Read Online Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe by Three at Wolfe's Door - Free Book Online

to some guest that didn’t have any.”
    â€œThen why didn’t she say so?” I asked.
    â€œBecause she was scared. The way Nero Wolfe came at us was enough to scare anybody. And now she won’t say so because she has signed a statement and she’s even more scared.”
    I shook my head. “I’m sorry, but if you analyze that you’ll see that it won’t do. It’s very tricky. You can do it the way I did this afternoon. Take twenty-four little pieces of paper, on twelve of them write the names of the guests, and arrange them as they sat at the table. On the other twelve pieces write the names of the twelve girls. Then try to manipulate the twelve girlpieces so that one of them either took in two plates at once, and did not give either of them to Pyle, or went back for a second plate, and did not give either the first one or the second one to Pyle. It can’t be done. For if either of those things happened there wouldn’t have been one mix-up, there would have been two. Since there was only one mix-up, Pyle couldn’t possibly have been served by a girl who neither brought in two plates at once nor went back for a second one. So the idea that a girl
innocently
brought in two plates is out.”
    â€œI don’t believe it,” Nora said flatly.
    â€œIt’s not a question of believing.” I was still sympathetic. “You might as well say you don’t believe two plus two is four. I’ll show you. May I have some paper? Any old kind.”
    She went to a table and brought some, and I took my pen and wrote the twenty-four names, spacing them, and tore the paper into twenty-four pieces. Then I knelt on a rug and arranged the twelve guest pieces in a rectangle as they had sat at the table—not that that mattered, since they could have been in a straight line or a circle, but it was plainer that way. The girls gathered around. Nora knelt facing me, Lucy rolled over closer and propped on her elbows, Carol came and squatted beside me, Peggy plopped down at the other side, and Helen stood back of Nora.
    â€œOkay,” I said, “show me.” I took “Quinn” and put it back of “Leacraft.” “There’s no argument about that, Marjorie Quinn brought the first plate and gave it to Leacraft. Remember there was just one mix-up, started by Peggy when she saw Pyle had been served and gave hers to Nero Wolfe. Try having any girl bring in a second plate—or bring in two at once if you still think that might have happened—without either serving Pyle or starting a second mix-up.”
    My memory has had a long stiff training under the strains and pressures Wolfe has put on it, but I wouldn’t undertake to report all the combinations they tried, huddled around me on the floor, even if I thought you cared. They stuck to it for half an hour or more. The most persistent was Peggy Choate, the redhead. After the others had given up she stayed with it, frowning and biting her lip, propped first on one hand and then the other. Finally she said, “Nuts,” stretched an arm to make a jumble of all the pieces of paper, guests and girls, got up, and returned to her chair. I did likewise.
    â€œIt’s just a trick,” said Carol Annis, perched on the couch again.
    â€œI still don’t believe it,” Nora Jaret declared. “I do not believe that one of us deliberately poisoned a man—one of us sitting here.” Her big brown eyes were at me. “Good lord, look at us! Point at her! Point her out! I dare you to!”
    That, of course, was what I was there for—not exactly to point her out, but at least to get a hint. I had had a vague idea that one might come from watching them maneuver the pieces of paper, but it hadn’t. Nor from anything any of them had said. I had been expecting Helen Iacono to introduce the subject of Vincent Pyle’s
modus operandi
with girls, but apparently she had decided