is a connecting door between the front room and the , but I went around through the hall, and here came Cramer. i inarching by without even the courtesy of a grunt, but I [ to the front to let him out, and then went to the office and iTWolfe, 'I've got one of them in the front room. Helen lacono, Itewny-skinned Hebe who had you but gave her caviar to Kreis. '. I keep her while I get the rest of them?' i made a face. 'What does she want?' fo see you.'
rtodk. a breath. 'Confound it. Bring her in.' it and opened the connecting door, told her to come, and her across to the red leather chair. She was more orna 1 in it than Cramer, but not nearly as impressive as she had it at first sight. She was puffy around the eyes and her skin had tsome glow. She told Wolfe she hadn't had any sleep. She said tad just left the District Attorney's office, and if she went : her mother would be at her again, and her brothers and i would come home from school and make noise, and anyway lad decided she had to see Wolfe. Her mother was old l and didn't want her to be an actress. It was beginning to tas if what she was after was a place to take a nap, but then i got a word in.
I said drily, 'I don't suppose, Miss lacono, you came to con! about your career.'
, no. I came because you're a detective and you're very clever l afraid. I'm afraid they'll find out something I did, and if >I won't have any career. My parents won't let me even if l-alive. I nearly gave it away already when they were asking long . So I decided to tell you about it and then if you'll f?e I'll help you. If you promise to keep my secret.'
: promise to keep a secret if it is a guilty one--if it is a
of a crime or knowledge of one.' Sfea't'
i you have my promise, and Mr. Goodwin's. We have kept 'Secrets.'' t light. I stabbed Vincent Pyle with a knife and got blood
3?
3 at Wolfe's Door
I stared. For half a second I thought she meant that he hadn't died of poison at all, that she had sneaked upstairs and stuck a knife in him, which seemed unlikely since the doctors would probably have found the hole.
Apparently she wasn't going on, and Wolfe spoke. 'Ordinarily, Miss lacono, stabbing a man is considered a crime. When and where did this happen?'
'It wasn't a crime because it was in self-defense.' Her rich contralto was as composed as if she had been telling us the multiplication table. Evidently she saved the inflections for her career. She was continuing. 'It happened in January, about three months ago. Of course I knew about him, everybody in show business does. I don't know if it's true that he backs shows just so he can get girls, but it might as well be. There's a lot of talk about the girls he gets, but nobody really knows because he was always very careful about it. Some of the girls have talked but he never did. I don't mean just taking them out, I mean the last ditch. We say that on Broadway. You know what I mean?' 'I can surmise.'
'Sometimes we say the last stitch, but it means the same thing. Early last winter he began on me. Of course I knew about his reputation, but he was backing Jack in the Pulpit and they were about to start casting, and I didn't know it was going to be a flop, and if a girl expects to have a career she has to be sociable. I went out with him a few times, dinner and dancing and so forth and then he asked me to his apartment, and I went. He cooked the dinner himself--I said he was very careful. Didn't I?' 'Yes.'
'Well, he was. It's a penthouse on Madison Avenue, but no one else was there. I let him kiss me. I figure it like this, an actress gets kissed all the time on the stage and the screen and TV, and what's the difference? I went to his apartment three times and there was no real trouble, but the fourth time, that was in January, he turned into a beast right before my eyes, and I had to do something, and I grabbed a knife from the table and stabbed him with it. I got blood on my dress, and when I got home I tried to get it out but it left a stain. It cost forty-six dollars.'
Poison a la Carte 31
'But Mr. Pyle recovered.'
'Oh, yes. I saw him a few times after that, I mean just by accident, but he barely spoke and so did 1.1 don't think he ever told anyone about it, but what if he did? What if the police find out about it?'
Wolfe grunted. 'That would be regrettable, certainly. You would be pestered even more than you are now. But if you have been candid with me you are not in mortal jeopardy. The police are not simpletons. You wouldn't be arrested for murdering Mr. Pyle last night, let alone convicted, merely because you stabbed him in self-defense last January.'
'Of course I wouldn't,' she agreed. 'That's not it. It's my mother and father. They'd find out about it because they would ask them questions, and if I'm going to have a career I would have to leave home and my family, and I don't want to. Don't you see?' She came forward in the chair. 'But if they find out right away who did it, who poisoned him, that would end it and I'd be all right. Only I'm afraid they won't find out right away, but I think you could if I help you, and you said last night that you're committed. I can't offer to help the police because they'd wonder why.'
'I see.' Wolfe's eyes were narrowed at her. 'How do you propose to help me?'
'Well, I figure it like this.' She was on the edge of the chair. 'The way you explained it last night, one of the girls poisoned him. She was one of the first ones to take a plate in, and then she came back and got another one. I don't quite understand why she did that, but you do, so all right. But if she came back for another plate that took a little time, and she must have been one of the last ones, and the police have got it worked out who were the last five. I know that because of the questions they asked this last time. So it was Peggy Choate or Nora Jaret or Carol Annis or Lucy Morgan.'
'Or you.'
'No, it wasn't me.' Just matter-of-fact. 'So it was one of them. And she didn't poison him just for nothing, did she? You'd have to have a very good reason to poison a man, I know I would. So all we have to do is find out which one had a good reason, and
32 3 ?* Wolfe's Door
that's where I can help. I don't know Lucy Morgan, but I know Carol a little, and I know Nora and Peggy even better. And now we're in this together, and I can pretend I want to talk about it. I can talk about him because I had to tell the police I went out with him a few times, because I was seen with him and they'd find out, so I thought I'd
