Black Orchids

"By a qualified person. Please be seated. Thank you. Miss Nichols does not need your professional services, but I would like to use your professional knowledge. First- Archie, have you got that brush?"

It was on my desk, still wrapped in the paper Hoskins had got for me. I removed the paper and offered the brush to Wolfe, but instead of taking it he asked me:

"You use a bath brush, don't you? Show us how you manipulate it. On your arm."

Accustomed as I was to loony orders from him, I merely obeyed. I started at the wrist and made vigorous sweeps to the shoulder and back.

"That will do, thank you.-No doubt all of you, if you use bath brushes, wield them in a similar manner. Not, that is, with a circular motion, or around the arm, but lengthwise, up and down. So the cut on Miss Nichols's arm, as Mr. Goodwin described it to me, runs lengthwise, about halfway between the wrist and the elbow. Is that correct, Miss Nichols?"

Janet nodded, cleared her throat, and said, "Yes," in a small voice.

"And it's about an inch long. A little less?"

"Yes."

Wolfe turned to Brady. "Now for you, sir. Your professional knowledge. To establish a premise invulnerable to assault. Why did Miss Nichols carve a gash nearly an inch long on her arm? Why didn't she jerk the brush away the moment she felt her skin being ruptured?"

"Why?" Brady was scowling at him. "For the obvious reason that she didn't feel it."

"Didn't feel it?"

"Certainly not. I don't know what premise you're trying to establish, but with the bristles rubbing her skin there would be no feeling of the sharp glass cutting her. None whatever. She wouldn't know she had been cut until she saw the blood."

"Indeed." Wolfe looked disappointed. "You're sure of hat? You'd testify to it?"

"I would. Positively."

"And any other doctor would?"

"Certainly."

"Then we'll have to take it that way. Those, then, are he facts. I have finished. Now it's your turn to talk. All of •ou. Of course this is highly unorthodox, all of you to-;ether like this, but it would take too long to do it properly,

ingly."

He leaned back and joined his finger tips at the apex of is central magnificence. "Miss Timms, we'll start with you. Talk, please."

Maryella said nothing. She seemed to be meeting his gaze, but she didn't speak.

"Well, Miss,Timms?"

"I don't know-" she tried to clear the huskiness from her voice-"I don't know what you want me to say."