by Peter King
It was Elsa Goddard—dressed to kill, was my first thought but I quickly changed it. She looked as if she had just come from, or was on her way to, a television appearance, and she promptly confirmed it.
“I’ll have one of Jenny’s specials—the ‘light and healthy’ gin fizz,” I said. “Nice to see you, Elsa. How goes the investigation of crime via TV?”
“On the Belvedere book case, it’s slow,” she said. “So slow that we haven’t aired anything on it for a couple of days. Any new revelations for me?”
“Any minute now,” I said airily. I was being sincere but she didn’t read it that way. Perhaps the entertainment business blunted the perception.
Twenty minutes later, we were seated and the first course was arriving. I had duly circulated among all the Witches and exchanged pleasantries, traded comments about the attractions of New Orleans and deflected questions about the quest for the book. “Going to keep us in suspense until after the meal?” Jenny asked. “That’s right,” I told her.
The first course was oyster stew. The plentiful supply of oysters off the Louisiana coast has led to their imaginative use in a number of ways in addition to the conventional raw condition. In this case, the oysters had been poached in a mixture of white wine and their own liquor, Jenny told us. Then they were put in a double boiler with cream, salt, pepper and cayenne.
A portion of Crab Imperial followed. This was served in a coquille shell and I could discern the tang of both Creole mustard and Tabasco sauce. The main course was Veal Detweiler, named, Jenny said, after a customer who came in three times a week and always ordered it. The name was changed in his honor. The small veal tenderloins had been seasoned and dusted with flour, sautéed in butter and set aside. To the hot butter in the pan had been added artichoke hearts, mushrooms, garlic, onions, cayenne pepper and dry white wine. It was a simple dish but exquisite.
The Café au Lait Soufflé was a local institution, said Jenny. Obviously the rich New Orleans café au lait was the basis but preparing it as a soufflé was a touch of inspiration and not easy to serve to that many diners as it needs to come directly from the oven to the table.
Small talk after the meal was at a minimum. I couldn’t exactly say that every member of the Witches was agog to hear what I had to say but they were certainly all curious. Jenny, as the hostess of the day, made a few statements about other business of the group, then she turned to me.
“And now, we will hear a report from the Gourmet Detective on his investigations on our behalf.”
I thanked them for their invitation to join them and congratulated Jenny on a superb meal. “Now, you want to hear about the Belvedere chef’s book …” I paused, milking the moment for the maximum effect.
“I’ll tell you what happened each step along the series of events that have tragically led to two murders.
“First, during the collection of books for the annual charity book sale, one of the volunteers saw the Belvedere book. Interested in food and cooking, she knew it would have considerable value and she listed it among the items to be put on sale. Then she read through the book. Certain comments by the chefs through the generations—the members of the family—were in the book, among the recipes, and ‘aides memoires’. This volunteer realized that in the wrong hands, the information could be used to blackmail the current Belvedere, Ambrose. She decided not to put the book in the auction.”
“What sort of information are we talking about here?” demanded the stern-looking lady with the prematurely gray hair.
“You’re asking me to tell you exactly what it was that the volunteer wanted to suppress,” I said, and there was a titter or two. I went on.
“The publicity had already gone out and a lot of interest in the book had been generated. The volunteer decided on an unusual solution to the problem—she had a copy of the book made, using only passages that she selected. It was this copy that went to the auction. It was this copy that Richie Mortensen bought, allegedly on Michael Gambrinus’ account. Someone else wanted the book, though, and killed Mortensen to get it.”
“So where is the book now?” a voice called out.
“The killer realized that the book was a forgery—”
“You mean a copy?” another questioner called out.
“No, a forgery. It reproduced some of the original material but not all of it—and probably not the material that the killer wanted. An acquaintance of Mortensen’s tried to take over the book and exploit it but all he did was to attract the killer’s attention.”
A figure half rose farther down the table. It was Leah.
“That was my husband, Earl,” she said in a soft voice. “I don’t know how long he had been involved but he apparently wanted to cash in on the book. I used to go to see him periodically and I must have arrived just after someone had killed him for the book.”
Murmurs of sympathy went around the table and Leah sat down.
Della raised a hand. “I don’t think we would have wanted the book if we’d known it was going to cause all this hurt and anguish,” she said, and nods of agreement came around.
“Who would have thought it would come to this?” Marguerite wondered, and Elsa said, “But there was no way we could have predicted all this. We just wanted the book.”
“I hate to sound cold-blooded about this,” Jenny said, “and no one feels more sorry for poor Leah than I do, but what did happen to the book? You’re telling us that you haven’t recovered it, so where is it? And will we never know what was in it?”
There was a rare silence in the room.
“My understanding is that the volunteer returned the book where it rightfully belonged—to the Belvedere family,” I said slowly. “I also understand that the family destroyed it.”
There was a gasp.
“So we’ll never know,” said Eleanor.
“Probably not,” I agreed. Before the conversation could rise, coming from a dozen parts of the table, I said, “I didn’t complete my mission for you. I did not provide you with the book. So we’ll call the matter closed. You owe me nothing.”
