AT THREE O’CLOCK in the morning I sat in the small parlor of Pocahontas Pavilion. Across a table from me sat my friend Barry Tolman, and standing back of him was a big-jawed squint-eyed ruffian in a blue serge suit, with a stiff white collar, red tie and pink shirt. His name and occupation had not been kept a secret: Sam Pettigrew, sheriff of Marlin County. There were a couple of nondescripts, one with a stenographer’s notebook at the end of the table, and a West Virginia state cop was on a chair tilted against the wall. The door to the dining room stood open and there was still a faint smell of photographers’ flashlight bombs, and a murmur of voices came through from sleuths doing fingerprints and similar chores.
The blue-eyed athlete was trying not to sound irritated: “I know all that, Ashley. You may be the manager of Kanawha Spa, but I’m the prosecuting attorney of this county, and what do you want me to do, pretend he fell on the damn knife by accident? I resent your insinuation that I’m making a grab for the limelight-”
“All right, Barry. Forget it.” Clay Ashley, standing beside me, slowly shook his head. “Of all the rotten breaks! I know you can’t suppress it, of course. But for God’s sake get it over with and get ’em out of here-all right, I know you will as soon as you can. Excuse me if I said things… I’m going to try to get some sleep. Have them call me if I can do anything.”
He beat it. Someone came from the dining room to ask Pettigrew a question, and Tolman shook himself and rubbed his bloodshot eyes with his fingers. Then he looked at me:
“I sent for you again, Mr. Goodwin, to ask if you have thought of anything to add to what you told me before.”
I shook my head. “I gave you the crop.”
“You haven’t remembered anything at all that happened, in the parlor or anywhere else, any peculiar conduct, any significant conversation?”
I said no.
“Anything during the day, for instance?”
“Nope. Day or night.”
“When Wolfe called you secretly into the dining room and showed you Laszio’s body behind the screen, what did he say to you?”
“He didn’t call me secretly. Everybody heard him.”
“Well, he called you alone. Why?”
I lifted the shoulders and let them drop. “You’ll have to ask him.”
“What did he say?”
“I’ve already told you. He asked me to see if Laszio was dead, and I saw he was, and he asked me to call Servan.”
“Was that all he said?”
“I think he remarked something about it being a pleasant holiday. Sometimes he’s sarcastic.”
“He seems also to be cold-blooded. Was there any special reason for his being cold-blooded about Laszio?”
I put my foot down a little harder on the brake. Wolfe would never forgive me if by some thoughtless but relevant remark I got this buzzard really down on us. I knew why Wolfe had bothered to get me in the dining room alone and inquire about my memory before broadcasting the news: it had occurred to him that in a murder case a material witness may be required to furnish bond not to leave the state without permission, or to return to testify at the trial, and it was contrary to his idea of the good life to do either one. It wasn’t easy to maintain outward respect for a guy who had been boob enough to fall for that ginger ale act in the club car, but while I had nothing at all against West Virginia I wasn’t much more anxious to stay there or return there than Wolfe was.
I said, “Certainly not. He had never met Laszio before.”
“Had anything happened during the day to make him-er, indifferent to Laszio’s welfare?”
“Not that I know of.”
“And had you or he knowledge of a previous attempt on Laszio’s life?”
“You’ll have to ask him. Me, no.”
My friend Tolman forsook friendship for duty. He put an elbow on the table and pointed a finger at me and said in a nasty tone, “You’re lying.” I also noticed that the squint-eyed sheriff had a scowl on him not to be sneezed at, and the atmosphere of the whole room was unhealthy.
I put my brows up. “Me lying?”
“Yes, you. What did Mrs. Laszio tell you and Wolfe when she called at your suite yesterday afternoon?”
I hope I didn’t gulp visibly. I know my brain gulped, but only once. No matter how he had found out, or how much, there was but one thing to do. I said, “She told us that her husband told her that he found arsenic in the sugar shaker and dumped it in the sink, and she wanted Wolfe to protect her husband. She also said that her husband had instructed her not to mention it to anyone.”
“What else?”
“That’s all.”
“And you just told me that you had no knowledge of a previous attempt on Laszio’s life. Didn’t you?”
