson and fastened there. “I’m going to put that screw on you, sir. I won't waste time appealing to you, in the name of justice or anything else, to tell me why you abruptly turned tail and scuttled. That would be futile. Instead, I'll tell you a homely little fact: Miss Fraser drank Starlite only the first few times it was served on her programme and then had to quit and substitute coffee. She had to quit because your product upset her stomach. It gave her a violent indigestion.”

“That's a lie,” Anderson said. “Another lie.”

“If it is, it won't last long. Miss Vance. Some things aren't as important as they once were. You heard what I said. Is it true?”

“Yes.”

“Mr Strong?”

“I don't think this-”

“Confound it, you're in the same room and the same chair! Is it true or not?”

“Yes.”

“Mr Meadows?”

“Yes.”

“That should be enough. So, Mr Anderson-”

“A put-up job,” the president sneered. “I left their damn’ programme.”

Wolfe shook his head. They're not missing you. They had their choice of sixteen offers. No, Mr Anderson, you're in a pickle. Blackmail revolts you, and you're being blackmailed. It is true that newspapers are reluctant to offend advertisers, but some of them couldn't possibly resist so picturesque an item as this, that the product Miss Fraser puffed so effectively to ten million people made her so ill that she didn't dare swallow a spoonful of it. Indeed yes, the papers will print it; and they'll get it in time for Monday morning.”

“You sonofabitch.” Anderson was holding. “They won't touch it. Will they Fred?”

But the director of public relations was frozen, speechless with horror.

“I think they will,” Wolfe persisted. “One will, I know. And open publication might be better than the sort of talk that would get around when once it's started. You know how rumours get distorted; fools would even say that it wasn't necessary to add anything to Starlite to poison Mr Orchard. Really, the blackmail potential of this is very high. And what do you have to do to stop it?

Something hideous and insupportable? Not at all. Merely tell me why you suddenly decided to scoot.”

Anderson looked at Owen, but Owen was gazing fixedly at Wolfe as at the embodiment of evil.

“It will be useless,” Wolfe said, “to try any dodge. I'm ready for you. I spent all day yesterday on this, and I doubt very much if I'll accept anything except what I have already specified: that someone or something had persuaded you that Miss Fraser herself was in.danger of being exposed as a murderer or a blackmailer. However, you can try.”

“I don't have to try.” He was a stubborn devil. “I told you yesterday. That was my reason then, and it's my reason now.”

“Oh, for God's sake!” Fred Owen wailed. “Oh, my God!”

“Goddam it,” Anderson blurted at him, CI gave my word! I'm sewed up! I promised!”

“To whom?” Wolfe snapped.

“All right,” Owen said bitterly, “keep your word and lose your shirt. This is ruin! This is dynamite!”

“To whom?” Wolfe persisted.

“I can't tell you, and I won't. That was part of the promise.”

“Indeed. Then that makes it simple.” Wolfe's eyes darted left. “Mr Meadows, a hypothetical question. If it was you to whom Mr Anderson gave the pledge that keeps him from speaking, do you now release him from it?”

“It wasn't me,” Bill said.

“I didn't ask you that. You know what a hypothetical question is. Please answer to the if. If it was you, do you release him?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Mr Traub, the same question. With that if, do you release him?”

“Yes.”

“Miss Vance? Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Mr Strong. Do you?”

Of course Tully Strong had had time, a full minute, to make up his mind what to say. He said it: “No!”

Chapter Twenty-Five Eleven pairs of eyes fastened on Tully Strong.

“Aha,” Wolfe muttered. He leaned back, sighed deep, and looked pleased.

“Remarkable!” a voice boomed. It was Professor Savarese. “So simple!”

If he expected to pull some of the eyes his way, he got cheated. They stayed on Strong.

“That was a piece of luck,” Wolfe said, “and I'm grateful for it. If I had started with you, Mr Strong, and got your no, the others might have made it not so simple.”

“I answered a hypothetical question,” Tully asserted, “and that's all. It doesn't mean anything.”

“Correct,” Wolfe agreed. “In logic, it doesn't. But I saw your face when you realized what was coming, the dilemma you would be confronted with in a matter of seconds, and that was enough. Do you now hope to retreat into logic?”

Tully just wasn't up to it. Not only had his face been enough when he saw it coming; it was still enough. The muscles around his thin tight lips quivered as he issued the command to let words through.

