Champagne for One

"Oh." Her eyes widened. "Good heavens! That’s obvious, certainly, but if you’ll believe me, Mr Goodwin, it hadn’t occurred to me. My only thought was that Faith had not killed herself. My mind had stopped there." Her lips tightened. She shook her head. "I can’t help it," she said emphatically. "I wish you success, anyhow. I would help you if I could."

"You already have," I assured her, "and maybe you can more. If you don’t mind a few questions. Since you’ve read the paper, you know who was there Tuesday evening. About the three girls-Helen Yarmis, Ethel Varr, and Rose Tuttle-they were all here at the time Faith Usher was, weren’t they?"

"Yes. That is, the times overlapped. Helen and Ethel left a month before Faith did. Rose came six weeks before Faith left."

"Had any of them known her before?"

"No. I didn’t ask them-I ask the girls as few questions as possible about their past-but there was no indication that they had, and there isn’t much going on here that I don’t know about."

"Did any trouble develop between any of them and her?"

She smiled. "Now, Mr Goodwin. I said I would help you if I could, but this is ridiculous. My girls have their squabbles and their peeves, naturally, but I assure you that nothing that happened here put murder into the heart of Helen or Ethel or Rose. If it had I would have known it, and I would have dealt with it."

"Okay. If it wasn’t one of them I’ll have to look elsewhere. Take the three male guests-Edwin Laidlaw, Paul Schuster, and Beverly Kent. Do you know any of them?"

"No. I had never heard their names before."

"You know nothing about them?"

"Nothing whatever."

"What about Cecil Grantham?"

"I haven’t seen him for several years. His father brought him twice-no, three times-to our summer picnic, when Cecil was in his middle teens. After his father died he was on our Board of Directors for a year, but he resigned."

"You know of no possible connection between him and Faith Usher?"

"No."

"What about Robert Robilotti?"

"I have seen him only once, more than two years ago, when he came to our Thanksgiving dinner with Mrs Robilotti. He played the piano for the girls and had them singing songs, and when Mrs Robilotti was ready to leave, the girls didn’t want him to go. My feelings were mixed."

"I’ll bet they were. Faith Usher wasn’t here then?"

"No."

"Well, we’re all out of men. Celia Grantham?"