“I don’t think so. If he did I didn’t see him.” David was frowning. “I told you about the situation. The nurse was very upset and said she had phoned Doctor Buhl to send a replacement. When she told us what had happened Arrow left – that is, he left the apartment. Then my sister and the nurse had some words, and my sister told the nurse to go, and after she went my sister phoned Doctor Buhl and told him she and her husband would stay until a replacement came. Shortly after that I went home. I live in Riverdale.”
“But before leaving you went to your brother’s room?”
“Yes.”
“How was he then?”
“He was sound asleep, making some noise breathing, but he seemed all right. When Louise phoned Doctor Buhl he told her that Bert had had half a grain of morphine and would probably not wake before morning.”
Wolfe’s head moved. “Mrs. Tuttle. You have heard what your brothers have said. Have you any corrections or additions?”
She was having a little trouble. Her mouth was working and her hands, in her lap, were clasped tight. She met Wolfe’s look but didn’t reply, until suddenly she cried, “It’s not my fault! No one is going to blame it on me!”
Wolfe made a face. “Why should they, madam?”
“Because they did about my father! Do you know about my father?”
“I know how he died. Your brother told me.”
“Well, they blamed me then – everybody did! Because I was taking care of him and I slept and didn’t go to his room and find the open windows! They even asked me if I put a drug in my chocolate so I would sleep! A twenty-four-year-old girl doesn’t have to take drugs to sleep!”
“Now, my dear.” Tuttle patted her shoulder. “That’s all in the past, it’s all forgotten. There were no open windows in Bert’s room Saturday night.”
“But I sent the nurse away.” She was talking to Wolfe. “And I told Doctor Buhl I would be responsible, and I went to bed and went to sleep without even looking at the hot-water bags, and they were empty.” She jerked her head around to her younger brother. “Tell the truth, Paul, the real truth. Were the bags empty?”
He patted her too. “Take it easy, Lou. Sure they were empty, on my word of honor as a Boy Scout, but that didn’t kill him and I never said it did.”
“No one’s blaming you,” Tuttle assured her. “As for your going to sleep, why shouldn’t you? It was after one o’clock, and Doctor Buhl had said Bert would sleep all night. Believe me, my dear, you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.”
Her head went down and her hands came up to cover her face, and her shoulders began to tremble. To Wolfe a lady in distress is a female having a fit, and if she starts yowling he gets to his feet faster than seems practical for his bulk and makes for the door and the elevator. Louise wasn’t yowling. He eyed her sharply and warily for a moment, decided she probably wouldn’t go off, and went to her husband.
“About going to sleep, Mr. Tuttle, you said after one o’clock. That was after Paul had got you out of bed to let him in?”
“Yes.” He had a soothing hand on his wife’s arm. “It took a little time, hearing what Paul had to say and getting him settled on the couch. Then we took a look in Bert’s room and found him asleep, and went to bed.”
“Did you sleep right through until Paul woke you around six in the morning?”
“I think my wife did. She was tired out. She may have stirred a little, but I don’t think she awoke. I went to the bathroom a couple of times, I usually do during the night, but except for that I slept until Paul called us. The second time I went and opened the door of Bert’s room, and didn’t hear anything, so I didn’t go in. Why? Is this important?”
“Not especially.” Wolfe darted a glance at Louise, alert to danger, and back at him. “I am thinking of Mr. Arrow and trying to cover all the possibilities. Of course he had a key to the apartment, and so might have entered during the night, performed an errand if he had one, and left again. Might he not?”
Tuttle considered. To watch him consider I had to make an effort to forget his shiny dome and concentrate on his features. It would have been simpler if his eyes and nose and mouth had been on top of his head. “Possibly,” he conceded, “but I doubt it. I’m not a very sound sleeper and I think I would have heard him. And he would have had to go through the living room and Paul was there on the couch, but of course Paul was pretty well gone.”
“I was
He looked at Wolfe. “It’s an idea. What kind of an errand?”
“No special kind. I’m merely asking questions. – Mr. Tuttle, when did you next see Mr. Arrow?”
“That morning, Sunday morning, he came to the apartment around nine o’clock, just after Doctor Buhl arrived.”
“Where had he been?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask him and he didn’t say. It was – well, it was in the presence of death. He asked us a great many questions, some of them impertinent, I thought, but under those circumstances I made allowances.”
Wolfe leaned back, closed his eyes, and lowered his chin. The brothers sat and looked at him. Tuttle turned to his wife, smoothing her shoulder and murmuring to her, and before long she uncovered her face and lifted her head. He got a nice clean handkerchief from his breast pocket, and she took it and dabbed around with it. There was no sign of any tear gullies down her cheeks.