“I merely answered a hypothetical question,” was the best he could do. It was pathetic.

Wolfe sighed again. “Well, I suppose I'll have to light it for you. I don't blame you, sir, for being obstinate about it, since it may be assumed that you have behaved badly. I don't mean your withholding information from the police; most people do that, and often for reasons much shoddier than yours. I mean your behaviour to your employers. Since you are paid by the eight sponsors jointly your loyalty to them is indivisible; but you did not warn all of them that Miss Fraser was, or might be, headed for disgrace and disaster, and that therefore they had better clear out; apparently you confined it to Mr Anderson. For value received or to be received, I presume-a good job?”

Wolfe shrugged. “But now it's all up.” His eyes moved. “By the way, Archie, since Mr Strong will soon be telling us how he knew it was Miss Fraser, you'd better take a look. She's capable of anything, and she's as deft as a bear's tongue. Look in her bag.”

Cramer was on his feet. “I’m not going-”

“I didn't ask you,” Wolfe snapped. “Confound it, don't you see how ticklish this is? I'm quite aware I've got no evidence yet, but I'm not going to have that woman displaying her extraordinary dexterity in my office. Archie?”

I had left my chair and stepped to the other end of Wolfe's desk, but I was in a rather embarrassing position. I am not incapable of using force on a woman, since after all men have never found anything else to use on them with any great success when it comes right down to it, but Wolfe had by no means worked up to a point where the audience was with me. And when I extended a hand toward the handsome leather bag in Madeline Fraser's lap, she gave me the full force of her grey-green eyes and told me distinctly: “Don't touch me.”

I brought the hand back. Her eyes went to Wolfe: “Don't you think it's about time I said something? Wouldn't it look better?”

“No.” Wolfe met her gaze. “I'd advise you to wait, madam. All you can give us now is a denial, and of course we'll stipulate that. What else can you say?”

“I wouldn't bother with a denial,” she said scornfully. “But it seems stupid for me to sit here and let this go on indefinitely.”

“Not at all.” Wolfe leaned toward her. “Let me assure you of one thing, Miss Fraser, most earnestly. It is highly unlikely, whatever you say or do from now on, that I shall ever think you stupid. I am too well convinced of the contrary.

Not even if Mr Goodwin opens your bag and finds in it the gun with which Miss Poole was shot.”

“He isn't going to open it.”

She seemed to know what she was talking about. I glanced at Inspector Cramer, but the big stiff wasn't ready to move a finger. I picked up the little table that was always there by the arm of the red leather chair, and moved it over to the wall, went and brought one of the small yellow chairs, and sat, so close to Madeline Fraser that if we had spread elbows they would have touched. That meant no more notes, but Wolfe couldn't have everything. As I sat down by her, putting in motion the air that had been there undisturbed, I got a faint whiff of a spicy perfume, and my imagination must have been pretty active because I was reminded of the odour that had reached me that day in her apartment, from the breath of Deborah Koppel as I tried to get her on to the divan before she collapsed. It wasn't the same at all except in my fancy. I asked Wolfe: “This will do. Won't it?”

He nodded and went back to Tully Strong. “So you have not one reason for reluctance, but several. Even so, you can't possibly stick it. It has been clearly demonstrated to Mr Cramer that you are withholding important information directly pertinent to the crimes he is investigating, and you and others have already pushed his patience pretty far. He'll get his teeth in you now and he won't let go. Then there's Mr Anderson. The promise he gave you is half-gone, now that we know it was you he gave it to, and with the threat I'm holding over him he can't reasonably be expected to keep the other half.”

Wolfe gestured. “And all I really need is a detail. I am satisfied that I know pretty well what you told Mr Anderson. What happened yesterday, just before he took alarm and leaped to action? The morning papers had the story of the anonymous letters-the blackmailing device by which people were constrained to make payments to Mr Orchard and Miss Poole. Then that story had supplied a missing link for someone. Who and how? Say it was Mr Anderson. Say that he received, some weeks ago, an anonymous letter Or letters blackguarding Miss Fraser. He showed them to her. He received no more letters. That's all he knew about it. A little later Mr Orchard was a guest on the Fraser programme and got poisoned, but there was no reason for Mr Anderson to connect that event with the anonymous letters he had received. That was what the story in yesterday's papers did for him; they made that connection. It was now perfectly plain: anonymous letters about Miss Fraser; Miss Fraser's subscription to Track Almanac; the method by which those subscriptions were obtained; and Mr Orchard's death by drinking poisoned coffee ostensibly intended for Miss Fraser. That did not convict Miss Fraser of murder, but at a minimum it made it extremely inadvisable to continue in the role of her sponsor. So Mr Anderson skedaddled.”

