No, she said. She never said a word about him to me, and I doubt if she did to any of the girls.
But she did tell you things?
Not very much. If you mean facts, people she had known and things she had done, really nothing. But she talked with me a good deal, and I formed two conclusions about herI mean about her history. No, three. One was that she had had only one sexual relationship with a man, and a brief one. Another was that she had never known her father and probably didnt know who he was. The third was that her mother was still alive and that she hated herno, hate is too strong a word. Faith was not a girl for hating. Perhaps the word is repugnance. I made those three conclusions, but she never stated any of them explicitly. Beyond that I know nothing about her past.
Do you know her mothers name?
No. As I said, I have no facts.
How did she get to Grantham House?
She came here one day in March, just a year ago. She was in her seventh month. No letter or phone call, she just came. She said she had once read about Grantham House in a magazine and she remembered it. Her baby was born on May eighteenth. She smiled. I dont have on my tongue the dates of all the births here, but I looked it up for the police.
Is there any possibility that the baby is involved? I mean in her death? Anything or anyone connected with it or its adoption?
Not the slightest. Absolutely none. I handle that. You may take my word for it.
Did she ever have any visitors here?
No. Not one.
You say she was here five months, so she left in August. Did someone come for her?
No. Usually the girls dont stay so long after the baby comes, but Faith had rather a bad time and had to get her strength back. Actually someone did come for herMrs James Robbins, one of our directors, drove her to New York . Mrs Robbins had got a job for her at Berwicks, the furniture store, and had arranged for her to share a room with another girl, Helen Yarmis. As you know, Helen was there Tuesday evening. Helen might know if anythingYes, Dora?
I turned my head. The woman who had opened the doormiddle-aged and a little too plump for her blue uniformstood holding the knob. She spoke. Im sorry to interrupt, Doctor, but Katherine may be going to rush things a bit. Four times since nine oclock, and the last one was only twenty minutes.
Mrs Irwin was out of her chair and moving. By the time she reached me I was up too, to take the hand she offered.
It may be only a prelude, she said, but Id better go and see. I repeat, Mr Goodwin, I wish you success, in spite of what success would mean. I dont envy you your job, but I wish you success. Youll forgive me for rushing off.
I told her I would, and I could have added that Id rather have my job than hers, or Katherines either. As I got my coat from a chair and put it on I figured that if she had been there fifteen years and had averaged one a week Katherines would be the 34-th, or even at two a month it would be the 36-th On my way out to the car I had a worry. If I met the girls on their way back the manoeuvre would have to be repeated with me headed downhill and them up, and I didnt like the idea of them rubbing their fronts along the side of the car again, with the door handles. But luckily, as I started the engine, here they came, straggling from the tunnel of the driveway into the cleared space. Their faces were even pinker and they were puffing. One of them sang out, Oh, are you going? and another one called, Why dont you stay for lunch? I told them some other time. I was glad I had turned the car around on arrival. I had an impulse to tell them Katherine was tuning up for her big act to see how they would take it, but decided it wouldnt be tactful, and when they had cleared the way I fed gas and rolled.
The only one who didnt tell me good-bye was out of breath.
Chapter 8
Not that it had taken me six hours to drive back from Grantham House. I had got back in time to eat my share of lunch, kept warm by Fritz, and then had given Wolfe a verbatim report of my talk with Mrs Irwin. He was sceptical of my opinion that her mind was sound and her heart was pure, since he is convinced that every woman alive has a screw loose somewhere, but he had to agree that she had talked to the point, she had furnished a few hints that might be useful about some of our cast of characters, and she had fed the possibility that Austin Byne might not be guileless. Further discourse with Dinky was plainly indicated. I dialled his number and got no answer, and, since he might be giving his phone a recess, I took a walk through the sunshine, first to the bank to deposit Laidlaws cheque and then down to 87 Bowdoin Street.
Pushing Bynes button in the vestibule got no response. I had suggested to Wolfe that I might take along an assortment of keys so that if Byne wasnt home I could go on in and pass the time by looking around, but Wolfe had vetoed it, saying that Byne had not yet aroused our interest quite to that point. So I spent a long hour and a quarter in a doorway across the street. Thats one of the most tiresome chores in the business, waiting for someone to show when you have no idea how long it will be and you havent much more idea whether he has anything that will help.