her we were ready.
In five minutes she was there. I stepped into the corridor to give her a brief explanation of the program, explaining that she wasn’t to open her mouth if she wanted to help Wolfe keep her out of it, and then, admitting her to the foyer and leaving her there, I went back in to pose Blanc. He had got pretty well irritated before I had finished with him in the bathroom, but now Wolfe had him all soothed down again. I stood him over beyond the foot of the bed, at what looked like the right distance, pulled his cap lower, had him put his finger to his lips, and told him to hold it. Then I went to the door to the foyer and opened it six inches.
After ten seconds I told Blanc that would do for that pose and went to the foyer and took Lio Coyne out to the corridor again.
“Well?”
She shook her head. “No. It wasn’t that man.”
“How do you know it wasn’t?”
“His ears are too big. It wasn’t him.”
“Could you swear to that in a court?”
“But you…” Her eyes got narrow. “You said I wouldn’t…”
“All right, you won’t. But how sure are you?”
“I’m very sure. This man is more slender, too.”
“Okay. Much obliged. Mr. Wolfe may want to speak to you later on.”
The others said the same thing. I posed Blanc twice more, once facing the door for Paul Whipple, and the second time with his back to it for Moulton. Whipple said he would be willing to swear that the man he had seen by the screen in the dining room was not the one he had seen in Wolfe’s room, and Moulton said he couldn’t swear to it because he had only seen the man’s back, but he thought it wasn’t the same man. I sent them back to Pocahontas.
Then I had to help Blanc clean up. Getting it off was twice as hard as putting it on, and I don’t know if he ever did get his ears clean again. Considering that he wasn’t a murderer at all, he was pretty nice about it. What with Wolfe’s blood and Blanc’s burnt cork, I certainly raised cain with Kanawha Spa towels that day.
Blanc stood and told Wolfe: “I have submitted to all this because Louis Servan requested it. I know murderers are supposed to be punished. If I were one, I would expect to be. This is a frightful experience for all of us, Mr. Wolfe, frightful. I didn’t kill Phillip Laszio, but if it were possible for me to bring him to life again by lifting a finger, do you know what I’d do? I would do this.” He thrust both hands into his pockets as far as they would go, and kept them there.
He turned to go, but his departure was postponed a few minutes longer, by a new arrival. The change in program had of course made it necessary to tell the greenjacket in the hall that the embargo on visitors was lifted, and now came the first of a string that kept knocking at the door intermittently all afternoon.
This one was my friend Barry Tolman.
“How’s Mr. Wolfe?”
“Battered and belligerent. Go on in.”
He entered, opened his mouth at Wolfe, and then saw who was standing there.
“Oh. You here, Mr. Blanc?”
“Yes. At Mr. Servan’s request-”
Wolfe put in, “We’ve been doing an experiment. I don’t believe you’ll need to waste time with Mr. Blanc. What about it, Archie? Did Mr. Blanc kill Laszio?”
I shook my head. “No, sir. Three outs and the side’s retired.”
Tolman looked at me, at Wolfe, at Blanc. “Is that so. Anyhow, I may want to see you later. You’ll be at Pocahontas?”
Blanc told him yes, not very amiably, expressed a hope that Wolfe would feel better by dinnertime, and went. When I got back from escorting him to the door, Tolman had sat down and had his head cocked on one side for a look at Wolfe’s bandage, and Wolfe was saying:
“Not to me, no, sir. The doctor called it superficial. But I assure you it is highly dangerous to the man who did it. And look here.” He displayed the mangled script of the speech. “The bullet did that before it struck me. Mr. Goodwin saved my life by tossing my speech at the window. So he says. I am willing to grant it. Where is Mr. Berin?”
“Here. At Pocahontas with… with his daughter, I brought him myself, just now. They phoned me at Quinby about your being shot. Do you think it was the one that stabbed Laszio who did it?”
“Who else?”
“But why was he after you? You were through with it.”
“He didn’t know that.” Wolfe stirred in his chair, winced, and added bitterly, “I’m not through with it now.”
“That suits me. I don’t say I’m glad you got shot… and you started on Blanc? What made you decide it wasn’t him?”
Wolfe started to explain, but another interruption took me away. This time it was the lunch trays, and Louis Servan had certainly put on the dog. There were three enormous trays and three waiters, and a fourth greenjacket as an outrider for opening doors and clearing traffic. I was hungry, and the smells that came from under the covered services made me more so. The outrider, who was Moulton himself, after a bow and an announcement to Wolfe, unfolded serving stands for the trays and advanced to the table with a cloth in his
