Champagne for One

I was sore. Of course that was bad; it’s always a mistake to get sore in a tough situation, especially at yourself; but I couldn’t help it. Not more than half an hour ago I had told Rose to leave it to me, I would see that nothing awful happened, and look. I glanced around. Not a single face, male or female, looked promising. The husband and the son, the two guests of honour, the butler, the three chevaliers-none of them was going to walk over Mrs Robilotti. Celia wasn’t there. Rose was guarding the bag. Then I saw the band leader, a guy with broad shoulders and a square jaw, standing at the entrance to the alcove with his back to it, surveying the tableau calmly, and called to him.

"My name’s Goodwin. What’s yours?"

"Johnson."

"Do you want to stay here all night, Mr Johnson?"

"No."

"Neither do I. I think this woman was murdered, and if the police do too you know what that means, so the sooner they get here the better. I’m a licensed private detective and I ought to stay with the body. There’s a phone on a stand in the reception hall. The number is Spring seven-three-one-hundred."

"Right." He headed for the arch. When Mrs Robilotti commanded him to halt and moved to head him off he just side-stepped her and went on, not bothering to argue, and she called to her men, "Robbie! Cecil! Stop him!"

When they failed to react she wheeled to me. "Leave my house!"

"I would love to," I told her. "If I did, the cops would soon bring me back. Nobody is going to leave your house for a while."

Robilotti was there, taking her arm. "It’s no use, Louise. It’s horrible, but it’s no use. Come and sit down." He looked at me. "Why do you think she was murdered? Why do you say that?"

Paul Schuster, the promising young lawyer, spoke up. "I was going to ask that, Goodwin. She had a bottle of poison in her bag."

"How do you know she did?"

"One of the guests told me. Miss Varr."

"One of them told me too. That’s why I asked Miss Tuttle to guard the bag. I still think she was murdered, but I’ll save my reason for the police. You people might-"

Celia Grantham came running in, calling, "How is she?" and came on, stopping beside me, looking down at Faith Usher. "My God," she said, whispered, and seized my arm and demanded, "Why don’t you do something?" She looked down again, her mouth hanging open, and I put my hands on her shoulders and turned her around. "Thanks," she said. "My God, she was so pretty. Is she dead?"

"Yes. Did you get a doctor?"