Champagne for One

No pronouncing of names was required, since he had met the Robilottis and the Grantham twins at the time of the jewellery hunt. He made it to his desk, sent his eyes around, and sat. He looked at Cramer.

"You have explained the purpose of this gathering, Mr Cramer?"

"Yes. You’re going to prove that Goodwin is either wrong or right."

"I didn’t say ‘prove’. I said I intend to satisfy myself and deal with him accordingly." He surveyed the audience. "Ladies and gentlemen. I will not keep you long-at least, not most of you. I have no exhortation for you and no questions to ask. To form an opinion of Mr Goodwin’s competence as an eye-witness, I need to see, not what he saw, since these quarters are too cramped for that, but an approximation of it. You cannot take your positions precisely as they were last Tuesday evening, or re-enact the scene with complete fidelity, but we’ll do the best we can. Archie?"

I left my chair to stage-manage. Thinking that Mrs Robilotti and her Robert were the most likely to baulk, I left them till the last. First I put Hackett behind the table, which was the bar, and Laidlaw and Helen Yarmis at one end of it. Then Rose Tuttle and Beverly Kent, on chairs over where the globe had stood. Then Celia Grantham and Paul Schuster by the wall to the right of Wolfe’s desk, with her sitting and him standing. Then I put Saul Panzer on a chair near the door to the hall, and told the audience, "Mr Panzer here is Faith Usher. The distance is wrong and so are the others, but the relative positions are about right." Then I put an ashtray on a chair to the right of the safe, and told them, "This is Faith Usher’s bag, containing the bottle of poison." With all that arranged, I didn’t think Mrs Robilotti would protest when I asked her and her husband to take their places in front of the bar, and she didn’t.

That was all, except for Ethel Varr and me, and I got her and stood with her at a corner of my desk, and told Wolfe, "All set."

"Miss Tuttle and I were much farther away," Beverly Kent objected.

"Yes, sir," Wolfe agreed. "It is not presumed that this is identical. Now." His eyes went to the group at the bar. "Mr Hackett, I understand that when Mr Grantham went to the bar for champagne for himself and Miss Usher, two glasses were there in readiness. You had poured one of them a few minutes previously, and the other just before he arrived. Is that correct?"