Wolfe slowly wiggled a finger. “May I suggest, Mr. Whipple, that the truth is usually good, and lies are sometimes excellent, but a mixture of the two is an abomination?”
“I’m telling the truth and nothing else.”
“You didn’t before. Since the murderer wasn’t a colored man, why not?”
“Because I’ve learned not to mix up in the affairs of the superior race. If it had been a colored man I would have told. Colored men have got to stop disgracing their color and leave that to white men. You see how good your logic was.”
“But my dear sir. That doesn’t impugn my logic, it merely shows that you agree with me. We must discuss it some time. Then you withheld this fact because you considered it white men’s business and none of yours, and you knew if you divulged it you’d be making trouble for yourself.”
“Plenty of trouble. You’re a northerner-”
“I’m a man, or try to be. You’re studying me; you’re an anthropologist. You expect to be a scientist. Give me a considered answer: how sure are you that it was a white man?”
Whipple considered. In a moment he said, “Not sure at all. Burnt cork would look like that on a light brown skin or even a rather dark one, and of course anyone can wear black gloves. But I’m sure about the burnt cork or something similar, and I’m sure about the gloves, and I don’t see why a colored man should be painting the lily. Therefore I took it for granted he was a white man, but of course I’m not sure.”
“It seems a safe deduction. What was he doing when you saw him?”
“Standing at the end of the screen, turning around. He must have seen me by accident; he couldn’t have heard me. That door is noiseless, and I only opened it two or three inches, and there was quite a lot of sound from the radio in the parlor, though the door was closed.”
“He was wearing the Kanawha Spa livery?”
“Yes.”
“What about his hair?”
“He had a livery cap on. I couldn’t see the back of his head.”
“Describe him, height, weight…”
“He was medium. I would guess five feet eight or nine, and a hundred and fifty-five or sixty. I didn’t inspect him much. I saw at once that he was blacked up, and when he put his finger to his lips I thought he was one of the guests doing a stunt, probably a practical joke, and I supposed the noise I had heard was him jolting the screen or something. I let the door come shut and came away. As I did that, he was starting to turn.”
“Toward the table?”
“I would say, toward the door to the terrace.”
Wolfe pursed his lips. Then he opened them: “You thought it was a guest playing a joke. If you had tried to decide who it was, which guest would you have picked?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come, Mr. Whipple. I’m merely trying for general characteristics. Longheaded or round?”
“You asked me to name him. I couldn’t name that man. I couldn’t identify him. He was blacked up and his cap was pulled low. I think he had light-colored eyes. His face was neither round nor long, but medium. I only saw him one second.”
“What about your feeling? Would you say that you had a feeling that you had ever seen him before?”
The college boy shook his head. “The only feeling I had was that I didn’t want to interfere in a white man’s joke. And afterwards, that I didn’t want to interfere in a white man’s murder.”
The foam on Wolfe’s glass of beer was all gone. Wolfe picked it up, frowned at it, and carried it to his mouth and gulped five times, and set it down empty.
“Well.” He put his eyes on Whipple again. “You must forgive me, sir, if I remind you that this story has been extracted from you against your will. I hope you haven’t blacked it up-or whitewashed it. When you returned to the kitchen, did you tell anyone what you had seen?”
“No, sir.”
“The unusual circumstances of a stranger in the dining room, in Kanawha Spa livery, blacked up with black gloves-you didn’t think that worth mentioning?”
“No, sir.”
“You damn fool, Paul.” It was Crabtree, and he sounded irritated. “You think we ain’t as much man as you are?” He turned to Wolfe. “This boy is awful conceited. He’s got a good heart hid from people’s eyesight, but his head’s fixin’ to bust. He’s going to pack all the burden. No, sir. He came back to the kitchen and told us right off, just the same as he’s told it here. We all heard it, passing it around. And for something more special about that, you might ask Moulton there.”
The headwaiter with the chopped-off ear jerked around at him. “You talking, Crabby?”
The runt met his stare. “You heard me. Paul spilled it, didn’t he? I didn’t see anybody put you away on a shelf to save up for the Lord.”
Moulton grunted. He stared at Crabtree some more seconds, then shrugged and turned to Wolfe and was again smooth and suave. “What he’s referring to, I was about to tell you when Paul got through. I saw that man too.”
