Sauce Printemps that was being prepared to decide it. Liggett posted himself in the shrubbery. You returned to the parlor, and turned on the radio at the proper time, and delayed Vukcic by dancing with him in order to give Liggett the opportunity to enter the dining room and kill your husband. Confound it, madam, don’t stare at me like that! As I say, that is one possible interpretation of your actions.”
“But it’s wrong. It’s lies! I didn’t-”
“Permit me. Don’t deny too much. I confess there may be lies in it, for there’s another possible construction. But understand this, and consider it well.” Wolfe aimed a finger at her, and pointed his tone. “It is going to be proven that Liggett came here, and was told by someone about the test of the sauces, and that he knew precisely the moment when he could safely enter this room to kill Laszio without danger of interruption; that he
“But I haven’t said you’re a murderer.” Wolfe’s tone was almost soothing. “Since the crime was committed you have unquestionably, at least by silence, tried to shield Liggett, but a woman’s heart being what it is…” He shrugged. “No jury would convict you for that. And no jury would convict you at all, you wouldn’t even be in jeopardy, if it could be shown that the arrangement you entered into with Liggett Tuesday evening, when you met him outdoors there, was on your part an innocent one. Merely as a hypothesis, let’s say, for example, that you understood that Liggett was engaged in nothing more harmful than a practical joke. No matter what; I couldn’t guess at the details even as a hypothesis, for I’m not a practical joker. But the joke required that he have a few minutes alone with Laszio before the entrance of Vukcic. That of course would explain everything-your turning on the radio, your detaining Vukcic-everything you did, without involving you in guilt. You understand, Mrs. Laszio, I’m not suggesting this as a retreat for you. I am only saying that while you can’t deny what happened, you may possibly have an explanation for it that will save you. In that case, it would be quixotic to try to save Liggett too. You can’t do it. And if there is such an explanation, I wouldn’t wait too long… until it’s too late…”
It was too much for Liggett. Slowly his head turned, irresistibly as if gripped in enormous pliers, square around, until he faced Dina Laszio. She didn’t look at him. She was chewing at her lip again, and her eyes were on Wolfe, fixed and fascinated. You could almost see her chewing her brain too. That lasted a full half a minute, and then by God she smiled. It was a funny one, but it was a smile; and then I saw that her eyes had shifted to Liggett and the smile was supposed to be one of polite apology. She said in a low tone but without anything shaky in it, “I’m sorry, Ray. Oh, I’m sorry, but…”
She faltered. Liggett’s eyes were boring at her.
She moved her gaze to Wolfe and said firmly, “You’re right. Of course you’re right and I can’t help it. When I met him outdoors after dinner as we had arranged-”
“Dina! Dina, for God’s sake-”
Tolman, the blue-eyed athlete, jerked Liggett back in his chair. The swamp-woman was going on:
“He had told me what he was going to do, and I believed him, I thought it was a joke. Then afterwards he told me that Phillip had attacked him, had struck at him-”
Wolfe said sharply, “You know what you’re doing, madam. You’re helping to send a man to his death.”
“I know. I can’t help it! How can I go on lying for him? He killed my husband. When I met him out there and he told me what he had planned-”
“You tricky bastard!” Liggett broke training completely. He jerked from Tolman’s grasp, plunged across Mondor’s legs, knocked Blanc and his chair to the floor, trying to get at Wolfe. I was on my way, but by the time I got there Berin had stopped him, with both arms around him, and Liggett was kicking and yelling like a lunatic.
Dina Laszio, of course, had stopped trying to talk, with all the noise and confusion. She sat quietly looking on with her long sleepy eyes.
17
JEROME BERIN SAID POSITIVELY, “She’ll stick to it. She’ll do whatever will push danger farthest from her, and that will be it.”
The train was sailing like a gull across New Jersey on a sunny Friday morning, somewhere east of Philadelphia. In sixty minutes we would be tunneling under the Hudson. I was propped against the wall of the pullman bedroom again, Constanza was on the chair, and Wolfe and Berin were on the window seats with beer between them. Wolfe looked pretty seedy, since of course he wouldn’t have tried to shave on the train even if there had been no bandage, but he knew that in an hour the thing would stop moving and the dawn of hope was on his face.
Berin asked, “Don’t you think so?”
Wolfe shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t care. The point was to nail Liggett down by establishing his presence at Kanawha Spa on Tuesday evening, and Mrs. Laszio was the only one who could do that for us. As you say, she is undoubtedly just as guilty as Liggett, maybe more, depending on your standard. I rather think Mr. Tolman will try her for murder. He took her last night as a material witness, and he may keep her that way to clinch his case against Liggett-or he may charge her as an accomplice. I doubt if it matters much. Whatever he does, he won’t convict her. She’s a special kind of woman, she told me so herself. Even if Liggett is bitter enough against her to confess everything in order to involve her in his doom, to persuade any dozen men that the best thing to do with that woman is to kill her would be quite a feat. I question whether Mr. Tolman is up to it.”
Berin, filling his pipe, frowned at it. Wolfe upped his beer glass with one hand as he clung to the arm of the seat with the other.
