Murder by the Book

"Now listen," Blanche insisted, "you're in trouble. I've been in trouble all my life, and I know. Have a drink. Two jiggers of dry gin, one jigger of dry vermouth-"

"Be quiet, Blanche," Mrs. Adams snapped.

"Go to hell," Blanche snapped back. "This is social. You can't get Corrigan to fire me, either, you old papoose."

I would have liked to toss her out a window. I cut in. "Did I mix that right, Blanche, or didn't I?"

"Sure you did."

"Call me Archie."

"Sure you did, Archie."

"Okay, and I'm doing this right too. I do everything right. Would I let Mrs. Abrams and Mr. Wellman go without drinks if they wanted them?"

"Certainly not."

"Then that settles it." I turned to my right, having promised Mrs. Abrams that Wellman would be called on first. "Mr. Wellman, I've been telling these ladies about the case that Mr. Wolfe and I are working on, and they're interested, partly because they work in the office where Leonard Dykes worked. I told them you and Mrs. Abrams were upstairs waiting to see Mr. Wolfe, and I thought you might be willing to tell them something about your daughter Joan. I hope you don't mind?"

"I don't mind."

"How old was Joan?"

"She was twenty-six. Her birthday was November nineteenth."

"Was she your only child?"

"Yes, the only one."

"Was she a good daughter?"

"She was the best daughter a man ever had."

There was an astonishing interruption-at least, astonishing to me. It was Mrs. Abrams' voice, not loud but clear. "She was no better than my Rachel."

Wellman smiled. I hadn't seen him smile before. "Mrs. Abrams and I have had quite a talk. We've been comparing notes. It's all right, we won't fight about it. Her Rachel was a good daughter too."

"NO, there's nothing to fight about. What was Joan going to do, get married or go on with her career, or what?"

He was still a moment. "Well, I don't know about that. I told you she graduated from Smith College with honors." "Yes."

"There was a young fellow from Dartmouth we thought maybe she was going to hitch up with, but she was too young and had sense enough to know it. Here in New York-she was here working for those publishers nearly four years-she wrote us back in Peoria about different-"

"Where's Peoria?" Blanche Duke demanded.