“I got no anonymous letters,” Anderson declared.

“I believe you.” Wolfe didn't look away from Tully Strong. “I rejected, tentatively, the assumption that Mr Anderson had himself received the anonymous letters, on various grounds, but chiefly because it would be out of character for him to show an anonymous letter to the subject of it. He would be much more likely to have the letter's allegations investigated, and there was good reason to assume that that had not been done. So I postulated that it was not Mr Anderson, but some other person, who had once received an anonymous letter or letters about Miss Fraser and who was yesterday provided with a missing link. It was a permissible guess that that person was one of those now present, and so I tried the experiment of having the police insinuate an imminent threat to Miss Vance, in the hope that it would loosen a tongue. I was too cautious. It failed lamentably; and Miss Koppel died.”

Wolfe was talking only to Strong. “Of course, having no evidence, I have no certainty that the information you gave Mr Anderson concerned anonymous letters.

It is possible that your conviction, or suspicion, about Miss Fraser, had some other basis. But I like my assumption because it is neat and comprehensive, and I shall abandon it only under compulsion. It explains everything, and nothing contradicts it. It will even explain, I confidently expect, why Mr Orchard and Miss Poole were killed. Two of the finer points of their operation were these, that they demanded only a small fraction of the victim's income, limited to one year, and that the letters did not expose, or threaten to expose, an actual secret in the victim's past. Even if they had known such secrets they would not have used them. But sooner or later-this is a point on which Mr Savarese could speak with the authority of an expert, but not now, some other time-sooner or later, by the law of averages, they would use such a secret by inadvertence.

Sooner or later the bugaboo they invented would be, for the victim, not a mischievous libel, but a real and most dreadful terror.”

Wolfe nodded. “Yes. So it happened. The victim was shown the letter or letters by some friend-by you, Mr Strong-and found herself confronted not merely by the necessity of paying an inconsequential tribute, but by the awful danger of some disclosure that was not to be borne; for she could not know, of course, that the content of the letter had been fabricated and that its agreement with reality was sheer accident. So she acted. Indeed, she acted! She killed Mr Orchard. Then she learned, from a strange female voice on the phone, that Mr Orchard had not been the sole possessor of the knowledge she thought he had, and again she acted. She killed Miss Poole.”

“My God,” Anderson cut in, “you're certainly playing it strong, with no cards.”

“I am, sir,” Wolfe agreed. “It's time I got dealt to, don't you think? Surely I've earned at least one card. You can give it to me, or Mr Strong can. What more do you want, for heaven's sake? Rabbits from a hat?”

Anderson got up, moved, and was confronting the secretary of the Sponsors'

Council. “Don't be a damn' fool, Tully,” he said with harsh authority. “He knows it all, you heard him. Go ahead and get rid of it!”

“This is swell for me,” Tully said bitterly.

“It would have been swell for Miss Koppel,” Wolfe said curtly, 'if you had spoken twenty hours ago. How many letters did you get?”

“Two.”

“When?”

“February. Around the middle of February.”

“Did you show them to anyone besides Miss Fraser?”

“No, just her, but Miss Koppel was there so she saw mem too.”

“Where are they now?”

“I don't know. I gave them to Miss Fraser.”

What did they say?”

Tully's lips parted, stayed open a moment, and closed again.

“Don't be an ass,” Wolfe snapped. “Mr Anderson is here. What did they say?”

“They said that it was lucky for Miss Fraser that when her husband died no one had been suspicious enough to have the farewell letters he wrote examined by a handwriting expert.”

“What else?”

That was all. The second one said the same thing, only in a different way.”

Wolfe's eyes darted to Anderson. “Is that what he told you, sir?”

The president, who had returned to the couch, nodded. “Yes, that's it. Isn't it enough?”

“Plenty, in the context.” Wolfe's head jerked around to face the lady at my elbow. “Miss Fraser, I've heard of only one farewell letter your husband wrote, to a friend, a local attorney. Was there another? To you, perhaps?”

