Paul Schuster . He was a prodigy. He had worked his way through college and law school, and when he had graduated with high honours a clerkship had been offered him by a justice of the United States Supreme Court, but he had preferred to go to work for a Wall Street firm with five names at the top, and a dozen at the side, of its letterhead. Probably a hundred and twenty bucks a week. Even more probably, at fifty he would be raking in half a million a year. Laidlaw knew him only fairly well and could furnish no information about the nature and extent of his intimacies with either sex. The owner of one of the five names at the top of the letterhead, now venerable, had been Albert Granthams lawyer, and that was probably the connection that had got Schuster at Mrs Robilottis dinner table.
Beverly Kent . Of the Rhode Island Rents, if that means anything to you. It didnt to me. His family was still hanging on to three thousand acres and a couple of miles of a river named Usquepaugh. He too had been in Laidlaws class at Harvard, and had followed a family tradition when he chose the diplomatic service for a career. In Laidlaws opinion it wasnt likely that he had ever been guilty of an indiscretion, let alone an outrage, with a female.
Edwin Laidlaw . A reformed man, a repentant sinner, and a recovered soul. He said he had more appropriate cliches handy, but I told him those would do. When he had inherited his fathers stack, three years ago, he had gone on as before, horsing around, and had caught up with himself only after the Faith Usher affair. He had not, to the best of his knowledge, ever made any other woman a mother, married or unmarried. It had taken more than half of his assets to buy the Malvin Press, and for four months he had been spending ten hours a day at his office, five days a week, not to mention evenings and weekends. He thought he would be on to the publishing business in five years.
As for Faith Usher, his thinking that she had not been promiscuous, and his not raising the question, at his last meeting with her, whether there was any doubt about his being the father of the baby she was carrying, had been based entirely on the impression he had got of her. He knew nothing whatever about her family or background. He hadnt even known where she lived; she had refused to tell him. She had given him a phone number and he had called her at it, but he didnt remember what it was, and he had made a little private ceremony of destroying his phone-number book when he had reformed. When I said that on a weeks vacation trip there is time for a lot of talk, he said they had done plenty of talking, but she had shied away from anything about her. His guess was that she had probably graduated from high school.
We had spent a solid hour with him on the party before Wolfe went up to the plant rooms. Wolfe took him through every minute of it, trying to get some faint glimmer of a hint. Laidlaw was sure that neither he nor Faith Usher had said or done anything that could have made anyone suspect they had ever met before, except her refusing to dance with him, and no one had heard that but me. He had asked her to dance because he thought it would be noticed if he didnt.
Of course the main point was when Cecil Grantham came to the bar to get the champagne. Laidlaw had been standing there with Helen Yarmis, with whom he had just been dancing, and Mr and Mrs Robilotti. As he and Helen Yarmis approached the bar, Beverly Kent and Celia Grantham were moving away, and Mr and Mrs Robilotti were there, and of course Hackett. Laidlaw thought he and Helen Yarmis had been there more than a minute, but not more than two, when Cecil Grantham came; that was what he had told the police. He couldnt say whether, when he had taken two glasses of champagne for Helen Yarmis and himself, there had been other glasses
on the bar with champagne in them; he simply hadnt noticed. The police had got him to try to recall the picture, but he couldnt. All he was sure of was that he hadnt poisoned any champagne, but he was almost as sure that Helen Yarmis hadnt either. She had been right at his elbow.
There was more, a lot more, but thats enough for here. You can see why I said that most of it was a waste of time and paper. I might mention that Wolfe had dictated the memorandum, and I had typed it, and Laidlaw had signed it. Also, as instructed by Wolfe, as soon as Laidlaw had gone I phoned Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin, and Orrie Gather, and asked them to drop in at nine oclock.
At six, on the dot as always, Wolfe entered and crossed to his desk. I collated the originals of the four finished pages, took them to him, and went back to the typewriter. I was rolling out the fifth page when he spoke.
Archie.
I twisted my neck. Yes, sir?
Your attention, please.
I swivelled. Yes, sir.
You will agree that this is a devil of a problem, with monstrous difficulties in a disagreeable context.
Yes, sir.
I have asked you three times regarding your contention that Miss Usher did not commit suicide. The first time it was merely civil curiosity. The second time, in the presence of Mr Cramer, it was merely rhetorical, to give you an opportunity to voice your resolution. The third time, in the presence of Mr Laidlaw, it was merely by the way, since I knew you wouldnt pull back with him here. Now I ask you again. You know how it stands. If I undertake this job, on the assumption that she was murdered, an assumption based solely on your testimony, you know what it will entail in time, energy, wit, and vexation. The expense will be on Mr Laidlaw, but the rest will be on me. I dont care to risk, in addition, the chance that I am burrowing in an empty hole. So I ask you again.