“We did agree on expenses—” Jenny said, but I waved a magnanimous hand.
“Forget it.”
They were forgetting about me already. A few faces showed disappointment, probably having expected startling revelations. I nodded to a few of those I had gotten to know and slipped out as surreptitiously as I could so as to avoid questions. It wasn’t difficult.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A MAN STEPPED IN front of me as I went out on to the sidewalk. “Lieutenant’s across the street,” he said, and led me across to what looked like a novelty store. It seemed abandoned but the lieutenant and another man were there, involved with some electronic equipment on a bench.
Delancey looked up. “Be with you in a minute.” He resumed adjusting the equipment that I realized was of the recording type. Seeming satisfied, he said something to the other man and came to me. “We got it all.”
He caught my puzzled look. “We taped your lunch, Got it all, loud and clear.”
“You didn’t tell me you were going to do that,” I said, probably sounding a little peevish.
“Didn’t need to.”
“Is it evidence?”
“Probably not. But we didn’t know till we heard it.”
He jerked a thumb toward the door. “There’s a station a coupla blocks. Let’s go there. Need you to sign some statements.”
It was a quiet time, crimewise, in this part of New Orleans, if this station was any barometer. Men and women, some in uniform, some not, moved around, computer screens pulsed with data, phones rang. It was all low-key. Delancey appeared to have visiting rights, though, and we went into a cubicle with a table and a few chairs.
“Tell me the whole story,” Delancey invited. “Just the way you see it.”
We sat. A tape recorder was already on the table and Delancey pulled it forward. “Any objections if I—”
“None at all,” I said, determined to be
mature about this. He squeezed down the RECORD button—I noted that the machine was all set anyway—and he leaned back to listen.
“It began with Enid Pargeter, a volunteer for the charity organization. Sorting out the donated books, she found one that was a chef’s book from the Belvedere restaurant. It must have gotten lost when the restaurant closed down and was found, along with a number of others, when the place was being cleaned out.
“She recognized it for what it was and put it in the catalog as a moderately valuable item. It was evidently a short while before she read it—that’s when she found she had a bundle of dynamite in her hands.”
“This is where the story gets interesting, right?” asked Delancey.
“It certainly is. The members of the Belvedere family, four of them before the current Ambrose, all kept a record, writing in that same book, recording their favorite dishes and recipes, making notes of tricks and secrets they ran across in the course of their cooking. All of that would have made the book of modest interest but not much more. There was one family secret that should never have gone in the book, though—and it was this that is at the root of this whole affair.”
Delancey nodded. “I’m all ears.”
“They were all absinthe drinkers—”
“This is where I need some input,” Delancey said. “Expand on this for me.”
“Absinthe is a liqueur, popular a century or so ago. We all know about Toulouse-Lautrec and the French Impressionist painters who drank it. It’s a hundred and sixty proof, that’s eighty-percent alcohol—more than twice scotch or bourbon—but that’s not its most dangerous feature.
“Absinthe contains wormwood, a plant that is not only habit-forming but causes delirium, hallucinations, memory loss, inability to function normally, permanent brain damage and early death. When its dangers were fully realized, it was banned in France in 1915 and in this country soon after.”
“Somebody must have come up with a substitute,” Delancey commented. “They always do.”
“They did; they came up with several substitutes—anise was the most popular, sometimes mixed with hyssop. Another plant known as ‘herbsaint’ was used, too, but to an addict, all of these were weak and unsatisfactory. Only absinthe gives the results they want, for drinking purposes as well as cooking. A great many people had become addicted by then and substitutes just didn’t do it. The oysters Rockefeller that made Antoine’s famous used absinthe but then lost its popularity when absinthe substitutes had to be used. The Belvederes served oysters Belvedere and other dishes, all probably containing absinthe.”
Delancey leaned toward me, fascinated by this. “There must have been a lot of addicts in New Orleans in those days.”
“A very large number, between the drinks and the food,” I agreed.
“And the Belvederes became addicts, too?”
“Sadly, yes. They managed to conceal it—especially after the banning of absinthe—by spreading the story that mental illness ran in the family, and when Alzheimer’s, Creutzfeldt-Jakob and similar diseases were researched, this made a convenient cover. In fact, I made a few phone calls and it was obvious that early confusion was common. One of those calls was to St. Cynthia’s, the mental hospital. Some of the symptoms are similar.”
“So if the book had fallen into the wrong hands, it could have proved a blackmail weapon against the family?”
“Well, I can think of a journalist or two who would like to make a big story out of it,” I agreed. “The point that bothered me, though, was the thought of one of the Witches killing Mortensen to get the book. It seemed out of character and, from a practical aspect, not reasonable.”
“You’re too soft on women,” said Delancey. “Do you know what percentage of them commit … well, never mind. Of course, it didn’t have to be one of them,” he added.
“No, but they themselves thought it was and I was inclined to think they were more into this whole business than anyone else, so they were more likely right. A quite different motive seemed to be called for, though.”
