Too Many Cooks

“Yes, you were there. I saw you there with my husband.”

“So you did. And now, Mrs. Coyne, I must admit you have me a little puzzled. Perhaps you can straighten it out. In view of what you have just told me, which agrees with your account to Mr. Tolman, what door was it that you hurt your finger in?”

She deadpanned him good. There wasn’t a flicker. Maybe her eyes got a little narrower, but I couldn’t see it. But she wasn’t good enough to avoid stalling. After about ten seconds of the stony-facing she said, “Oh, you mean my finger.” She glanced down at it and up again. “I asked my husband to kiss it.”

Wolfe nodded. “I heard you. What door did you hurt it in?”

She was ready. “The big door at the entrance. You know how hard it is to push, and when it closed—”

He broke in sharply, “No, Mrs. Coyne, that won’t do. The doorman and the hallman have been questioned and their statements taken. They remember your leaving and re-entering—in fact, they were questioned about it Tuesday night by Mr. Tolman. And they are both completely certain that the doorman opened the door for you and closed it behind you, and there was no caught finger. Nor could it have been the door from the hall to the parlor, for I saw you come through that myself. What door was it?”

She was wearing the deadpan permanently. She said calmly, “The doorman is telling a lie because he was careless and let me get hurt.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I know it. He is lying.” Quickly and silently, she was on her feet. “I must tell my husband.”

She was off, moving fast. Wolfe snapped, “Archie!” I skipped around and got in front of her, on her line to the door. She didn’t try dodging, just stopped and looked up at my face. Wolfe said, “Come back and sit down. I can see that you are a person of decision, but so am I. Mr. Goodwin could hold you with one hand. You may scream and people will come, but they will go again and we’ll be where we are now. Sit down, please.”

She did so, and told him, “I have nothing to scream about. I merely wanted to tell my husband. …”

“That the doorman lied. But he didn’t. However, there’s no need to torment you unnecessarily.—Archie, give me the photograph of those fingerprints on the dining room door.”

I thought to myself, darn you, some day you’re going to push the button for my wits when they’re off on vacation, and then you’ll learn to let me in on things ahead of time. But of course there was only one answer to this one. I reached in my pocket for the plate of reproductions I had cut from the magazine page, and handed it to him. Then, being on at last, I pushed across the specimens I had just taken from Lio Coyne’s fingers. Wolfe took the magnifying glass and began to compare. He took his time, holding the two next to each other, looking closely through the glass back and forth, with satisfied nods at the proper intervals.

Finally he said, “Three quite similar. They would probably do. But the left index finger is absolutely identical and it’s exceptionally clear. Here, Archie, see what you think.”

I took the prints and the glass and put on a performance. The prints from the magazine happened to be from some blunt-fingered mechanic, and I don’t believe I ever saw any two sets more unlike. I did a good job of it with the comparison, even counting out loud, and handed them back to Wolfe.

“Yes, sir.” I was emphatic. “They’re certainly the same. Anyone could see it.”

Wolfe told Mrs. Coyne gently, almost tenderly, “You see, madam. I must explain. Of course everyone knows about fingerprints, but some of the newer methods of procuring them are not widely known. Mr. Goodwin here is an expert. He went over the doors from the dining room to the terrace—among other places—and brought out prints which the local police had been unable to discover, and made photographs of them. So as you see, modern methods of searching for evidence are sometimes fertile. They have given us conclusive proof that it was the door from the terrace to the dining room in which you caught your finger Tuesday evening. I had suspected it before, but there’s no need to go into that. I am not asking you to explain anything. Your explanation, naturally, will have to be given to the police, after I have turned this evidence over to them, together with an account of your false statement that it was the main entrance door in which you caught your finger. And by the way, I should warn you to expect little courtesy from the police. After all, you didn’t tell Mr. Tolman the truth, and they won’t like that. It would have been more sensible if you had admitted frankly, when he asked about your excursion to see the night, that you had entered the dining room from the terrace.”

She was as good at the wooden-face act as anyone I could remember. You would have sworn that if her mind was working at all it was on nothing more important than where she could have lost one of her chopsticks. At last she said, “I didn’t enter the dining room.”