Black Orchids

"I sometimes doubt if you know anything," Wolfe said shortly. "I was not and am not interested in Miss Huddleston's death, though you and Mr. Huddleston and Archie keep pestering me about it. I have no client. My client died. You are even affronted to find Mr. Huddleston here eating. If he's hungry, why the devil shouldn't he eat? When he appeared here at one o'clock with that turf, I told him to take it to the police. He said they regarded him as a nuisance. Why he returned here with the laboratory report, I do not know; I only know he was hungry. If you are disgruntled because you have no assurance that the piece of turf examined by the laboratory is the piece onto which the chimpanzee poured some of the contents of the bottle of supposed iodine, I can't help it. Why didn't you get the turf yourself when Mr. Huddleston first called on you, five days ago? It was an obvious thing to do."

"I didn't know then that the chimpanzee had poured-"

"You should have. Proper questioning would have got it. Either it was worth investigating competently, or not at all. Well, sir, there's your report. Keep it. You'll get a bill for it from the Fisher Laboratories. Archie, make a note of that. It wasn't iodine in that bottle; it was argyrol, and it was reeking with tetanus bacilli. An uncommonly ugly thing to do. I have never heard of a more objectionable way of committing murder, nor of an easier or simpler one. I trust, sir, that you'll make an arrest. You should, since you have only five people to deal with-the five who were there, not counting Archie-"

"Wait a minute," Daniel protested. "You're wrong. That bottle could have been put there any time-"

Wolfe shook his head. "No. Only that afternoon. If we had to we could argue that it is not credible that it was left in the cupboard for an extended period, for just anyone to use, but we don't have to. The bottle in that cupboard contained good iodine at four o'clock that afternoon."

Cramer growled. Daniel demanded, "How do you know that?"

"Because it was used at that hour. By Archie. He tripped on an alligator and scratched his hand."

"By God," Cramer said, and sat down. Daniel looked at me, and I nodded at him.

Daniel looked at Wolfe, his jaw hanging open and his face gray. "Then it c-couldn't have been-" he stammered.

"Couldn't have been what?" Cramer demanded.