Champagne for One

Helen’s frown had gone suddenly, and the corners of her mouth had lifted a little. "Headache," she said. "Faith never had headaches, except only once, one day when she came home from work. She wouldn’t eat anything and she didn’t go to school that night, and I wanted her to take some aspirin but she said it wouldn’t help any. Then she asked me if I had a mother, and I said my mother was dead and she said she wished hers was. That didn’t sound like her and I said that was an awful thing to say, and she said she knew it was but I might say it too if I had a mother like hers, and she said she had met her on the street when she was out for lunch and there had been a scene, and she had to run to get away from her." Helen was looking pleased. "So that was a contact, wasn’t it?"

"It was. What else did she say about it?"

"That was all. The next day-no, the day after-she said she was sorry she had said it and she hadn’t really meant it, about wishing her mother was dead. I told her if all the people died that I had wished they were dead there wouldn’t be room in the cemeteries. Of course that was exaggerated, but I thought it would do her good to know that people were wishing people were dead all the time."

"Did she ever mention her mother again?"

"No, just that once."

"Well. We have recalled one contact, perhaps we can recall another."

But they couldn’t. He contrived other questions that didn’t parrot the police, but all he got was a collection of blanks, and finally he gave it up.

He moved his eyes to include the others. "Perhaps I should have explained," he said, "exactly why I wanted to talk with you. First, since you had been in close association with Miss Usher, I wanted to know your attitude towards Mr Goodwin’s opinion that she did not kill herself. On the whole you have supported it. Miss Varr has upheld it on valid grounds, Miss Yarmis has opposed it on ambiguous grounds, and Miss Tuttle is uncertain."

That was foxy and unfair. He knew damn well Helen Yarmis wouldn’t know what "ambiguous" meant, and that was why he used it.

He was going on. "Second, since I am assuming that Mr Goodwin is right, that Miss Usher did not poison her champagne and that therefore someone else did, I wanted to look at you and hear you talk. You are three of the eleven people who were there and are suspect; I exclude Mr Goodwin. One of you might have taken that opportunity to use a lump of the poison that you all knew-"