Too Many Cooks nwo-5

by Rex Stout

  “What is a mare?”

  I cleared my throat. “The opposite of a horse. As you know, everything must have its opposite. There can’t be a right without a left, or a top without a bottom, or a best without a worst. In the same way there can’t be a mare without a horse or a horse without a mare. If you were to take, say, ten million horses-”

  I was stopped, indirectly, by Wolfe. I had been too interested in my chat with the Catalana girl to hear the others’ talk; what interrupted me was Vukcic rearing himself up and inviting Miss Berin to accompany him to the club car. It appeared that Wolfe had expressed a desire for a confidential session with her father, and I put the eye on him, wondering what kind of a charade he was arranging. One of his fingers was tapping gently on his knee, so I knew it was a serious project. When Constanza got up I did too.

  I bowed. “If I may?” To Wolfe: “You can send the porter to the club car if you need me. I haven’t finished explaining to Miss Berin about mares.”

  “Mares?” Wolfe looked at me suspiciously. “There is no information she can possibly need about mares which Marko can’t supply. We shall-I am hoping-we shall need your notebook. Sit down.”

  So Vukcic carried her off. I took the undersized chair again, feeling like issuing an ultimatum for an eight-hour day, but knowing that a moving train was the last place in the world for it. Vukcic was sure to disillusion her about the horse lesson, and might even put a crimp in my style for good.

  Berin had filled his pipe again. Wolfe was saying, in his casual tone that meant look out for an attack in force, “I wanted, for one thing, to tell you of an experience I had twenty-five years ago. I trust it won’t bore you.”

  Berin grunted. Wolfe went on, “It was before the war, in Figueras.”

  Berin removed his pipe. “Ha! So?”

  “Yes. I was only a youngster, but even so, I was in Spain on a confidential mission for the Austrian government. The track of a man led me to Figueras, and at ten o’clock one evening, having missed my dinner, I entered a little inn at a corner of the plaza and requested food. The woman said there was not much, and brought me wine of the house, bread, and a dish of sausages.”

  Wolfe leaned forward. “Sir, Lucullus never tasted sausage like that. Nor Brillat-Savarin. Nor did Vatel or Escoffier ever make any. I asked the woman where she got it. She said her son made it. I begged for the privilege of meeting him. She said he was not at home. I asked for the recipe. She said no one knew it but her son. I asked his name. She said Jerome Berin. I ate three more dishes of it, and made an appointment to meet the son at the inn the next morning. An hour later my quarry made a dash for Port-Vendres, where he took a boat for Algiers, and I had to follow him. The chase took me eventually to Cairo, and other duties prevented me from visiting Spain again before the war started.” Wolfe leaned back and sighed. “I can still close my eyes and taste that sausage.”

  Berin nodded, but he was frowning. “A pretty story, Mr. Wolfe. A real tribute, and thank you. But of course saucisse minuit-”

  “It was not called saucisse minuit then; it was merely sausage of the house in a little inn in a little Spanish town. That is my point, my effort to impress you: in my youth, without a veteran palate, under trying circumstances, in an obscure setting, I recognized that sausage as high art. I remember well: the first one I ate, I suspected, and feared that it was only an accidental blending of ingredients carelessly mixed; but the others were the same, and all those in the subsequent three dishes. It was genius. My palate hailed it in that place. I am not one of those who drive from Nice or Monte Carlo to the Corridona at San Remo for lunch because Jerome Berin is famous and saucisse minuit is his masterpiece; I did not have to wait for fame to perceive greatness; if I took that drive it would be not to smirk, but to eat.”

  Berin was still frowning. He grunted, “I cook other things besides sausages.”

  “Of course. You are a master.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “I seem to have somehow displeased you; I must have been clumsy, because this was supposed to be a preamble to a request. I won’t discuss your consistent refusal, for twenty years, to disclose the recipe for that sausage; a chef de cuisine has himself to think of as well as humanity. I am acquainted of the efforts that have been made to imitate it-all failures. I can-”

  “Failures?” Berin snorted. “Insults! Crimes!”

  “To be sure. I agree. I can see that it is reasonable of you to wish to prevent the atrocities that would be perpetrated in ten thousand restaurant kitchens all over the world if you were to publish that recipe. There are a few great cooks, a sprinkling of good ones, and a pestiferous host of bad ones. I have in my home a good one. Mr. Fritz Brenner. He is not inspired, but he is competent and discriminating. He is discreet, and I am too. I beseech you-this is the request I have been leading up to-I beseech you, tell me the recipe for saucisse minuit.”

  “God above!” Berin nearly dropped his pipe. He gripped it, and stared. Then he laughed. He threw up his hands and waved them around, and shook all over, and laughed as if he never expected to hear a joke again and would use it all up on this one. Finally he stopped, and stared in scorn. “To you?” he wanted to know. It was a nasty tone. Especially was it nasty, coming from Constanza’s father.

  Wolfe said quietly, “Yes, sir. To me. I would not abuse the confidence. I would impart it to no one. It would be served to no one except Mr. Goodwin and myself. I do not want it for display, I want it to eat. I have-”

  “God above! Astounding. You really think-”

  “No, I don’t think. I merely ask. You would, of course, want to investigate me; I would pay the expense of that. I have never violated my word. In addition to the expense, I would pay three thousand dollars. I recently collected a sizable fee.”

