And Four to Go

“That’s all?”

“Right. I’ll be seeing you.”

I cradled the receiver, sat a moment to consider whether to go up to the plant rooms or use the house phone, decided the latter would do, and pulled it to me and pushed the button. When Wolfe’s voice came it was peevish; he hates to be disturbed up there.

“Yes?”

“Saul called and said to tell you everything is set, no snags. Congratulations. Am I in the way?”

“Oddly enough, no. Have chairs in place for visitors; ten should be enough. Four or five will come shortly after six o’clock; I hope not more. Others will come later.”

“Refreshments.”

“Liquids, of course. Nothing else.”

“Anything else for me?”

“No.”

He was gone. Before going to the front room for chairs, and to the kitchen for supplies, I took time out to ask myself whether I had the slightest notion what kind of charade he was cooking up this time. I hadn’t.

Chapter 7

IT WAS FOUR. They all arrived between six-fifteen and six-twenty-first Mrs. Perry Porter Jerome and her son Leo, then Cherry Quon, and last Emil Hatch. Mrs. Jerome copped the red leather chair, but I moved her, mink and all, to one of the yellow ones when Cherry came. I was willing to concede that Cherry might be headed for a very different kind of chair, wired for power, but even so I thought she rated that background and Mrs. Jerome didn’t. By six-thirty, when I left them to cross the hall to the dining room, not a word had passed among them.

In the dining room Wolfe had just finished a bottle of beer. “Okay,” I told him, “it’s six-thirty-one. Only four. Kiernan and Margot Dickey haven’t shown.”

“Satisfactory.” He arose. “Have they demanded information?”

“Two of them have, Hatch and Mrs. Jerome. I told them it will come from you, as instructed. That was easy, since I have none.”

He headed for the office, and I followed. Though they didn’t know, except Cherry, that he had poured champagne for them the day before, introductions weren’t necessary because they had all met him during the tapestry hunt. After circling around Cherry in the red leather chair, he stood behind his desk to ask them how they did, then sat.

“I don’t thank you for coming,” he said, “because you came in your own interest, not mine. I sent-”

“I came,” Hatch cut in, sourer than ever, “to find out what you’re up to.”

“You will,” Wolfe assured him. “I sent each of you an identical message, saying that Mr. Goodwin has certain information which he feels he must give the police not later than tonight, but I have persuaded him to let me discuss it with you first. Before I-”

“I didn’t know others would be here,” Mrs. Jerome blurted, glaring at Cherry.

“Neither did I,” Hatch said, glaring at Mrs. Jerome.

Wolfe ignored it. “The message I sent Miss Quon was somewhat different, but that need not concern you. Before I tell you what Mr. Goodwin’s information is, I need a few facts from you. For instance, I understand that any of you-including Miss Dickey and Mr. Kiernan, who will probably join us later-could have found an opportunity to put the poison in the bottle. Do any of you challenge that?”

Cherry, Mrs. Jerome, and Leo all spoke at once. Hatch merely looked sour.

Wolfe showed them a palm. “If you please. I point no finger of accusation at any of you. I merely say that none of you, including Miss Dickey and Mr. Kiernan, can prove that you had no opportunity. Can you?”

“Nuts.” Leo Jerome was disgusted. “It was that guy playing Santa Claus. Of course it was. I was with Bottweill and my mother all the time, first in the workshop and then in his office. I can prove that.”

“But Bottweill is dead,” Wolfe reminded him, “and your mother is your mother. Did you go up to the office a little before them, or did your mother go up a little before you and Bottweill did? Is there acceptable proof that you didn’t? The others have the same problem. Miss Quon?”

There was no danger of Cherry’s spoiling it. Wolfe had told me what he had told her on the phone: that he had made a plan which he thought she would find satisfactory, and if she came at a quarter past six she would see it work. She had kept her eyes fixed on him ever since he entered. Now she chirped, “If you mean I can’t prove I wasn’t in the office alone yesterday, no, I can’t.”

“Mr. Hatch?”

“I didn’t come here to prove anything. I told you what I came for. What information has Goodwin got?”