"I do say it. It's too bad, because really I like Blanche, and she likes me. This was starting to die down, and then the police came back and stirred it up again, and now you say it was something you told them about these two girls being killed that made them come back. I'm not blaming you, but I wish you hadn't, because - well, you saw what happened here just now. Could you hear what we said?"
"Some."
"Anyway, you heard Helen say that Conroy O'Malley killed Dykes because Dykes got him disbarred. That isn't true. O'Malley was disbarred for bribing a foreman of a jury in a civil suit. I don't know who it was that informed the court, that never came out, but it was certainly someone connected with the other side. Of course it made a lot of talk in the office, all kinds of wild talk - that Louis Kustin had done the informing because O'Malley didn't like him and wouldn't make him a member of the firm, and that -"
"Is this wise, Eleanor?" Dolly Harriton asked coldly.
"I think so," Eleanor said, not fazed. "He ought to understand." She went on to me. "- and that others had done it, Mr. Corrigan and Mr. Briggs among them, for similar reasons, and that Leonard Dykes had done it because O'Malley was going to fire him. I wouldn't even be surprised if there was talk that I had done it, I suppose because he wouldn't buy me some new pajamas. As the months went by there wasn't so much of it, and then Leonard Dykes got killed and it started up again. I don't know who began it that O'Malley had killed Dykes because he found out that Dykes had been the informer to the court, but someone did, and it was worse than ever. Just a lot of wild talk. No one really knew anything. You heard Blanche ask me if I was wearing pajamas when O'Malley told me something."
She seemed to think she had asked a question, so I grunted an affirmative.
"Well, what he told me, just a few weeks ago, was that he had heard that it was the jury foreman's wife who had written the anonymous letter to the judge telling about the bribing. It isn't likely that I was wearing pajamas, because I don't wear them in the office, and it was in the office that he told me - of course he's no longer connected with the firm, but he comes there once in a while. The talk that O'Malley killed Dykes is simply ridiculous."
"Why don't you say what you think?" Helen Troy demanded. "You think Uncle Fred killed Dykes. Why don't you say so?"
"I've never said I think that, Helen."
"But you do."
"I do," Blanche Duke stated, still ready to tangle.
"Who is Uncle Fred?" I asked.
Helen answered. "He's my uncle, Frederick Briggs. They don't like him. They think he informed on O'Malley because he wouldn't make him a partner, and Dykes found out about it and threatened to tell O'Malley, and Uncle Fred killed Dykes to keep him from telling. You know perfectly well you think that, Eleanor."
"I do," Blanche repeated.
"You girls work in a law office," Dolly Harriton said warningly, "and you should realize that gabbing in the women's room is one thing, and talking like this to Mr. Goodwin is quite another. Didn't you ever hear of slander?"
"I'm not slandering anyone," Eleanor declared, and she wasn't. She looked at me. "The reason I tell you all this, I think you've wasted a lot of orchids and food and drink. Your client is Mr. Wellman, and you're investigating the death of his daughter, and you went to all this trouble and expense because you think there was a connection between her and Leonard Dykes. That list of names he wrote that was found in his room - what if some friend was there one evening and said he was trying to choose a name to use on something he had written, and Dykes and the friend made up some names and Dykes wrote them down? There are a dozen ways it could have happened. And from what you say, that name Baird Archer is absolutely the only thing that connects Dykes with Joan Wellman and Rachel Abrams."
"No," I contradicted her. "There's another. They were all three murdered."
"There are three hundred homicides in New York every year." Eleanor shook her head. "I'm just trying to put you straight. You got us all worked up, or Mrs. Abrams and Mr. Wellman did, and from that row we had you might think you have started something, but you haven't. That's why I told you all that. We all hope you find the man that killed those girls, I know I do, but I don't think you'll ever do it this way."
"Look," Nina Perlman said, "I've got an idea. Let's all chip in and hire him to find out who informed on O'Malley and who killed Dykes. Then we'd know."
"Nonsense!" Mrs. Adams snapped.
Portia Liss objected. "I'd rather hire him to catch the man that killed the girls."
"That's no good," Blanche told her. "Wellman has already hired him for that."
"How much do you charge?" Nina asked.
She got no reply, not that I resented it, but because I was busy. I had left my chair and gone to the side table, where there was a large celadon bowl, and, getting a couple of sheets from my pocket notebook and tearing them into pieces, was writing on the pieces. Blanche, asking what I was doing, got no reply either until I had finished writing, put the pieces of paper in the bowl, and, carrying the bowl, returned to the table and stood behind Mrs. Adams.
"Speech," I announced. Helen Troy did not say oyez.
"I admit," I said, "that I have ruined the party, and I offer my regrets. If you think that I am rudely sending you home I regret that too, but it must be faced that I have doused all hope of continued revelry. I do offer a little consolation, with the permission of Mr. Wolfe. For a period of one year from date each of you will be sent upon request three orchids each month. You may request three at one time or separately, as you prefer. Specifications of color will be met as far as possible."
There were appropriate noises and expressions. Claire Burkhardt wanted to know, "Can we come and pick them out?"
I said that might be arranged, by appointment only. "Earlier," I went on, "it was suggested that one of you be chosen to demonstrate on my person your appreciation for this occasion. Maybe you no longer feel like it, but if you do I have a proposal. In this bowl are ten pieces of paper, and on each piece I have written one of your names. I will ask Mrs. Adams to take one of the pieces from the bowl, and the one whose name is drawn will accompany me forthwith to the Bobolink, where we will dance and dally until one of us gets tired. I don't tire easily."
"If my name is in there you will please remove it," Mrs. Adams ultimatumed.
"If it's drawn," I told her, "you can draw another. Does anyone else wish to be excused?"
Portia Liss said, "I promised to be home by midnight."
"Simple. Get tired at eleven-thirty." I held the bowl above the level of Mrs. Adams' eyes. "Will you draw one, please?"
She didn't like doing it, but it was a quick and easy way of getting the party over and done with, so after a second's hesitation she reached up over the rim of the bowl, withdrew a slip, and put it on the table.
Mabel Moore, at her left, called out, "Sue!"
I removed the other slips and stuck them in a pocket.
Sue Dondero protested, "My lord, I can't go to the Bobolink in these clothes!"
"It doesn't have to be the Bobolink," I assured her. "I guess you're stuck, unless you want us to draw again."
"What for?" Blanche snorted. "What do you bet they didn't all say Sue?"
I didn't dignify it with a denial. I merely took nine slips from my right-hand pocket and tossed them on the table. Later on in the evening there might be occasion to show Sue the nine in my left-hand pocket, those I had taken from the bowl.
10
ORDINARILY Fritz takes Wolfe's breakfast tray up him at eight o'clock, but that Thursday he phoned down to say he wanted to see me before he went up to the plant rooms at nine, and I thought I might as well save Fritz a trip. So at 8:05, having catered, I pulled a chair around and sat. Sometimes Wolfe breakfasted in bed and sometimes at the table by the window. That morning the sun was shining in and he was at the table. Looking at the vast expanse of yellow pajamas in the bright sun made me blink. He never says a word if he can help it until his orange juice is down, and he will not gulp orange juice, so I gave a fair imitation of sitting patiently. Finally he put the empty glass down, cleared his throat explosively, and started spreading the half-melted butter on a hot griddle cake.