“Four,” Elinor Vance said, glancing at a paper she held. “I've crossed off Fluff, the biscuit dough. You said to, didn't you, Lina?”
“It's a good company,” Traub said regretfully. “One of the best. Their radio budget is over three million.”
You're just making it harder, Nat,” Deborah Koppel told him. “We can't take all of them. I thought your favourite was Meltettes.”
“It is,” Traub agreed, “but these are all very fine accounts. What do you think of Meltettes, Miss Fraser?” He was the only one of the bunch who didn't call her Lina.
“I haven't tried them.” She glanced around. “Where are they?”
Nancylee, apparently not so concentrated on me as to miss any word or gesture of her idol, spoke up: “There on the piano, Miss Fraser. Do you want them?”
“We have got to eliminate,” Strong insisted, stabbing the air with his spectacles for emphasis. “I must repeat, as representative of the other sponsors, that they are firmly and unanimously opposed to Sparkle, if it is to be served on the programme as Starlite was. They never liked the idea and they don't want it resumed.”
“It's already crossed off,” Elinor Vance stated. “With Fluff and Sparkle out, that leaves four.”
Not on account of the sponsors,” Miss Fraser put in. “We just happen to agree with them. They aren't going to decide this. We are.”
“You mean you are, Lina.” Bill Meadows sounded a little irritated. “What the hell, we all know that. You don't want Fluff because Cora made some biscuits and you didn't like 'em. You don't want Sparkle because they want it served on the programme, and God knows I don't blame you.”
Elinor Vance repeated, “That leaves four.”
“All right, eliminate!” Strong persisted.
“We're right where we were before,” Deborah Koppel told them. “The trouble is, there's no real objection to any of the four, and I think Bill's right, I think we have to put it up to Lina.”
“I am prepared,” Nat Traub announced, in the tone of a man burning bridges, “to say that I will vote for Meltettes.”
For my part, I was prepared to say that I would vote for nobody. Sitting there taking them in, as far as I could tell the only strain they were under was the pressure of picking the right sponsor. If, combined with that, one of them was contending with the nervous wear and tear of a couple of murders, he was too good for me. As the argument got warmer it began to appear that, though they were agreed that the final word was up to Miss Fraser, each of them had a favourite among the four entries left. That was what complicated the elimination.
Naturally, on account of the slip of paper I had in my pocket, I was especially interested in Elinor Vance, but the sponsor problem seemed to be monopolizing her attention as completely as that of the others. I would, of course, have to follow instructions and proceed with my errand as soon as they gave me a chance, but I was beginning to feel silly. While Wolfe had left it pretty vague, one thing was plain, that I was supposed to give them a severe jolt, and I doubted if I had what it would take. When they got worked up to the point of naming the winner-settling on the lucky product that would be cast for the role sixteen had applied for-bringing up the subject of an anonymous letter, even one implying that one of them was a chronic murderer, would be an anticlimax. With a serious problem like that just triumphantly solved, what would they care about a little thing like murder?
But I was dead wrong. I found that out incidentally, as a by-product of their argument. It appeared that two of the contenders were deadly rivals, both clawing for children's dimes: a candy bar called Happy Andy and a little box of tasty delights called Meltettes. It was the latter that Traub had decided to back unequivocally, and he, when the question came to a head which of those two to eliminate, again asked Miss Fraser if she had tried Meltettes. She told him no. He asked if she had tried Happy Andy. She said yes. Then, he insisted, it was only fair for her to try Meltettes.
“All right,” she agreed. There on the piano, Debby, that little red box. Toss it over.”
“No!” a shrill voice cried. It was Nancylee. Everyone looked at her. Deborah Koppel, who had picked up the little red cardboard box, asked her: “What's the matter?”
“It's dangerous!” Nancylee was there, a hand outstretched. “Give it to me. I'll eat one first!”
It was only a romantic kid being dramatic, and all she rated from that bunch, if I had read their pulses right, was a laugh and a brush-off, but that was what showed me I had been dead wrong. There wasn't even a snicker. No one said a word. They all froze, staring at Nancylee, with only one exception. That was Deborah Koppel. She held the box away from Nancylee's reaching hand and told her contemptuously: “Don't be silly.”
“I mean it!” the girl cried. “Let me-”
“Nonsense.” Deborah pushed her back, opened the flap of the box, took out an object, popped it into her mouth, chewed once or twice, swallowed, and then spat explosively, ejecting a spray of little particles.
I was the first, by maybe a tenth of a second, to realize that there was something doing. It wasn't so much the spitting, for that could conceivably have been merely her way of voting against Meltettes, as it was the swift, terrible contortion of her features. As I bounded across to her she left the piano bench with a spasmodic jerk, got erect with her hands flung high, and screamed: “Lina. Don't! Don't let-”
I was at her, with a hand on her arm, and Bill Meadows was there too, but her muscles all in convulsion took us along as she fought towards the divan, and Madeline Fraser was there to meet her and get supporting arms around her. But somehow the three of us together failed to hold her up or get her on to the divan. She went down until her knees were on the floor, with one arm stretched rigid across the burlap of the divan, and would have gone the rest of the way but for Miss Fraser, also on her knees.
I straightened, wheeled, and told Nat Traub: “Get a doctor quick.” I saw Nancylee reaching to pick up the little red cardboard box and snapped at her: “Let that alone and behave yourself.” Then to the rest of them: “Let everything alone, hear me?”
Chapter Twenty-Two Around four o'clock I could have got permission to go home if I had insisted, but it seemed better to stay as long as there was a chance of picking up another item for my report. I had already phoned Wolfe to explain why I wasn't following his instructions.
All of those who had been present at the conference were still there, very much so, except Deborah Koppel, who had been removed in a basket when several gangs of city scientists had finished their part of it. She had been dead when the doctor arrived. The others were still alive but not in a mood to brag about it.
At four o'clock Lieutenant Rowcliff and an assistant DA were sitting on the green burlap divan, arguing whether the taste of cyanide should warn people in time to refrain from swallowing. That seemed pointless, since whether it should or not it usually doesn't, and anyway the onjy ones who could qualify as experts are those who have tried it, and none of them is available. I moved on. At the big oak table another lieutenant was conversing with Bill Meadows, meanwhile referring to.notes on loose sheets of paper. I went on by. In the dining-room a sergeant and a private were pecking away at Elinor Vance. I passed through. In the kitchen a dick with a pugnose was holding a sheet of paper, one of a series, flat on the table while Cora, the female wrestler, put her initials on it.
Turning and going back the way I had come, I continued on to the square hall, opened a door at its far end, and went through. This, the room without a name, was mote densely populated than the others. Tully Strong and Nat Traub were on chairs against opposite walls. Nancylee was standing by a window. A dick was seated in the centre of the room, another was leaning against a wall, and Sergeant Purley Stebbins was sort of strolling around.