Champagne for One

My hand darted to clap on his mouth. He was startled, but he can take a hint, and when I headed down the hall and turned right to the dining-room he followed.

I shut the door, moved away from it, and demanded, "Mrs Usher’s what?"

"Her secret sin." There was a gleam in his eye. "I want to give it to Mr Wolfe myself."

"You can’t. Mrs Usher is in the office with him. Where did-"

"She’s here? How come?"

"That can wait. Where did you get that thing?"

I may have sounded magisterial, but my nerves were a little raw. It put Orrie on his dignity. His chin went up. "It’s a pleasure to report, Mr Goodwin. Mr Panzer and I were covering the Christie Hotel. When the subject appeared and hopped a taxi he followed in one before I could join him. That left me loose and I phoned in. Mr Wolfe asked me if there had been any indication how long she would be gone, and I said yes, since she took a taxi it certainly wouldn’t be less than half an hour and probably longer, and he said it would be desirable to take a look at her room, and I said fine. It took a while to get in. Do you want the details?"

"That can wait. What’s in it?"

"It was in a locked suitcase-not the one the messenger took today, a smaller one. The suitcase was easy, but this thing had a trick lock and I had to bust it."

I put out a hand. He hated to give it up, but protocol is protocol. I took it to the table, unzipped it, and pulled out two envelopes, one nine by twelve and the other one smaller. Neither was sealed, and hadn’t been. I slipped out the contents of the big one.

They were pictures that had been clipped from magazines and newspapers. I would have recognized him even if there had been no captions, since I had been old enough to read for some years, and you often run across a picture of a multi-millionaire philanthropist. The one on top was captioned: "Albert Grantham (left) receiving the annual award of the American Benevolent League." They were all of Grantham, twenty or more. I started to turn them over, one by one, to see if anything was written on them.

"To hell with that," Orrie said impatiently. "It’s the other one." It, not so big, held another envelope, smaller, of white rag bond. The engraved return in the corner said "Albert Grantham," with the Fifth Avenue address, and it was addressed in longhand to Mrs Elaine Usher, 812 West 87th Street, New York, and below was written "By Messenger." Inside were folded sheets. I unfolded them and read:

6 June 1952

My dear Elaine: