Champagne for One

"Do we keep covered?" Saul asked.

"Preferably, yes. But don’t preserve your cover at the cost of missing your mark."

"I took a look," I said, "at the Manhattan phone book when I got back from Grantham House yesterday. A dozen Ushers are listed. Of course she doesn’t have to be named Usher, and she doesn’t have to live in Manhattan, and she doesn’t have to have a phone. It wouldn’t take Fred and Orrie long to check the dozen. I can call Lon Cohen at the Gazette. He might have gone after the mother for an exclusive and a picture."

"Sure," Saul agreed. "If it weren’t for cover my first stop would be the morgue. Even if her daughter hated her, the mother may have claimed the body. But they know me there, and Fred and Orrie too, and of course they know Archie."

It was decided, by Wolfe naturally, that that risk should be taken only after other tries had failed, and that calling Lon Cohen should obviously come first, and I dialled and got him. It was a little complicated. He had rung me a couple of times to try to talk me into the eye-witness story, and now my calling to ask if he had dug up Faith Usher’s mother aroused all his professional instincts. Was Wolfe working on the case, and if so, on behalf of whom? Had someone made me a better offer for a story, and did I want the mother so I could put her in, and who had offered me how much? I had to spread the salve thick, and assure him that I wouldn’t dream of letting anyone but the Gazette get my by-line, and promise that if and when we had anything fit for publication he would get it, before he would answer my simple question.

I hung up and swivelled to report. "You can skip the morgue. A woman went there Wednesday afternoon to claim the body. Name, Marjorie Betz. B-E-T-Z. Address, Eight-twelve West Eighty-seventh Street, Manhattan. She had a letter signed by Elaine Usher, mother of Faith Usher, same address. By her instructions the body was delivered this morning to the Metropolitan Crematory on Thirty-ninth Street. A Gazette man has seen Marjorie Betz, but she clammed up and is staying clammed. She says Elaine Usher went somewhere Wednesday night and she doesn’t know where she is. The Gazette hasn’t been able to find her, and Lon thinks nobody else has. End of chapter."

"Fine," Saul said. "Nobody skips for nothing."

"Find her," Wolfe ordered. "Bring her. Use any inducement that seems likely to-"

The phone rang, and I swivelled and got it.

"Nero Wolfe’s office, Arch-"

"Goodwin?"

"Yes."