“Before we get to that, I’m a little puzzled about that book. It was a forgery, you said. How did that happen?”
“Mrs. Pargeter,” I said. “A woman of uncommon integrity. She realized that exposure of the book would be a terrible blow to the Belvedere family. She probably tried to pull it out of the auction but it had already been publicized. Its disappearance would have been noticed. She wanted to see the charity benefit but not at the expense of the Belvedere family. So she had a copy made.”
“That’s a point that sticks in my craw,” said Delancey. “How did she happen to know a forger? Not many people do.”
“On the wall of her apartment is a certificate of achievement awarded to her husband by the National Publishers Association. It refers to his work as setting up the first investigational section of the NPA. I called them and asked about that. It seems that at one time the association found itself encountering a lot of forged books and William Pargeter was chosen to do something about it. It must have been during that time that he uncovered the activities of several forgers. Herman Harburg was one of those interrogated, but no charges were ever brought. There are a few ways this might have gone, the most likely being that Harburg cooperated to a considerable degree with William Pargeter in his investigations—”
“Ratted on some of the other book forgers, you mean? In return for having any charges against him dropped?”
“You might want to put it that way in your report,” I said, being urbane but getting in a retaliatory dig at the same time. After all, no one likes to be bugged when they don’t know about it … “But this is a point you’ll have to clear up. Mrs. Pargeter must have learned that her husband included Harburg in his investigations. She could have also known Harburg as a book lover and a bookbinder. He may have always been a supporter of charity auctions and so on—they would be a good cover for him.”
“Mrs. Pargeter was taking a risk, wasn’t she?” asked Delancey. “She might have been putting a good blackmail lever in his hands—”
“She wouldn’t have to take that risk. I would bet that she simply photocopied selected pages and gave them to him to use as a guide to the handwriting. It wouldn’t matter if the book looked different overall because no one had seen the original. It would look authentic—well, an authentic copy, anyway—and the recipes and notes and so on would be convincing. All the stuff concerning absinthe would be left out of the material that Mrs. Pargeter gave to Harburg to copy.”
“Harburg gave her the book in the first place,” Delancey pointed out.
“Yes, but he told me that he never looked at them, especially when there was a large number. Even if he had, it might not have meant anything to him. As the book had come to Mrs. Pargeter from him, his name was uppermost in her mind. The idea of forging a copy might have originated that way.”
“That bookseller, Gambrinus,” Delancey said. “I don’t have a clear fix on him yet. What’s your reading?”
“I’m not fully clear on him, either. He’s very well-informed on books, including cooking books. He must have suspected that the Belvedere book was valuable but I haven’t figured out yet why he thought so. He has lived in New Orleans all his life—he would know about the Belvedere family. He might have known that they used absinthe themselves and put it into their products.
“At any rate, Gambrinus sent Mortensen to buy the book for him. Mortensen was a sharp cookie and could smell an opportunity. He planned to have the book ‘stolen’ from him and was taken by surprise when someone stole it from him and then killed him.
“Mortensen’s buddy, Earl Whelan, tried to take over the book and peddle it. He knew about it from his wife, Leah Rollingson.”
“An arrest was made this afternoon, as the ladies left the lunch at the General’s Tavern,” Delancey said matter-of-factly. “Other arrests were made an hour earlier.”
“The other arrests being at the distillery.”
“Right. I got hold of a guy calle
d Kilmer—he’s with the Louisiana Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco. We’ll probably have to get the FBI in if we find out that the distillery has been selling across state lines, but it’s best to nail them here in this state first. Kilmer’s known for some time that absinthe is being sold, but he’s not been able to put his finger on the source. He’s been able to tie in absinthe with several deaths so this case is a high priority with the A and T bureau.” He gave me his questioning look. “How’d you get on to this place?”
“Landers was the character following me—the one I told you about. I turned the tables on him and when I saw him in a bar and followed him to other bars, I learned more about him. I waited till he was absent from the distillery then went there and took a tour.”
Delancey raised an eyebrow. “They give tours?”
“They were a bit reluctant but I spun a story—”
Delancey rolled his eyes and put up a hand. “Don’t tell me.”
“Okay. So I saw this room, heavily padlocked with a steel door. Next to it was an old, beat-up wooden door. I got taken in by that trick once before. I got as close to these doors as I could, first one then the other. I have an extremely keen sense of smell and taste, Lieutenant, it comes with the job. Suspicion would, of course, be aroused by the heavy steel door but at the old wooden one, I detected just a faint aroma of aniseed—characteristic of absinthe.”
Delancey rubbed his chin reflectively. “Don’t know how to work in that kind of evidence—it’s what might be described as ‘intangible.’”
“A good description,” I agreed. “One other thing I saw clinched it for me—Landers had a photo of his wife on his desk. The different names fooled me, but when I saw that photograph of Marguerite, I was able to put it together.”
“I’m not real clear on the incrimination of the two,” Delancey admitted. “But they’ll point a finger at each other once we get them talking, whether deliberately or otherwise. She may have committed both murders, he may have, or each could have committed one of them.”