“Look,” he said. “This is my house, Captain. These people are my guests. Is any of this badgering getting you anywhere? And . . . where is there to get? Maybe she had a heart attack. Maybe she ate something that—” He stopped, rather abruptly; rather as if he had stumbled over something.

Weigand waited, but Pitt did not continue. Then Bill said they had thought of that. The symptoms—they had all noticed the symptoms—including the dilation of the pupils, might have been due to acute food poisoning. But she had eaten almost nothing during the cocktail period. The maid who had passed canapés was sure of that. Certainly she had eaten nothing the rest had not. And she had drunk only ginger ale, from a freshly opened bottle.

“Which,” Bill said, “apparently you opened, Jerry.”

Jerry North ran his right hand through his hair. He looked at Bill blankly.

“Of course you did,” Pam said. “So vigorously the bottle cap flew off. Don’t you—”

“Oh,” Jerry said. Everybody looked at him. “Is that supposed—”

But he was interrupted by Pitt, still leaning forward in his chair. “Wait,” Pitt said, and put right thumb and index finger together, firmly, as if to hold a thought pinched between them. They waited.

“This place I took her to lunch,” Stanley said. “It’s a little place—little downstairs place, but wonderful food. I’ve eaten there off and on for years. But . . . I don’t suppose it’s too damned sanitary. Not like your labs are, Clark. And the weather’s been hot. And—” He seemed to remember something else and held this new memory between thumb and finger. “Miss Hartley ate most of a bowl of ripe olives. Said she never seemed to get enough of them. And . . . isn’t there something that can get into ripe olives? That can poison people?” He put the heel of one hand to his forehead. “God,” he said. “Do you suppose it was that?”

“You mean food poisoning?” Weigand said. “Yes—years ago people got it from ripe olives. But not recently, that I’ve heard of. New methods and—”

“The olives are imported,” Pitt said. “From Italy, I think. Yes. Dilated pupils—”

“Right,” Bill said. “And the other symptoms match quite well. You may—”

But now he was interrupted by a uniformed policeman, who brought him a slip of paper. Bill Weigand looked at it and put it in his pocket and said, “Right,” and the policeman went out again.

“Mr. Notson,” Bill said, “you’re production manager of the Winslow Pharmaceutical Company, aren’t you?”

Notson looked blank. He said, “Sure.”

“Which makes all kinds of drug products?”

Notson continued to look blank. He nodded his head.

“And Mr. Pitt,” Bill Weigand said. “You’re—”