: shook his head. "We have not, and I doubt if we will. : have is a bunch of contradictions. You had them good and . before we got to them. We do have the last five, starting iJPeggy Choate, who found that Pyle had been served and gave (you, and then--but you know them. You got that yourself." I got those five, but not that they were the last. There : have been others in between."
t weren't. It's pretty well settled that those five were the j After Peggy Choate the last four plates were taken by Helen Nora Jaret, Carol Annis, and Lucy Morgan. Then that f Faber, who had been in the can, but there was no plate for -& the order in which they took them before that, the first that we can't pry out of them--except the first one, that Quinn. You couldn't either." turned a palm up. "I was interrupted." p*n were not You left them there in a huddle, scared stiff, and fc to the dining room to start in on the men. Your own private ' investigation, and to hell with the law. I was surprised to i here when I rang the bell just now. I supposed you'd i$nn out running errands like calling at the agency they got ; from. Or getting a line on Pyle to find a connection be 28
3 at Wolfe's Door
tween him and one of them. Unless you're no longer interested?" "I'm interested willy-nilly," Wolfe declared. "As I told the assistant district attorney, it is on my score that a man was poisoned in food prepared by Fritz Brenner. But I do not send Mr. Goodwin on fruitless errands. He is one and you have dozens, and if anything is to be learned at the agency or by inquiry into Mr. Pyle's associations your army will dig it up. They're already at it, of course, but if they had started a trail you wouldn't be here. If I send Mr. Goodwin--"
The doorbell rang and I got up and went to the hall. At the rear the door to the kitchen swung open part way and Fritz poked his head through, saw me, and withdrew. Turning to the front for a look through the panel, I saw that I had exaggerated when I told Wolfe that all twelve of them would be otherwise engaged. At least one wasn't. There on the stoop was Helen lacono.
rv
It had sounded to me as if Cramer had about said his say and would soon be moving along, and if he bumped into Helen lacono in the hall she might be too embarrassed to give me her phone number, if that was what she had come for, so as I opened the door I pressed a finger to my lips and ssfefeed at her, and then crooked the finger to motion her in. Her deep dark eyes looked a little startled, but she stepped across the sill, and I shut the door, turned, opened the first door on the left, to the front room, motioned to her to enter, followed, and closed the door.
"What's the matter?" she whispered.
"Nothing now," I told her. "This is soundproofed. There's a police inspector in the office with Mr. Wolfe and I thought you might have had enough of cops for a while. Of course if you want to meet him--"
"I don't. I want to see Nero Wolfe."
"Okay, 111 tell him as soon as the cop goes. Have a seat. It shouldn't be long."
Poison a la Carte
29
is a connecting door between the front room and the , but I went around through the hall, and here came Cramer. i inarching by without even the courtesy of a grunt, but I [ to the front to let him out, and then went to the office and iTWolfe, "I've got one of them in the front room. Helen lacono, Itewny-skinned Hebe who had you but gave her caviar to Kreis. '. I keep her while I get the rest of them?" i made a face. 'What does she want?" fo see you."
rtodk. a breath. "Confound it. Bring her in." it and opened the connecting door, told her to come, and her across to the red leather chair. She was more orna 1 in it than Cramer, but not nearly as impressive as she had it at first sight. She was puffy around the eyes and her skin had tsome glow. She told Wolfe she hadn't had any sleep. She said tad just left the District Attorney's office, and if she went : her mother would be at her again, and her brothers and i would come home from school and make noise, and anyway lad decided she had to see Wolfe. Her mother was old l and didn't want her to be an actress. It was beginning to tas if what she was after was a place to take a nap, but then i got a word in.
I said drily, "I don't suppose, Miss lacono, you came to con! about your career."
, no. I came because you're a detective and you're very clever l afraid. I'm afraid they'll find out something I did, and if >I won't have any career. My parents won't let me even if l-alive. I nearly gave it away already when they were asking long . So I decided to tell you about it and then if you'll f�e I'll help you. If you promise to keep my secret."
: promise to keep a secret if it is a guilty one--if it is a
of a crime or knowledge of one." Sfea't"
i you have my promise, and Mr. Goodwin's. We have kept 'Secrets.'' t light. I stabbed Vincent Pyle with a knife and got blood
3�
3 at Wolfe's Door
I stared. For half a second I thought she meant that he hadn't died of poison at all, that she had sneaked upstairs and stuck a knife in him, which seemed unlikely since the doctors would probably have found the hole.
Apparently she wasn't going on, and Wolfe spoke. "Ordinarily, Miss lacono, stabbing a man is considered a crime. When and where did this happen?"
"It wasn't a crime because it was in self-defense." Her rich contralto was as composed as if she had been telling us the multiplication table. Evidently she saved the inflections for her career. She was continuing. "It happened in January, about three months ago. Of course I knew about him, everybody in show business does. I don't know if it's true that he backs shows just so he can get girls, but it might as well be. There's a lot of talk about the girls he gets, but nobody really knows because he was always very careful about it. Some of the girls have talked but he never did. I don't mean just taking them out, I mean the last ditch. We say that on Broadway. You know what I mean?" "I can surmise."
"Sometimes we say the last stitch, but it means the same thing. Early last winter he began on me. Of course I knew about his reputation, but he was backing Jack in the Pulpit and they were about to start casting, and I didn't know it was going to be a flop, and if a girl expects to have a career she has to be sociable. I went out with him a few times, dinner and dancing and so forth and then he asked me to his apartment, and I went. He cooked the dinner himself--I said he was very careful. Didn't I?" "Yes."
"Well, he was. It's a penthouse on Madison Avenue, but no one else was there. I let him kiss me. I figure it like this, an actress gets kissed all the time on the stage and the screen and TV, and what's the difference? I went to his apartment three times and there was no real trouble, but the fourth time, that was in January, he turned into a beast right before my eyes, and I had to do something, and I grabbed a knife from the table and stabbed him with it. I got blood on my dress, and when I got home I tried to get it out but it left a stain. It cost forty-six dollars."
Poison a la Carte 31
"But Mr. Pyle recovered."
"Oh, yes. I saw him a few times after that, I mean just by accident, but he barely spoke and so did 1.1 don't think he ever told anyone about it, but what if he did? What if the police find out about it?"
Wolfe grunted. "That would be regrettable, certainly. You would be pestered even more than you are now. But if you have been candid with me you are not in mortal jeopardy. The police are not simpletons. You wouldn't be arrested for murdering Mr. Pyle last night, let alone convicted, merely because you stabbed him in self-defense last January."
"Of course I wouldn't," she agreed. "That's not it. It's my mother and father. They'd find out about it because they would ask them questions, and if I'm going to have a career I would have to leave home and my family, and I don't want to. Don't you see?" She came forward in the chair. "But if they find out right away who did it, who poisoned him, that would end it and I'd be all right. Only I'm afraid they won't find out right away, but I think you could if I help you, and you said last night that you're committed. I can't offer to help the police because they'd wonder why."