Champagne for One

Wolfe nodded. "He has told me of that. But he thinks that what happened was not what you feared. He still believes that someone else poisoned Miss Usher’s champagne. Do you disagree with him, Miss Tuttle?"

"I don’t know. I thought she might do it, but I didn’t see her. I’ve answered so many questions about it that now I don’t know what I think."

"Miss Varr?"

You may remember my remark that I would have picked Ethel Varr if I had been shopping. Since she was facing Wolfe and I had her in profile, and she was in daylight from the windows, her face wasn’t ringing any of the changes in its repertory, but that was a good angle for it, and the way she carried her head would never change. Her lips parted and closed again before she answered.

"I don’t think," she said in a voice that wanted to tremble but she wouldn’t let it, "that Faith killed herself."

"You don’t, Miss Varr? Why?"

"Because I was looking at her. When she took the champagne and drank it. I was standing talking with Mr Goodwin, only just then we weren’t saying anything because Rose had told me that she had told him about Faith having the poison, and he was watching Faith so I was watching her too, and I’m sure she didn’t put anything in the champagne because I would have seen her. The police have been trying to get me to say that Mr Goodwin told me to say that, but I keep telling them that he couldn’t because he hasn’t said anything to me at all. He hasn’t had a chance to." Her head turned, changing her face, of course, as I had it straight on. "Have you, Mr Goodwin?"

I wanted to go and give her a hug and a kiss, and then go and shoot Cramer and a few assistant district attorneys. Cramer hadn’t seen fit to mention that my statement had had corroboration; in fact, he had said that if it wasn’t for me suicide would be a reasonable assumption. The damn liar. After I shot him I would sue him for damages.

"Of course not," I told her. "If I may make a personal remark, you told me at the dinner table that you were only nineteen years old and hadn’t learned how to take things, but you have certainly learned how to observe things, and how to take your ground and stand on it." I turned to Wolfe. "It wouldn’t hurt any to tell her it’s satisfactory."

"It is," he acknowledged. "Indeed, Miss Varr, quite satisfactory." That, if she had only known it, was a triumph. He gave me a satisfactory only when I hatched a masterpiece. His eyes moved. "Miss Yarmis?"