Champagne for One

"I fear," he said, "that it’s beyond my powers. It may clear the air a little if I say that a suspicious word or action at the party, like Mr Grantham’s taking the bottle from the bag, was not what I had in mind. I meant, rather, to ask if you know anything about any of those eight people that might suggest the possibility of a reason. why one of them might have wanted Miss Usher to die. Do you know of any connection between one of them and Miss Usher-either her or someone associated with her?"

"I don’t," Rose said positively.

"Neither do I," Ethel declared.

"There’s so many of them," Helen complained. "Who are they again?"

Wolfe, patient under stress, pronounced the eight names.

Helen was frowning again. "The only connection I know about," she said, "is Mrs Robilotti. When she came to Grantham House to see us. Faith didn’t like her."

Rose snorted. "Who did?"

Wolfe asked. "Was there something definite, Miss Yarmis? Something between Miss Usher and Mrs Robilotti?"

"I guess not," Helen conceded. "I guess it wasn’t any more definite with Faith than it was with the rest of us."

"Did you have in mind something in particular that Miss Usher and Mrs Robilotti said to each other?"

"Oh, no. I never heard Faith say anything to her at all. Neither did I. She thought we were harlots."

"Did she use that word? Did she call you harlots?"

"Of course not. She tried to be nice but didn’t know how. One of the girls said that one day when she had been there, she said that she thought we were harlots."

"Well." Wolfe took in air, in and clear down to his middle, and let it out again. "I thank you again, ladies, for coming." He pushed his chair back and rose. "We seem to have made little progress, but at least I have seen and talked with you, and I know where to reach you if the occasion arises."

"One thing I don’t see," Rose Tuttle said as she left her chair. "Mr Goodwin said he wasn’t there as a detective, but he is a detective, and I had told him about Faith having the poison, and I should think he ought to know exactly what happened. I didn’t think anyone could commit a murder with a detective right there."

A very superficial and half-baked way to look at it, I thought, as I got up to escort the ladies out.

Chapter Nine