'Did she never tell you that she had met a man that day that she used totoiow? Or a woman? Or that someone, perhaps a customer at Barwick’s, had annoyed her? Or that she had been accosted on the street? Did she never account for a headache or a fit of ill humour by telling of an encounter she had had? An encounter is a meeting face to face. Did she never mention a single name in connection with some experience, either pleasant or disagreeable? In all your hours together, did nothing ever remind her- What is it?'
Helen’s frown had gone suddenly, and the corners of her mouth had lifted a little. 'Headache,' she said. 'Faith never had headaches, except only once, one day when she came home from work. She wouldn’t eat anything and she didn’t go to school that night, and I wanted her to take some aspirin but she said it wouldn’t help any. Then she asked me if I had a mother, and I said my mother was dead and she said she wished hers was. That didn’t sound like her and I said that was an awful thing to say, and she said she knew it was but I might say it too if I had a mother like hers, and she said she had met her on the street when she was out for lunch and there had been a scene, and she had to run to get away from her.' Helen was looking pleased. 'So that was a contact, wasn’t it?'
'It was. What else did she say about it?'
'That was all. The next day-no, the day after-she said she was sorry she had said it and she hadn’t really meant it, about wishing her mother was dead. I told her if all the people died that I had wished they were dead there wouldn’t be room in the cemeteries. Of course that was exaggerated, but I thought it would do her good to know that people were wishing people were dead all the time.'
'Did she ever mention her mother again?'
'No, just that once.'
'Well. We have recalled one contact, perhaps we can recall another.'
But they couldn’t. He contrived other questions that didn’t parrot the police, but all he got was a collection of blanks, and finally he gave it up.
He moved his eyes to include the others. 'Perhaps I should have explained,' he said, 'exactly why I wanted to talk with you. First, since you had been in close association with Miss Usher, I wanted to know your attitude towards Mr Goodwin’s opinion that she did not kill herself. On the whole you have supported it. Miss Varr has upheld it on valid grounds, Miss Yarmis has opposed it on ambiguous grounds, and Miss Tuttle is uncertain.'
That was foxy and unfair. He knew damn well Helen Yarmis wouldn’t know what 'ambiguous' meant, and that was why he used it.
He was going on. 'Second, since I am assuming that Mr Goodwin is right, that Miss Usher did not poison her champagne and that therefore someone else did, I wanted to look at you and hear you talk. You are three of the eleven people who were there and are suspect; I exclude Mr Goodwin. One of you might have taken that opportunity to use a lump of the poison that you all knew-'
'But we couldn’t!' Rose Tuttle blurted. 'Ethel was with Archie Goodwin. Helen was with that publisher, what’s-his-name, Laidlaw, and I was with the one with big ears-Kent. So we couldn’t!'
Wolfe nodded. 'I know, Miss Tuttle. Evidentially, nobody could, so I must approach from another direction, and all eleven of you are suspect. I don’t intend to harass you ladies in an effort to trick you into betraying some guarded secret of your relationship with Miss Usher; that’s an interminable and laborious process and all night would only start it; and besides, it would probably be futile. If one of you has such a secret it will have to be exposed by other means. But I did want to look at you and hear you talk.'
'I haven’t talked much,' Ethel Varr said.
'No,' Wolfe agreed, 'but you supported Mr Goodwin, and that alone is suggestive. Third-and this was the main point-I wanted your help. I am assuming that if Miss Usher was murdered you would wish the culprit to be disclosed. I am also assuming that none of you has so deep an interest in any of the other eight people there that you would want to shield him from exposure if he is guilty.'
'I certainly haven’t,' Ethel Varr declared. 'Like I told you, I’m sure Faith didn’t put anything in her champagne, and if she didn’t, who did? I’ve been thinking about it. I know it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Mr Goodwin, and I’m sure it wasn’t Helen or Rose. How many does that leave?'
'Eight. The three male guests, Laidlaw, Schuster, and Kent. The butler. Mr Grantham and Miss Grantham. Mr and Mrs Robilotti.'
'Well, I certainly don’t want to shield any of them.'
'Neither do I,' Rose Tuttle asserted, 'if one of them did it.'
'You couldn’t shield them,' Helen Yarmis told them, 'if they didn’t do it. There wouldn’t be anything to shield them from.'
'You don’t understand, Helen,' Rose told her. 'He wants to find out who it was. Now, for instance, what if it was Cecil Grantham, and what if you saw him take the bottle out of Faith’s bag and put it back, or something like that, would you want to shield him? That’s what he wants to know.'
'But that’s just it,' Helen objected. 'If Faith did it herself, why would I want to shield him?'
'But Faith didn’t do it. Ethel and Mr Goodwin were both looking at her.'
'Then why,' Helen demanded, 'did she take the bottle to the party when I told her not to?'
Rose shook her head, wiggling the pony tail. 'You’d better explain it,' she told Wolfe.
'I fear,' he said, 'that it’s beyond my powers. It may clear the air a little if I say that a suspicious word or action at the party, like Mr Grantham’s taking the bottle from the bag, was not what I had in mind. I meant, rather, to ask if you know anything about any of those eight people that might suggest the possibility of a reason. why one of them might have wanted Miss Usher to die. Do you know of any connection between one of them and Miss Usher-either her or someone associated with her?'
'I don’t,' Rose said positively.
'Neither do I,' Ethel declared.
