Champagne for One

"But we couldn’t!" Rose Tuttle blurted. "Ethel was with Archie Goodwin. Helen was with that publisher, what’s-his-name, Laidlaw, and I was with the one with big ears-Kent. So we couldn’t!"

Wolfe nodded. "I know, Miss Tuttle. Evidentially, nobody could, so I must approach from another direction, and all eleven of you are suspect. I don’t intend to harass you ladies in an effort to trick you into betraying some guarded secret of your relationship with Miss Usher; that’s an interminable and laborious process and all night would only start it; and besides, it would probably be futile. If one of you has such a secret it will have to be exposed by other means. But I did want to look at you and hear you talk."

"I haven’t talked much," Ethel Varr said.

"No," Wolfe agreed, "but you supported Mr Goodwin, and that alone is suggestive. Third-and this was the main point-I wanted your help. I am assuming that if Miss Usher was murdered you would wish the culprit to be disclosed. I am also assuming that none of you has so deep an interest in any of the other eight people there that you would want to shield him from exposure if he is guilty."

"I certainly haven’t," Ethel Varr declared. "Like I told you, I’m sure Faith didn’t put anything in her champagne, and if she didn’t, who did? I’ve been thinking about it. I know it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Mr Goodwin, and I’m sure it wasn’t Helen or Rose. How many does that leave?"

"Eight. The three male guests, Laidlaw, Schuster, and Kent. The butler. Mr Grantham and Miss Grantham. Mr and Mrs Robilotti."

"Well, I certainly don’t want to shield any of them."

"Neither do I," Rose Tuttle asserted, "if one of them did it."

"You couldn’t shield them," Helen Yarmis told them, "if they didn’t do it. There wouldn’t be anything to shield them from."

"You don’t understand, Helen," Rose told her. "He wants to find out who it was. Now, for instance, what if it was Cecil Grantham, and what if you saw him take the bottle out of Faith’s bag and put it back, or something like that, would you want to shield him? That’s what he wants to know."

"But that’s just it," Helen objected. "If Faith did it herself, why would I want to shield him?"

"But Faith didn’t do it. Ethel and Mr Goodwin were both looking at her."

"Then why," Helen demanded, "did she take the bottle to the party when I told her not to?"

Rose shook her head, wiggling the pony tail. "You’d better explain it," she told Wolfe.