Which I did. Having stopped on the way to phone Wolfe because he always likes to know where I am, I was a little late, arriving in the anteroom at 3:02 p.m., and then I was kept waiting exactly one hour and seventeen minutes. Taken in to Mandelbaum at 4:19, I was in no mood to tell him anything whatever except that he was a little balder and a little plumper than when I had last seen him, but he surprised me. I had expected him to try to bulldoze me, or sugar me, into spilling something about my assignment at Jarrell’s, but he didn’t touch on that at all. Apparently Jarrell’s session with the commissioner had had some effect. After apologizing for keeping me waiting, Mandelbaum wanted to know what I had seen and heard when I entered the studio at noon on Wednesday and found James L. Eber there with Mrs. Wyman Jarrell. Also whether I had seen Eber with anyone else or had heard anyone say anything about him.
Since that was about Eber and his movements and contacts the day before he was killed, I couldn’t very well say that I concluded by an acceptable process of reasoning that it was irrelevant, so I obliged. I even gave him verbatim the words that had passed among Eber and Susan and me. He spent some time trying to get me to remember other words, comments that had been made in my hearing about Eber and his appearance there that day, but on that I passed. I had heard a few, chiefly at the lunch table, and had reported them to Wolfe, but none of them had indicated any desire or intention to kill him, and I saw no point in supplying them for the record.
It was for the record. A stenographer was present, and after Mandelbaum finished with me I had another wait while a statement was typed for me to sign. Reading it, I could find nothing that needed changing, so I signed it “Archie Goodwin, alias Alan Green.” I thought that might as well be on record too.
Back at my threatening base at twenty minutes to six, I found that bridge was under way in the lounge, but only one table: Jarrell, Trella, Wyman, and Nora. Steck informed me, when asked, that neither Lois nor Roger had returned, and that Mrs. Wyman Jarrell was in the studio. Proceeding down the corridor and finding the studio door open, I entered.
The only light was from the corridor and the television screen. Susan was in the same chair as before, in the same spot. Since she was concentrating on the screen, with the discussion panel, “We’re Asking You,” it wasn’t much of a setup from a professional standpoint, but personally it might be interesting. The conditions were precisely the same as formerly, and I wanted to see. If I felt another trace coming on I could make a dash for the door and safety. Not to cut her view of the screen, I circled behind her chair and took the one on the other side.
I would have liked to look at her, her profile, instead of the screen, giving her magic every chance, but she might have misunderstood, so I kept my eyes on “We’re Asking You” clear to the end. I didn’t learn much. They were asking what to do about extra-bright children, and since I didn’t have any and intended to stay as far away as I could from those I had seen and heard on TV and in the movies, I wasn’t concerned.
When they got it settled and the commercial started Susan turned to me. “Shall I leave it on for the news?”
“Sure, might as well, I haven’t heard the baseball scores.”
I never did hear them, not on that TV set. It was Bill Brundage, the one who has the trick of rolling his eyes up, pretending he’s looking for a word, when it’s right there in front of him and everybody knows it. I listened with one ear while he gave us the latest on the budget, Secretary Dulles, a couple of Senatorial investigations, and so forth, and then suddenly he got both ears.
“The body of Corey Brigham, well-known socialite and man-about-town, was found this afternoon in a car parked on Thirty-ninth Street near Seventh Avenue. According to the police, he had been shot in the chest. The body was on the floor of the car in front of the rear seat, covered with a rug. It was discovered when a boy saw the toe of a shoe at the edge of the rug and notified a policeman. The windows of the car were closed and there was no gun in the car. Mr. Corey Brigham lived at the Churchill Towers. He was a bachelor and was a familiar figure in society circles and in the amusement world.”
Susan’s fingers had gripped my arm, with more muscle than I would have guessed she had. Apparently just realizing it, she took her hand back and said, “I beg your pardon.” Her voice was low, as always, and Bill Brundage was talking, but I caught it, and that’s what she said. I reached across her lap to the chair on the other side and flipped the switch on the control box.
“Corey Brigham?” she said. “He said Corey Brigham, didn’t he?”
“He certainly did.” I got up, went to the door, turned on lights, and came back. “I’m going to tell Mr. Jarrell. Do you want to come?”
“What?” Her face tilted up. It was shocked. “Oh, of course, tell them. You tell them.”
Evidently she wasn’t coming, so I left her. Going along the corridor I was thinking that the news might not be news to one of them. It was even possible that it hadn’t been news to Susan. At the card table in the lounge they were in the middle of a hand, and I went and stood by until the last trick was raked in.
“I wasted my queen, damn it,” Jarrell said. He turned to me. “Anything new, Goodwin?”
“Not from the district attorney,” I told him. “Just routine, about the last time I saw Jim Eber — and for me the only time. Now he’ll be asking about the last time I saw Corey Brigham. You too. All of you.”
I had three of their faces: Jarrell, Trella, and Wyman. Nora was shuffling. None of them told me anything. There was no point in prolonging it, so I went on. “Something new on TV just now. The body of Corey Brigham has been found in a parked car. Shot. Murdered.”
Jarrell said, “Good God. No!” Nora stopped shuffling and her head jerked to me. Trella’s blue eyes stretched at me. Wyman said, “You wouldn’t be pulling a gag, would you?”
“No gag. Your wife was there, I mean in the studio. She heard it.”
Wyman shoved his chair back and was up and gone. Jarrell demanded, “Found in a car? Whose car?”
“I don’t know. For what I do know I’ll give you the broadcast verbatim. I’m good at that.” I did so, not trying to copy Bill Brundage’s delivery, just his words. At the end I added, “Now you know all I know.”
Trella spoke. “You said he was murdered. That didn’t say murder. He might have shot himself.”
I shook my head. “No gun in the car.”
“Anyway,” Nora said, “he wouldn’t have got under a rug. If Corey Brigham was going to shoot himself he would do it in the dining room of the Penguin Club.” It wasn’t as mean as it reads; she was merely stating a fact.
“He had no family,” Trella said. “I guess we were his closest friends. Shouldn’t you do something, Otis?”
“You don’t need me,” I said. “I’m sorry I had to break up your game.” To Jarrelclass="underline" “I’ll be with Mr. Wolfe, in case.”
“No.” He was emphatic. “I want you here.”
“You’ll soon be too busy here to bother with me. First your former secretary, and now your friend Brigham. I’m afraid that calls for officious prying, and I’d rather not be in the way.”
I moved, and I didn’t mosey. I was surprised that someone hadn’t already come, since they had got sufficiently interested in the Jarrells to collect miscellaneous facts and the collection must have included the name of Corey Brigham. The one who came might be Lieutenant Rowcliff — it was his kind of errand; and while I liked nothing better than twisting Rowcliff’s ear, I wasn’t in the humor for it at the moment. I wanted a word with Wolfe before twisting anybody’s ear, even Rowcliff’s. So I didn’t mosey, leaving the premises, crossing the avenue, and getting a taxi headed downtown.