Three times, Gene said. Cramer had plenty of questions for both mother and son. It was in the middle of them that Wolfe passed me a slip of paper on which he had scribbled:
Tell Fritz to bring sandwiches and coffee for you and me. Also for those left in the front room. No one else. Of course Saul and Theodore.
I left the room, found Fritz in the kitchen, delivered the message, and returned.
Gene stayed cooperative to the end, and Mrs. Orwin tried, though it was an effort. They said they had been together all the time, which I happened to know wasn’t so, having seen them separated at least twice during the afternoon — and Cramer did too, since I had told him. They said a lot of other things, among them that they hadn’t left the plant rooms between their arrival and their departure with Wolfe; that they had stayed until most of the others were gone because Mrs. Orwin wanted to persuade Wolfe to sell her some plants; that Colonel Brown had wandered off by himself once or twice; that they had been only mildly concerned about Cynthia’s absence because of assurances from Colonel Brown and me; and so on and so forth. Before they left, Gene made another try for a commitment to keep his mother’s name out of it, and Cramer appreciated his frankness so much that he promised to do his best. I couldn’t blame Cramer; people like them might be in a position to call almost anybody, even the commissioner or the mayor, by his first name.
Fritz had brought trays for Wolfe and me, and we were making headway with them. In the silence that followed the departure of the Orwins, Wolfe could plainly be heard chewing a mouthful of mixed salad.
Cramer sat frowning at us. He spoke not to Wolfe but to me. “Is that imported ham?”
I shook my head and swallowed before I answered. “No, Georgia. Pigs fed on peanuts and acorns. Cured to Mr. Wolfe’s specifications. It smells good but it tastes even better. I’ll copy the recipe for you — no, damn it, I can’t, because the typewriter’s in the office. Sorry.” I put the sandwich down and picked up another. “I like to alternate — first a bit of ham, then sturgeon, then ham, then sturgeon…”
I could see him controlling himself. He turned his head. “Levy! Get that Colonel Brown in.”
“Yes, sir. That man you wanted — Vedder — he’s here.”
“Then I’ll take him first.”
VI
Up in the plant rooms Malcolm Vedder had caught my eye by the way he picked up a flowerpot and held it. As he took a chair across the dining table from Cramer and me, I still thought he was worth another good look, but after his answer to Cramer’s third question I relaxed and concentrated on my sandwiches. He was an actor and had had parts in three Broadway plays. Of course that explained it. No actor would pick up a flowerpot just normally, like you or me. He would have to dramatize it some way, and Vedder had happened to choose a way that looked to me like fingers closing around a throat.
Now he was dramatizing this by being wrought up and indignant about the cops dragging him into an investigation of a sensational murder. He kept running the long fingers of both his elegant hands through his hair in a way that looked familiar, and I remembered I had seen him the year before as the artist guy in The Primitives.
“Typical!” he told Cramer, his eyes flashing and his voice throaty with feeling. “Typical of police clumsiness! Pulling me into this! The newspapermen out front recognized me, of course, and the damned photographers! My God!”
“Yeah,” Cramer said sympathetically. “It’ll be tough for an actor, having your picture in the paper. We need help, us clumsy police, and you were among those present. You’re a member of this flower club?”
No, Vedder said, he wasn’t. He had come with a friend, a Mrs. Beauchamp, and when she had left to keep an appointment he had remained to look at more orchids. If only he had departed with her he would have avoided this dreadful publicity. They had arrived about three-thirty, and he had remained in the plant rooms continuously until leaving with me at his heels. He had seen no one that he had ever known or seen before, except Mrs. Beauchamp. He knew nothing of any Cynthia Brown or Colonel Percy Brown. Cramer went through all the regulation questions and got all the expected negatives, until he suddenly asked, “Did you know Doris Hatten?”
Vedder frowned. “Who?”
“Doris Hatten. She was also—”
“Ah!” Vedder cried. “She was also strangled! I remember!”
“Right.”
Vedder made fists of his hands, rested them on the table, and leaned forward. His eyes had flashed again and then gone dead. “You know,” he said tensely, “that’s the worst of all, strangling — especially a woman.” His fists opened, the fingers spread apart, and he gazed at them. “Imagine strangling a beautiful woman!”
“Did you know Doris Hatten?”
“Othello,” Vedder said in a deep resonant tone. His eyes lifted to Cramer, and his voice lifted too. “No, I didn’t know her; I only read about her.” He shuddered all over and then, abruptly, he was out of his chair and on his feet. “Damn it all,” he protested shrilly, “I only came here to look at orchids! God!”
He ran his fingers through his hair, turned, and made for the door. Levy looked at Cramer with his brows raised, and Cramer shook his head impatiently.
I muttered at Wolfe, “He hammed it, maybe?”
Wolfe wasn’t interested.
The next one in was Bill McNab, garden editor of the Gazette. I knew him a little, but not well, most of my newspaper friends not being on garden desks. He looked unhappier than any of the others, even Mrs. Orwin, as he walked across to the table, to the end where Wolfe sat.
“I can’t tell you how much I regret this, Mr. Wolfe,” he said miserably.
“Don’t try,” Wolfe growled.
“I wish I could, I certainly do. What a really, really terrible thing! I wouldn’t have dreamed such a thing could happen — the Manhattan Flower Club! Of course, she wasn’t a member, but that only makes it worse in a way.” McNab turned to Cramer. “I’m responsible for this.”
“You are?”
“Yes. It was my idea. I persuaded Mr. Wolfe to arrange it. He let me word the invitations. And I was congratulating myself on the great success! The club has only a hundred and eighty-nine members, and there were over two hundred people here. Then this! What can I do?” He turned. “I want you to know this, Mr. Wolfe. I got a message from my paper; they wanted me to do a story on it for the news columns, and I refused point-blank. Even if I get fired — I don’t think I will.”
“Sit down a minute,” Cramer invited him.
McNab varied the monotony on one detail, at least. He admitted that he had left the plant rooms three times during the afternoon, once to accompany a departing guest down to the ground floor, and twice to go down alone to check on who had come and who hadn’t. Aside from that, he was more of the same. He had never heard of Cynthia Brown. By now it was beginning to seem not only futile but silly to spend time on seven or eight of them merely because they happened to be the last to go and so were at hand. Also it was something new to me from a technical standpoint. I had never seen one stack up like that. Any precinct dick knows that every question you ask of everybody is aimed at one of the three targets: motive, means, and opportunity. In this case there were no questions to ask because those were already answered. Motive: the guy had followed her downstairs, knowing she had recognized him, had seen her enter Wolfe’s office and thought she was doing exactly what she was doing, getting set to tell Wolfe, and had decided to prevent that the quickest and best way he knew. Means: any piece of cloth; even his handkerchief would do. Opportunity: he was there — all of them on Saul’s list were.