“I don't think,” she said, “that it would be very sensible for me to try to help you.” I couldn't detect the slightest difference in her voice. Wolfe had understated it when he said she was an extremely dangerous woman. “Especially,” she went on, “since you are apparently accepting those lies. If Mr Strong ever got any anonymous letters he never showed them to me-nor to Miss Koppel, I'm sure of that.”

“I'll be damned!” Tully Strong cried, and his specs fell off as he gawked at her.

It was marvellous, and it certainly showed how Madeline Fraser got people. Tully had been capable of assuming that she had killed a couple of guys, but when he heard her come out with what he knew to be a downright lie he was flabbergasted.

Wolfe nodded at her. “I suppose,” he admitted, “it would be hopeless to expect you to be anything but sensible. You are aware that there is still no evidence, except Mr Strong's word against yours. Obviously the best chance is the letter your husband wrote to his friend, since the threat that aroused your ferocity concerned it.” His face left us, to the right. “Do you happen to know, Mr Cramer, whether that letter still exists?”

Cramer was right up with him. He had gone to the phone on my desk and was dialling. In a moment he spoke: “Dixon there? Put him on. Dixon? I'm at Wolfe's office. Yeah, he's got it, but by the end of the tail. Two things quick. Get Darst and have him phone Fleetville, Michigan. He was out there and knows 'em. Before Lawrence Koppel died he wrote a letter to a friend. We want to know if that letter still exists and where it is, and they're to get it if they can and keep it, but for God's sake don't scare the friend into burning it or eating it. Tell Darst it's so important it's the whole case. Then get set with a warrant for an all-day job on the Fraser woman's apartment. What we're looking for is cyanide, and it can be anywhere-the heel of a shoe, for instance. You know the men to get-only the best. Wolfe got it by the tail with one of his crazy dives into a two-foot tank, and now we've got to hang on to it. What? Yes, damn it, of course it's her! Step on it!”

He hung up, crossed to me, thumbed me away, moved the chair aside, and stood by Miss Fraser's chair, gazing down at her. Keeping his gaze where it was, he rumbled: “You might talk a little more, Wolfe.”

“I could talk all night,” Wolfe declared. “Miss Fraser is worth it. She had good luck, but most of the bad luck goes to the fumblers, and she is no fumbler. Her husband's death must have been managed with great skill, not so much because she gulled the authorities, which may have been no great feat, but because she completely deceived her husband's sister, Miss Koppel. The whole operation with Mr Orchard was well conceived and executed, with the finest subtlety in even the lesser details-for instance, having the subscription in Miss Koppel's name. It was simple to phone Mr Orchard that that money came from her, Miss Fraser. But best of all was the climax-getting the poisoned coffee served to the intended victim. That was one of her pieces of luck, since apparently Mr Traub, who didn't know about the taped bottle, innocently put it in front of Mr Orchard, but she would have managed without it. At that narrow table, with Mr Orchard just across from her, and with the broadcast going on, she could have manipulated it with no difficulty, and probably without anyone becoming aware of any manipulation. Certainly without arousing any suspicion of intent, before or after.”

“Okay,” Cramer conceded. That doesn't worry me. And the Poole thing doesn't either, since there's nothing against it. But the Koppel woman?”

Wolfe nodded. “That was the masterpiece. Miss Fraser had in her favour, certainly, years of intimacy during which she had gained Miss Koppel's unquestioning loyalty, affection, and trust. They held steadfast even when Miss Koppel saw the anonymous letters Mr Strong had received. It is quite possible that she received similar letters herself. We don't know, and never will, I suppose, what finally gave birth to the worm of suspicion in Miss Koppel. It wasn't the newspaper story of the anonymous letters and blackmailing, since that appeared yesterday, Friday, and it was on Wednesday that Miss Koppel tried to take an airplane to Michigan. We may now assume, since we know that she had seen the anonymous letters, that something had made her suspicious enough to want to inspect the farewell letter her brother had sent to his friend, and we may certainly assume that Miss Fraser, when she learned what her dearest and closest friend had tried, to do, knew why.”

