“Not me,” Daniel said grimly. “If I had known you did that-”
They glared at each other. Daniel muttered something and sat down.
The phone rang, and I swiveled and got it. It was Doc Vollmer, and I nodded to Wolfe and he took it. When he hung up he told them:
“The bottle from which Miss Nichols treated her wound this morning contained enough tetanus germs to destroy the population of a city, properly distributed.” He focused on Brady. “You may have some idea, doctor, how the police would regard that episode, especially if you had withheld it. It would give you no end of trouble. In a thing like this evasion or concealment should never be attempted without the guidance of an expert. By the way, how long had you known Miss Huddleston?”
“I had known her casually for some time. Several years.”
“How long intimately?”
“I wouldn’t say I knew her intimately. A couple of months ago I formed the habit of going there rather often.”
“What made you form the habit? Did you fall in love with her?”
“With whom?”
“Miss Huddleston.”
“Certainly not.” Brady looked not only astonished but insulted. “She was old enough to be my mother.”
“Then why did you suddenly start going there?”
“Why-a man goes places, that’s all.”
Wolfe shook his head. “Not in an emotional vacuum. Was it greed or parsimony? Free horseback rides? I doubt it; your income is probably adequate. Mere convenience? No; it was out of your way, quite a bother. My guess, to employ the conventional euphemism, is love. Had you fallen in love with Miss Nichols?”
“No.”
“Then what? I assure you, doctor, I am doing this much more tactfully than the police would. What was it?”
A funny look appeared on Brady’s face. Or a series of looks. First it was denial, then hesitation, then embarrassment, then do or die. All the time his eyes were straight at Wolfe. Suddenly he said, in a voice louder than he had been using, “I had fallen in love with Miss Timms. Violently.”
“Oh!” Maryella exclaimed in amazement. “You certainly never-”
“Don’t interrupt, please,” Wolfe said testily. “Had you notified Miss Timms of your condition?”
“No, I hadn’t.” Brady stuck to his guns. “I was afraid to. She was so-I didn’t suppose-she’s a terrible flirt-”
“That’s not true! You know mighty well-”
“Please!” Wolfe was peremptory. His glance shot from right to left and back again. “So all but one of you knew of Dr. Brady’s procuring that box of material from the stable, and all withheld the information from me. You’re hopeless. Let’s try another one, more specific. The day Miss Huddleston came here, she told me that Miss Nichols had a grievance against her, and she suspected her of sending those anonymous letters. I ask all of you- including you, Miss Nichols-what was that grievance?”
No one said a word.
“I ask you individually. Miss Nichols?”
Janet shook her head. Her voice was barely audible. “Nothing. It was nothing.”
“Mr. Huddleston?”
Daniel said promptly, “I have no idea.”
“Miss Timms?”
“I don’t know,” Maryella said, and by the way Wolfe’s eyes stayed with her an instant, I saw that he knew she was lying.
“Dr. Brady?”
“If I knew I’d tell you,” Brady said, “but I don’t.”
“Mr. Huddleston?”
Larry was waiting for him with a fixed smile that twisted a corner of his mouth. “I told you before,” he said harshly, “that I don’t know a damn thing. That goes right down the line.”
“Indeed. May I have your watch a moment, please?”
Larry goggled at him.
“That hexagonal thing on your wrist,” Wolfe said. “May I see it a moment?”
Larry’s face displayed changes, as Brady’s had shortly before. First it was puzzled, then defiant, then he seemed to be pleased about something. He snarled:
“What do you want with my watch?”
“I want to look at it. It’s a small favor. You haven’t been very helpful so far.”
Larry, his lips twisted with the smile again, unbuckled the strap and arose to pass the watch across the desk to Wolfe, whose fingers closed over it as he said to me:
“The Huddleston folder, Archie.”
I went and unlocked the cabinet and got out the folder and brought it, Wolfe took it and flipped it open and said:
“Stay there, Archie. As a bulwark and a witness. Two witnesses would be better. Dr. Brady, if you will please stand beside Mr. Goodwin and keep your eyes on me? Thank you.”
Wolfe’s eyes went through the gap between Brady and me to focus on Larry. “You are a very silly young man, Mr. Huddleston. Incredibly callow. You were smugly gratified because you thought I was expecting to find a picture of Miss Nichols in your watch case and would be chagrined not to. You were wrong. Now, doctor, and Archie, please observe. Here is the back of the watch. Here is a picture of Miss Nichols, trimmed to six sides, and apparently to fit. The point could be definitely determined by opening the watch case, but I’m not going to, because it will be opened later and microscopically compared with the picture to prove that it did contain it-Archie!”
I bulwarked. I owed Larry a smack anyhow, for bad manners if nothing else, but I didn’t actually deliver it, since all he did was shoot off his mouth and try to shove through Brady and me to make a grab for the watch. So I merely stiff-armed him and propelled him backwards into his chair and stood ready.
“So,” Wolfe went on imperturbably, “I put the watch and picture inside separate envelopes for safekeeping. Thus. If, Mr. Huddleston, you are wondering how I got that picture, your aunt left it here. I suggest that it is time for you to help us a little, and I’ll start with a question that I can make a test of. When did your aunt take that picture from you?”
Larry was trying to sneer, but it wasn’t working very well. His face couldn’t hold it because some of the muscles were making movements of their own.
“Probably,” Wolfe said, “it’s time to let the police in. I suppose they’ll get along faster with you-”
“You fat bastard!” But the snarl in Larry’s voice had become a whine.
Wolfe grimaced. “I’ll try once more, sir. You are going to answer these questions, if not for me then for someone less fat but more importunate. Would you rather have it dug out of the servants and your friends and acquaintances? It’s shabby enough as it is; that would only make it worse. When did your aunt take that picture from you?”
Larry’s jaw worked, but his tongue didn’t. Wolfe waited ten seconds, then said curtly:
“Let them in, Archie.”
I took a step, but before I took another one Larry blurted:
“Goddamn you! You know damn well when she took it! She took it the day she came down here!”
Wolfe nodded. “That’s better. But that wasn’t the first time she objected to your relations with Miss Nichols. Was
it?”
“No.”
“Did she object on moral grounds?”
“Hell, no. She objected to our getting married. She ordered me to break off the engagement. The engagement was secret, but she got suspicious and questioned Janet, and Janet told her, and she made me call it off.”
“And naturally you were engaged.” Wolfe’s voice was smooth, silky. “You burned for revenge-”
“I did not!” Larry leaned forward, having trouble to control his jaw. “You can come off that right now! You’re not going to pin anything on me! I never really wanted to marry her, and what’s more, I never intended to! I can prove that by a friend of mine!”
“Indeed.” Wolfe’s eyes were nearly shut. “A man like you has friends? I suppose so. But after your aunt made you break the engagement you still kept the picture in your watch?”
“Yes. I had to. I mean I had Janet to deal with too, and it wasn’t easy, living right there in the house. I was afraid of her. You don’t know her. I opened the watch case purposely in front of my aunt so she’d take that damn picture. Janet seemed to think the picture meant something, and I thought when she knew it was gone-”
“Did you know that Miss Nichols sent the anonymous letters?”
“No, I didn’t. Maybe I suspected, but I didn’t know.”
“Did you also suspect, when your aunt-”
“Stop! Stop it!”
It was Janet.
She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t have to. The tone alone was enough to stop anything and anybody. It was what you would expect to come out of an old abandoned grave, if you had such expectations. Except her mouth, no part of her moved. Her eyes were concentrated on Wolfe’s face, with an expression in them that made it necessary for me to look somewhere else. Apparently it had the same effect on the others, for they did the same as me. We gazed at Wolfe.