Mrs. Piotti, in the kitchen for the spaghetti, came to the corner to stoop and hiss into my free ear, “She’s wearing a veil.”
Zoltan: I am not mistaken, my dear. That is useless. I know. How could I be mistaken when the first moment I saw you I felt... but I will not try to tell you how I felt. If any of the others had come and taken another plate I would have stopped her, but not you. Before you I was dumb. So it is useless.
Needing only one hand for my pen, I used the free one to blow a kiss to Purley.
Carol: I see. So you’re sure.
Zoltan: I am, my dear. Very sure.
Carol: But you haven’t told the police.
Zoltan: Of course not. As I told you.
Carol: Have you told Nero Wolfe or Archie Goodwin?
Zoltan: I have told no one. How could I tell anyone? Mr. Wolfe is sure that the one who returned for another plate is the one who killed that man, gave him poison, and Mr. Wolfe is always right. So it is terrible for me. Could I tell anyone that I know you killed a man? You? How could I? That is why I had to see you, to talk with you. If you weren’t wearing that veil I could look into your beautiful eyes. I think I know what I would see there. I would see suffering and sorrow. I saw that in your eyes Tuesday evening. I know he made you suffer. I know you wouldn’t kill a man unless you had to. That is why—
The voice stopped. That was understandable, since Mrs. Piotti had gone through the door with the spaghetti and coffee and had had time to reach their table. Assorted sounds came as she served them. Purley muttered, “He’s overdoing it,” and I muttered back, “No. He’s perfect.” Piotti came over and stood looking down at my notebook. It wasn’t until after Mrs. Piotti was back in the kitchen that Carol’s voice came.
Carol: That’s why I am wearing the veil, Zoltan, because I know it’s in my eyes. You’re right. I had to. He did make me suffer. He ruined my life.
Zoltan: No, my dear. Your life is not ruined. No! No matter what he did. Was he... did he...
I was biting my lip again. Why didn’t he give them the signal? The food had been served and presumably they were eating. He had been told that it would be pointless to try to get her to give him any details of her relations with Pyle, since they would almost certainly be lies. Why didn’t he give the signal? Her voice was coming:
Carol: He promised to marry me. I’m only twenty-two years old, Zoltan. I didn’t think I would ever let a man touch me again, but the way you... I don’t know. I’m glad you know I killed him because it will be better now, to know that somebody knows. To know that you know. Yes, I had to kill him, I had to, because if I didn’t I would have had to kill myself. Some day I may tell you what a fool I was, how I— Oh!
Zoltan: What? What’s the matter?
Carol: My bag. I left it in my car. Out front. And I didn’t lock the car. A blue Plymouth hardtop. Would you... I’ll go...
Zoltan: I’ll get it.
The sound came of his chair scraping, then faintly his footsteps, and then silence. But the silence was broken in ten seconds, whereas it would have taken him at least a minute to go for the purse and return. What broke it was a male voice saying, “I’m an officer of the law, Miss Annis,” and a noise from Carol. Purley, shedding his earphone, jumped up and went, and I followed, notebook in hand.
It was quite a tableau. The male dick stood with a hand on Carol’s shoulder. Carol sat stiff, her chin up, staring straight ahead. The female dick, not much older than Carol, stood facing her from across the table, holding with both hands, at breast level, a plate of spaghetti. She spoke to Purley. “She put something in it and then stuck something in her dress. I saw her in my mirror.”
I moved in. After all, I was in charge, under the terms Cramer had agreed to. “Thank you, Miss Annis,” I said. “You were a help. On a signal from Zoltan they were going to start a commotion to give him an excuse to leave the table, but you saved them the trouble. I thought you’d like to know. Come on, Zoltan. All over. According to plan.”
He had entered and stopped three paces off, a blue handbag under his arm. As he moved toward us Purley put out a hand. “I’ll take that.”
IX
Cramer was in the red leather chair. Carol Annis was in a yellow one facing Wolfe’s desk, with Purley on one side of her and his female colleague on the other. The male colleague had been sent to the laboratory with the plate of spaghetti and a roll of paper that had been fished from inside Carol’s dress. Fritz, Felix, and Zoltan were on the couch near the end of my desk.
“I will not pretend, Miss Annis,” Wolfe was saying. “One reason that I persuaded Mr. Cramer to have you brought here first on your way to limbo was that I needed to appease my rancor. You had injured and humiliated not only me but also one of my most valued friends, Fritz Brenner, and two other men whom I esteem, and I had arranged the situation that gave you your opportunity; and I wished them to witness your own humiliation, contrived by me, in my presence.”
“That’s enough of that,” Cramer growled.
Wolfe ignored him. “I admit the puerility of that reason, Miss Annis, but in candor I wanted to acknowledge it. A better reason was that I wished to ask you a few questions. You took such prodigious risks that it is hard to believe in your sanity, and it would give me no satisfaction to work vengeance on a madwoman. What would you have done if Felix’s eyes had been on you when you entered with the plate of poison and went to Mr. Pyle? Or if, when you returned to the kitchen for a second plate, Zoltan had challenged you? What would you have done?”
No answer. Apparently she was holding her gaze straight at Wolfe, but from my angle it was hard to tell because she still had the veil on. Asked by Cramer to remove it, she had refused. When the female dick had extracted the roll of paper from inside Carol’s dress she had asked Cramer if she should pull the veil off and Cramer had said no. No rough stuff.
There was no question about Wolfe’s gaze at her. He was forward in his chair, his palms flat on his desk. He persisted. “Will you answer me, Miss Annis?”
She wouldn’t.
“Are you a lunatic, Miss Annis?”
She wasn’t saying.
Wolfe’s head jerked to me. “Is she deranged, Archie?”
That was unnecessary. When we’re alone I don’t particularly mind his insinuations that I presume to be an authority on women, but there was company present. I gave him a look and snapped, “No comment.”
He returned to her. “Then that must wait. I leave to the police such matters as your procurement of the poison and your relations with Mr. Pyle, mentioning only that you cannot now deny possession of arsenic, since you used it a second time this evening. It will unquestionably be found in the spaghetti and in the roll of paper you concealed in your dress; and so, manifestly, if you are mad you are also ruthless and malevolent. You may have been intolerably provoked by Mr. Pyle, but not by Zoltan. He presented himself not as a nemesis or a leech, but as a bewitched and befuddled champion. He offered his homage and compassion, making no demands, and your counter-offer was death. I would myself—”
“You lie,” Carol said. It was her first word. “And he lied. He was going to lie about me. He didn’t see me go back for a second plate, but he was going to say he did. And you lie. He did make demands. He threatened me.”