“That's plain enough,” Cramer said impatiently. “What I mean-”

“I know. You mean what I meant when I said it was a masterpiece. It took resourcefulness, first-rate improvisation, and ingenuity to make use of the opportunity offered by Mr Traub's delivery of the box of Meltettes; and only a maniacal stoicism could have left those deadly titbits there on the piano where anybody might casually have eaten one. Probably inquiry would show that it was not as haphazard as it seems; that it was generally known that the box was there to be sampled by Miss Fraser and therefore no one would loot it. But the actual performance, as Mr Goodwin described it to me, was faultless. There was then no danger to a bystander, for if anyone but Miss Koppel had started to eat one of the things Miss Fraser could easily have prevented it. If the box had been handed to Miss Fraser, she could either have postponed the sampling or have taken one from the second layer instead of the top. What chance was there that Miss Koppel would eat one of the things? One in five, one in a thousand? Anyway, she played for that chance, and again she had luck; but it was not all luck, and she performed superbly.”

“This is incredible,” Madeline Fraser said. “I knew I was strong, but I didn't know I could do this. Only a few hours ago my dearest friend Debby died in my arms. I should be with her, sitting with her through the night, but here I am, sitting here, listening to this…this nightmare…”

“Cut,” Bill Meadows said harshly. “Night and nightmare. Cut one.”

The grey-green eyes darted at him. “So you're raiting, are you, Bill?”

“Yes, I'm ratting. I saw Debby die. And I think he's got it. I think you killed her.”

“Bill!” It was Elinor Vance, breaking. “Bill, I can't stand it!” She was on her feet, shaking all over. “I can't!”

Bill put his arms around her, tight. “All right, kid. I hope to God she gets it.

You were there too. What if you had decided to eat one?”

The phone rang and I got it. It was for Cramer. Purley went and replaced him beside Miss Fraser, and he came to the phone. When he hung up he told Wolfe: “Koppel’s friend still has that letter, and it's safe.”

“Good,” Wolfe said approvingly. “Will you please get her out of here? I've been wanting beer for an hour, and I'm not foolhardy enough to eat or drink anything with her in the house.” He looked around. “The rest of you are invited to stay if you care to. You must be thirsty.”

But they didn't like it there. They went.

Chapter Twenty-Six The experts were enthusiastic about the letter Lawrence Koppel had written to his friend. They called it one of the cleverest forgeries they had ever seen.

But what pleased Wolfe most was the finding of the cyanide. It was in the hollowed-out heel of a house slipper, and was evidently the leavings of the supply Mrs Lawrence Koppel had snitched six years ago from her husband's shelf.

It was May eighteenth mat she was sentenced on her conviction for the first-degree murder of Deborah Koppel. They had decided that was the best one to try her for. The next day, a Wednesday, a little before noon, Wolfe and I were in the office checking over catalogues when the phone rang. I went to my desk for it.

“Nero Wolfe's office, Archie Goodwin speaking.”

“May I speak to Mr Wolfe, please?”

“Who is it?”

“Tell him a personal matter.”

I covered the transmitter. “Personal matter.” I told Wolfe. “A man whose name I have forgotten.”

“What the devil! Ask him.”

“A man,” I said distinctly, “whose name I have forgotten.”

“Oh.” He frowned. He finished checking an item and then picked up the phone on his desk, while I stayed with mine. This is Nero Wolfe.”

“I would know the voice anywhere. How are you?”

“Well, thank you. Do I know you?”

“Yes. I am calling to express my appreciation of your handling of the Fraser case, now that it's over. I am pleased and thought you should know it. I have been, and still am, a little annoyed, but I am satisfied that you are not responsible. I have good sources of information. I congratulate you on keeping your investigation within the limits I prescribed. That has increased my admiration of you.”

“I like to be admired,” Wolfe said curtly. “But when I undertake an investigation I permit prescription of limits only by the requirements of the job. If that job had taken me across your path you would have found me there.”

Then that is either my good fortune-or yours.

The connection went.

I grinned at Wolfe. “He's an abrupt bastard.”

Wolfe grunted. I returned to my post at the end of his desk and picked up my pencil “One little idea,” I suggested. “Why not give Dr Michaels a ring and ask if anyone has phoned to switch his subscription? No, that won't do, he's paid up.

Marie Leconne?”

“No. I invite trouble only when I'm paid for it. And to grapple with him the pay would have to be high.”

“Okay.” I checked an item. “You'd be a problem in a foxhole, but the day may come.”

“It may. I hope not. Have you any Zygopetalum crinitum| on that page?”

“Good God no. It begins with a Z!”