I got her arm again and eased her over and got a chair behind her, and she sank into it. She looked at me and said, “Thank you.” She looked at Wolfe: “Something awful has happened. I didn’t want to go home and I... I came here. I’m afraid. I have been all along, really, but... I’m afraid now. Perren is dead. Just now, up on 73rd Street. He died on the sidewalk.”
“Indeed. Mr. Gebert.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at her. “Breathe, Miss Frost. In any event, you need to breathe. — Archie, get a little brandy.”
Chapter 16
Our client shook her head. “I don’t want any brandy. I don’t think I could swallow.” She was querulous and shaky. “I tell you... I’m afraid!”
“Yes.” Wolfe had sat up and got his eyes open. “I heard you. If you don’t pull yourself together, with brandy or without, you’ll have hysterics, and that will be no help at all. Do you want some ammonia? Do you want to lie down? Do you want to talk? Can you talk?”
“Yes.” She put the fingertips of both hands to her temples and caressed them delicately — her forehead, then the temples again. “I can talk. I won’t have hysterics.”
“Good for you. You say Mr. Gebert died on the sidewalk on 73rd Street. What killed him?”
“I don’t know.” She was sitting up straight, with her hands clasped in her lap. “He was getting in his car and he jumped back, and he came running down the sidewalk toward us... and he fell, and then Lew told me he was dead—”
“Wait a minute. Please. It will be better to do this neatly. I presume it happened after you left the chapel where the services were held. Did all of you leave together? Your mother and uncle and cousin and Mr. Gebert?”
She nodded. “Yes. Perren offered to drive mother and me home, but I said I would rather walk, and my uncle said he wanted to have a talk with mother, so they were going to take a taxi. We were all going slow along the sidewalk, deciding that—”