Too Many Cooks

Wolfe shrugged. “Tell the police that. After your lie to Mr. Tolman, and your lies to us here which are on record in Mr. Goodwin’s notebook, and your attempt to accuse the doorman—and above all, these fingerprints.”

She stretched a hand out. “Give them to me. I’d like to see them.”

“The police may show them to you. If they choose. Forgive me, Mrs. Coyne, but this photograph is important evidence, and I’d like to be sure of turning it over to the authorities intact.”

She stirred a little, but there was no change on her face. After another silence she said, “I did go into the left wing corridor. By the little terrace. I went to my room and hurt my finger in the bathroom door. Then when Mr. Laszio was found murdered I was frightened and thought I wouldn’t say I had been inside at all.”

Wolfe nodded and murmured, “You might try that. Try it, by all means, if you think it’s worth it. You realize, of course, that would leave your fingerprints on the dining room door to be explained. Anyhow you’re in a pickle; you’ll have to do the best you can.” He turned abruptly to me and got snappy. “Archie, go to the booth in the foyer and phone the police at the hotel. Tell them to come at once.”

I arose without excessive haste. I was prepared to stall with a little business with my notebook and pen, but it wasn’t necessary. Her face showed signs of life. She blinked up at me and put out a hand at me, and then blinked at Wolfe, and extended both her cute little hands in his direction.

“Mr. Wolfe,” she pleaded. “Please! I did no harm, I did nothing! Please not the police!”

“No harm, madam?” Wolfe was stern. “To the authorities investigating a murder you tell lies, and to me also, and you call that no harm? Archie, go on!”

“No!” She was on her feet. “I tell you I did nothing!”

“You entered the dining room within minutes, perhaps seconds, of the moment that Laszio was murdered. Did you kill him?”

“No! I did nothing! I didn’t enter the dining room!”

“Your hand was on that door. What did you do?”

She stood with her eyes on him, and I stood with a foot poised, aching to call the cops I don’t think. She ended the tableau by sitting down and telling Wolfe quietly, “I must tell you. Mustn’t I?”

“Either me or the police.”

“But if I tell you … you tell the police anyway.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. It depends. In any event, you’ll have to tell the truth sooner or later.”

“I suppose so.” Her hands were on the lap of her red dress with the fingers closely twined. “You see, I’m afraid. The police don’t like the Chinese, and I am a Chinese woman, but that isn’t it. I’m afraid of the man I saw in the dining room, because he must have killed Mr. Laszio. …”

Wolfe asked softly, “Who was it?”

“I don’t know. But if I told about him, and he knew that I had seen him and had told … anyway, I am telling now. You see, Mr. Wolfe, I was born in San Francisco and educated there, but I am Chinese, and we are never treated like Americans. Never. But anyway … what I told Mr. Tolman was the truth. I was outdoors all the time. I like outdoors at night. I was on the grass among the trees and shrubs, and I heard the whippoorwill, and I went across the driveway where the fountain is. Then I came back, to the side—not the left wing, the other side—and I could see dimly through the window curtains into the parlor, but I couldn’t see into the dining room because the shades were drawn on the glass doors. I thought it would be amusing to watch the men tasting those dishes, which seemed very silly to me, so I went to the terrace to find a slit I could see through, but the shades were so tight there wasn’t any. Then I heard a noise as if something had fallen over in the dining room. I couldn’t hear just what it was like, because the sound of the radio was coming through the open window of the parlor. I stood there I don’t know how long, but no other sound came, and I thought that if one of the men had got mad and threw the dishes on the floor that would be amusing, and I decided to open the door a crack and see, and I didn’t think I’d be heard on account of the radio. So I opened it just a little. I didn’t get it open enough even to see the table, because there was a man standing there by the corner of the screen, with his side turned to me. He had one finger pressed against his lips—you know, the way you do when you’re hushing somebody. Then I saw who he was looking at. The door leading to the pantry hall was open, just a few inches, and the face of one of the Negroes was there, looking at the man by the screen. The man by the screen started to turn toward me, and I went to close the door in a hurry and my foot slipped, and I grabbed with my other hand to keep from falling, and the door shut on my finger. I thought it would be silly to get caught peeking in the dining room, so I ran back among the bushes and stood there a few minutes, and then I went to the main entrance—and you saw me enter the parlor.”

Wolfe demanded, “Who was the man by the screen?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”