Champagne for One

"Nuts." He sat. "My aunt says that you’re saying that Faith Usher was murdered, and that on account of you the police won’t accept the fact that it was suicide. You know damn well it was suicide. What are you trying to pull?"

"No pull." I clasped my hands behind my head, showing it was just a pair of pals chatting free and easy, or ought to be. "Look, Dinky. You are neither a cop nor a district attorney. I have given them a statement of what I saw and heard at that party Tuesday evening, and if you want to know why that makes them go slow on their verdict you’ll have to ask them. If I told them any lies they’ll catch up with me and I’ll be hooked. I’m not going to start an argument with you about it."

"What did you say in your statement?"

I shook my head. "Get the cops to tell you. I won’t. I’ll tell you this: if my statement is all that keeps them from calling it suicide, I’m the goat. I’ll be responsible for a lot of trouble for that whole bunch, and I don’t like it but can’t help it. So I’m doing a little checking on my own. That’s why I wanted to see Mrs Irwin at Grantham House. I told you I had been offered five hundred bucks for a story on Faith Usher, and I had, but what I was really after was information on whether anyone at that party might have had any reason to kill her. For example, if someone intended to kill her at that party he had to know she would be there. So I wanted to ask Mrs Irwin how she had been picked to be invited and who had picked her."

I gave him a friendly grin. "And I asked her and she told me, and that was certainly no help, since it was you, and you weren’t at the party. You even faked a cold to get out of going-and by the way, I said I wouldn’t broadcast that, and I haven’t." I thought it wouldn’t hurt to remind him that there was still a basis for brotherhood.

"I know," he said, "you’ve got that to shake at me. About my picking Faith Usher to be invited, I suppose Mrs Irwin told you how it was done. I know she told the police. She gave me a list of names with comments, and I merely picked four of the names. I’ve just been down at the District Attorney’s office telling them about it. As I explained to them, I had no personal knowledge of any of those girls. From Mrs Irwin’s comments I just picked the ones that seemed to be the most desirable."

"Did you keep the list? Have you got it?"

"I had it, but an assistant district attorney took it. One named Mandelbaum. No doubt he’ll show it to you if you ask him."