she ought to do that. I don’t remember who suggested it.'
'Who suggested your meeting this evening?'
'She did. She phoned me this morning. I told you that,'
'What did she want?'
'She wanted to know what I was going to do about payments, with Faith dead. She knew that by the agreement it was left to my discretion. I told her that for the present I would continue to send her half.'
'Had she been using any of the money you sent her to support her daughter?'
'I don’t think so. Not for the last four or five years, but it wasn’t her fault. Faith wouldn’t take anything from her. Faith wouldn’t live with her. They couldn’t get along. Mrs Usher is very-unconventional. Faith left when she was sixteen, and for over a year we didn’t know where she was. When I found her she was working in a restaurant. A waitress.'
'But you continued to pay Mrs Usher her full share?'
'Yes.'
'Is that fund in your possession and control without supervision?'
'Certainly.'
'It has never been audited?'
'Certainly not. Who would audit it?'
'I couldn’t say. Would you object to an audit by an accountant of my selection? Now that I know of the agreement?'
'I certainly would. The fund is my property and I am accountable to no one but myself, as long as I pay Mrs Usher her share.'
'I must see that agreement.' Wolfe pursed his lips and slowly shook his head. 'It is extremely difficult,' he said, 'to circumvent the finality of death. Mr Grantham made a gallant try, but he was hobbled by his vain desire to guard his secret even after he became food for worms. He protected you and Mrs Usher, each against the frailty or knavery of the other, but what if you joined forces in a threat to his repute? He couldn’t preclude that.' He lifted a hand to brush it aside. 'A desire to defeat death makes any man a fool. I must see that agreement. Meanwhile, a few points remain. You told Mr Goodwin that your selection of Miss Usher to be invited to that party was fortuitous, but now that won’t do. Then why?'
'Of course,' Byne said. 'I knew that was coming.'
'Then you’ve had time to devise an answer.'
'I don’t have to devise it. I was a damn fool. When I got the list from Mrs Irwin and saw Faith’s name on it-well, there it was. The idea of having Faith as a guest at my aunt’s house-it just appealed to me. Mrs Robilotti is only my aunt by marriage, you know. My mother was Albert Grantham’s sister. You’ve got to admit there was a kick in the idea of having Faith sitting at my aunt’s table. And then…'
He left it hanging. Wolfe prodded him. 'Then?'
'That suggested another idea, to have Laidlaw there too. I know I was a damn fool, but there it was. Laidlaw seeing Faith there, and Faith seeing him. Of course, my aunt could cross Faith off and tell Mrs Irwin-' He stopped. In a second he went on, 'I mean you never knew what Faith would do, she might refuse to go, but Laidlaw wouldn’t know she had been asked, so what the hell. So I suggested that to my aunt, to invite Laidlaw, and she did.'
'Did Miss Usher know that Albert Grantham had fathered her?'
'My God, no. She thought her father had been a man named Usher who had died before she was born.'
'Did she know you were the source of her mother’s income?'
'No. I think- No, I don’t think, I know. She suspected that her mother’s income came from friends. From men she knew. That was why she left. About my picking Faith to be invited to that party and suggesting Laidlaw, after I had done that I got cold feet. I realized something might happen. At least Faith might walk out when she saw him, and it might be something worse, and I didn’t want to be there, so I decided to get someone to go in my place. The first four or five I tried couldn’t make it, and I thought of Archie Goodwin.'
Wolfe leaned back and closed his eyes, and his lips started to work. They pushed out and went back in, out and in, out and in… Sooner or later he always does that, and I really should have a sign made, GENIUS AT WORK, and put it on his desk when he starts it. Usually I have some sort of idea as to what genius is working on, but that time not a glimmer. He had cleared away some underbrush, for instance who had sicked the cops on Laidlaw and how Faith and Laidlaw had both got invited to the party, but he had got only one thing to chew on, that he had at last found somebody who had had a healthy motive to kill Faith Usher, and Byne, as he liked to point out himself, hadn’t even been at the party. Of course, that could have been what genius was at, doping out how Byne could have poisoned the champagne by remote control, but I doubted it.
Wolfe opened his eyes and aimed them at Dinky. 'I’m not going to wait until Monday,' he said. 'If I haven’t enough now, I never will have. One thing you have told me, or at least implied, will have to be my peg. If I asked you about it now, you would only wriggle out with lies, so I won’t bother. The time has come to attack the central question: if someone had decided to kill Faith Usher, how did he manage it?' He turned. 'Archie, get Mr Cramer.'
'No!' Byne was on his feet. 'Damn you, after I’ve spilled-'
I had lifted the receiver, but Byne was there, jostling and reaching. Wolfe’s voice, with a snap, turned him. 'Mr Byne! Don’t squeal until you’re hurt. I’ve got you and I intend to keep you. Must I call Mr Panzer in?'
He didn’t have to. Dinky backed away a step, giving me elbow room to dial, but close enough, he thought, to pounce. Getting Inspector Cramer at twenty minutes past ten on a Saturday evening can be anything from quick and simple to practically impossible. That time I had luck. He was at Homicide on Twentieth Street, and
