'Miss Jaret?'
'He was Broadway,' she said. 'I'm TV.'
'Don't the twain ever meet?'
'Oh, sure. All the time at Sardi's. That's the only place I ever saw the great Pyle, and I wasn't with him.'
I started to cross my legs, but the wobbly chair leg reacted, and I thought better of it. 'So there you are,' I said, 'you're all committed. If one of you poisoned him, and though I hate to say it I don't see any way out of that, that one is lying. But if any of the others are lying, if you saw more of him than you admit, you had better get from under quick. If you don't want to tell the cops tell me, tell me now, and I'll pass it on and say I wormed it out of you. Believe me, you'll regret it if you don't.'
'Archie Goodwin, a girl's best friend,' Lucy said. 'My bosom pal.'
No one else said anything.
'Actually,' I asserted, 'I am your friend, all of you but one. I have a friendly feeling for all pretty girls, especially those who work, and I admire and respect you for being willing to make an~ honest fifty bucks by coming there yesterday to carry plates of grub to a bunch of finickers. I am your friend, Lucy, if you're not the murderer, and if you are no one is.'
I leaned forward, forgetting the wobbly chair leg, but it didn't object. It was about time to put a crimp in Helen's personal project. 'Another thing. It's quite possible that one of you did see her returning to the kitchen for another plate, and you haven't said so because you don't want to squeal on her. If so, spill it now. The longer this hangs on the hotter it will get. When it gets so the pressure is too much for you and you decide you have got to tell it, it will be too late. Tomorrow may be too late. If you go to the cops with it tomorrow they probably won't believe you; they'll figure that you did it yourself and you're trying to squirm out. If you don't want to tell me here and now, in front of her, come with me down to Nero Wolfe's office and we'll talk it over,'
They were exchanging glances, and they were not friendly
42 3 at Wolfe's Door
glances Wlen I had arrived probably not one of them, excluding the murderer, had believed that a poisoner was present, but now they all did, or at least they thought she might be; and when Z feeling takes hold it s good-by to friendliness. It would have bei convenient af I could have detected fear in one of the glances
toUt5rnfaSpT?n ^ ^^ - t0? ^ ^ 'n faces' 'You area help,' Carol Annis said bitterly. 'Now you've got us hatmg each odier. Now everybody suspects everybody I had quit being nice and sympathetic. 'It's about time' I told her. I glanced at my wrist. 'It's not midnight yet. If I've made ? all realize that this is no Broadway production, or TV either, and the longer the pay-off is postponed the tougher it will be for everybody I te? helped.' I stood up. 'Let's go. I don't say Mr Wolfe can do it by just snapping his fingers, but he might surprise you. He has often surprised me.' ?'*pnse
'All right,'' Nora said She arose. 'Come on. This is getting too damn painful. Come on.' a K
I don't pretend that that was what I had been heading for I admit that I had just been carried along by my tongue. If I arrived with that gang at midnight and Wolfe had gone to bed, he ZS almost certamly refuse to play. Even if he were still up height refuse to work, just to teach me a lesson, since I had not stuck to my instructions Those thoughts were at me as Peggy Choate bounced up and Carol Annis started to leave the couch
But they were wasted. That tussle with Wolfe never'came off A door at the end of the room which had been standing ajar suddenly swung open, and there in its frame was a two-legged figure with shoulders a most as broad as the doorway, and I waf squinfeg at Sergeant Parley Stebbins of Manhattan Homicide West h! moved forward, croaking, 'I'm surprised at you, Goodwin These ladies ought to get some sleep.'
Poison & la Carte 43
m vr
I
I Of course I was a monkey. If it had been Stebbins who had
made a monkey of me I suppose I would have leaped for a window I and dived through. Hitting the pavement from a fourth-story window should be enough to finish a monkey, and life wouldn't be worth living if I had been bamboozled by Purley Stebbins. But obviously it hadn't been him; it had been Peggy Choate or Nora Jaret, or both; Purley had merely accepted an invitation to come and listen in.
So I kept my face. To say I was jaunty would be stretching it, but I didn't scream or tear my hair. 'Greetings,' I said heartily. 'And welcome. I've been wondering why you didn't join us instead of skulking in there in the dark.'
'I'll bet you have.' He had come to arm's length and stopped. He turned. 'You can relax, ladies.' Back to me: 'You're under arrest for obstructing justice. Come along.'
'In a minute. You've got all night.' I moved my head. 'Of* course Peggy and Nora knew this hero was in there, but I'd--'
'I said come along!' he barked.
'And I said in a minute. I intend to ask a couple of questions. I wouldn't dream of resisting arrest, but I've got leg cramp from kneeling too long and if you're in a hurry you'll have to carry me.' I moved my eyes. 'I'd like to know if you all knew. Did you, Miss lacono?'
'Of course not.'
'Miss Morgan?'
'No.'
'Miss Annis?'
'No, I didn't, but I think you did.' She tossed her head and the corn silk fluttered. 'That was contemptible. Saying you wanted to help us, so we would talk, with a policeman listening.'
'And then he arrests me?'
