If Death Ever Slept

“I think I’m it,” she said. “I don’t know exactly where I was at a quarter past six. I was out, and I got home about six o’clock, and I wanted to ask my father something and went to the library, but the door was locked. Then I went to the kitchen to look for Mrs. Latham, but she wasn’t there, and I found her in the dining room and asked her to iron a dress for me. I was tired and I started for the lounge to get a quick one, but I saw Mr. Brigham in there and I didn’t feel like company, so I skipped it and went up to my room to change. If I had had a key to the library, and if I had thought of the rug stunt, I might have gone there in between and got the gun, but I didn’t. Anyway, I hate guns. I think the rug stunt was absolutely dreamy.” She twisted around. “Don’t you, Ar-Al-Alan?”

A marvelous girl. So playful. If I ever got her on a dance floor again I’d walk on her toes. She twisted back again when Wolfe asked a question.

“What time was it when you saw Mr. Brigham in the lounge? As near as you can make it.”

She shook her head. “Not a chance. If it were someone I’m rather warm on, for instance Mr. Green, I’d say it was exactly sixteen minutes after six, and he would say he saw me looking in and he looked at his watch, and we’d both be out of it, but I’m not warm on Mr. Brigham. So I won’t even try to guess.”

“This isn’t a parlor game, Lois,” her father snapped. “This may be serious.”

“It already is, Dad. It sounds darned serious to me. You notice I told him all I could. Didn’t I, Mr. Wolfe?”

“Yes, Miss Jarrell. Thank you. Will you oblige us, Miss Kent?”

I was wondering if Nora would rip it. Not that it would have been fatal, but if she had announced that the new secretary was Archie Goodwin, that Wolfe was a damn liar when he gave them to understand that he had had no finger in the Jarrell pie until that afternoon, and that therefore they had better start the questions going the other way, it would have made things a little complicated.

She didn’t. Speaking as a competent and loyal stenographer, she merely said, “On Wednesday Mr. Jarrell and I left the library together at six o’clock, as usual, locking the door. We took the elevator upstairs together and parted in the hall. I went to my room to wash and change, and stayed there until half past six, and then I went down to the lounge.”