Champagne for One

"It may be. He’s in the front room. He came to see me, and since my only contact with him was last night it could be of interest. I can talk with him there, but I thought I should tell you because you might possibly want to sit in-or stand in. At the hole. In case I need a witness."

"Pfui."

"Yeah, I know. I don’t want to shove, but we haven’t had a case for two weeks."

He was scowling at me. It wasn’t so much that he would have to leave his chair and walk to the hall and on to the alcove, and stand at the hole-after all, that amount of exercise would be good for his appetite-as it was that the very best that could come of it, getting a client, would also be the worst, since he would have to work. He heaved a sigh, not letting it interfere with the scowl, muttered, "Confound it," put his palms on the desk rim to push his chair back, and got up and went.

The hole was in the wall, at eye level, eight feet to the right of Wolfe’s desk. On the office side it was covered by a picture of a pretty waterfall. On the other side, in a wing of the hall across from the kitchen, it was covered by nothing, and you could not only see through but also hear through. I had once stood there for four solid hours, waiting for someone to appear from the front room to snitch something from my desk. I allowed Wolfe a minute to get himself posted and then went and opened the door to the front room and spoke.

"In here, Laidlaw. It’s more comfortable." I moved one of the yellow chairs around to face my desk.

Chapter Five

Laidlaw sat and looked at me. Three seconds. Six seconds. Evidently he needed priming, so I obliged.

"I thought it was a nice party up to a point, didn’t you? Even with the protocol."

"I can’t remember that far back." He leaned forward. His hair was still perfectly uncombed. "Look, Goodwin. I want to ask you a straight question, and I hope you’ll answer it. I don’t see why you shouldn’t."

"I may not either. What?"

"About what you said last night, that you thought that girl was murdered. You said it not only to us, but to the police and the District Attorney. I can tell you confidentially that I have a friend, it doesn’t matter who or where, who has given me a little information. I understand that they would be about ready to call it suicide and close the investigation if it weren’t for you, so your reason for thinking it was murder must be a pretty good one. That’s my question. What is it?"

"Your friend didn’t tell you that?"