  “Ha! I have been offered five hundred thousand francs.”

  “For commercial purposes. This is for my guaranteed private use. It will be made under my own roof, and the ingredients bought by Mr. Goodwin, whom I warrant immune to corruption. I have a confession to make. Four times, from 1928 to 1930, when you were at the Tarleton, a man in London went there, ordered saucisse minuit, took away some in his pocket, and sent it to me. I tried analysis-my own, a food expert’s, a chef’s, a chemist’s. The results were utterly unsatisfactory. Apparently it is a combination of ingredients and method. I have-”

  Berin demanded with a snarl, “Was it Laszio?”

  “Laszio?”

  “Phillip Laszio.” He said it as if it were a curse. “You said you had an analysis by a chef-”

  “Oh. Not Laszio. I don’t know him. I have confessed that attempt to show you that I was zealous enough to try to surprise your secret, but I shall keep inviolate an engagement not to betray it. I confess again: I agreed to this outrageous journey, not only because of the honor of the invitation. Chiefly my purpose was to meet you. I have only so long to live-so many books to read, so many ironies to contemplate, so many meals to eat.” He sighed, half closed his eyes, and opened them again. “Five thousand dollars. I detest haggling.”

  “No.” Berin was rough. “Did Vukcic know of this? Was it for this he brought me-”

  “Sir! If you please. I have spoken of confidence. This enterprise has been mentioned to no one. I began by beseeching you; I do so again. Will you oblige me?”

  “No.”

  “Under no conditions?”

  “No.”

  Wolfe sighed clear to his belly. He shook his head. “I am an ass. I should never have tried this on the train. I am not myself.” He reached for the button on the casing. “Would you like some beer?”

  “No.” Berin snorted. “I am wrong, I mean yes. I would like beer.”

  “Good.” Wolfe leaned back and closed his eyes. Berin got his pipe lit again. The train bumped over a switch and swayed on a curve, and Wolfe’s hand groped for the arm of his seat and grasped it. The porter came and received the order, and soon afterward was back again with glasses and bottles, and served, and again I coughed up some jack. I sat
and made pictures of sausages on a blank page of my expense book as the beer went down.

  Wolfe said, “Thank you, sir, for accepting my beer. There is no reason why we should not be amicable. I seem to have put the wrong foot forward with you. Even before I made my request, while I was relating a tale which could have been only flattering to you, you had a hostile eye. You growled at me. What was my misstep?”

  Berin smacked his lips as he put down his empty glass, and his hand descended in an involuntary movement for the comer of an apron that wasn’t there. He reached for a handkerchief and used it, leaned forward and tapped a finger on Wolfe’s knee, and told him with emphasis: “You live in the wrong country.”

  Wolfe lifted his brows. “Yes? Wait till you taste terrapin Maryland. Or even, if I may say so, oyster pie a la Nero Wolfe, prepared by Fritz Brenner. In comparison with American oysters, those of Europe are mere blobs of coppery protoplasm.”

  “I don’t speak of oysters. You live in the country which permits the presence of Phillip Laszio.”

  “Indeed. I don’t know him.”

  “But he makes slop at the Hotel Churchill in your own city of New York! You must know that.”

  “I know of him, certainly, since he is one of your number-”

  “My number? Pah!” Berin’s hands, in a wide swift sweep, tossed Phillip Laszio through the window. “Not of my number!”

  “Your pardon.” Wolfe inclined his head. “But he is one of Les Quinze Maitres, and you are one. Do you suggest that he is unworthy?”

  Berin tapped Wolfe’s knee again. I grinned as I saw Wolfe, who didn’t like being touched, concealing his squirm for the sake of sausages. Berin said slowly through his teeth, “Laszio is worthy of being cut into small pieces and fed to pigs!-But no, that would render the hams inedible. Merely cut into pieces.” He pointed to a hole in the ground. “And buried. I tell you, I have known Laszio many years. He is maybe a Turk? No one knows. No one knows his name. He stole the secret of Rognons aux Montagnes in 1920 from my friend Zelota of Tarragona and claimed the creation. Zelota will kill him; he has said so. He has stolen many other things. He was elected one of Les Quinze Maitres in 1927 in spite of my violent protest. His young wife-have you seen her? She is Dina, the daughter of Domenico Rossi of the Empire Cafe in London; I have had her many times on this knee!” He slapped the knee. “As you no doubt know, your friend Vukcic married her, and Laszio stole her from Vukcic. Vukcic will kill him, undoubtedly, only he waits too long!” Berin shook both fists. “He is a dog, a snake, he crawls in slime! You know Leon Blanc, our beloved Leon, once great? You know he is now stagnant in an affair of no reputation called the Willow Club in a town by the name of Boston? You know that for years your Hotel Churchill in New York was distinguished by his presence as chef de cuisine? You know that Laszio stole that position from him-by insinuation, by lies, by chicanery, stole it? Dear old Leon will kill him! Positively. Justice demands it.”

  Wolfe murmured, “Thrice dead, Laszio. Do other deaths await him?”

  Berin sank back and quietly growled, “They do. I will kill him myself.”

  “Indeed. He stole from you too?”

  “He has stolen from everyone. God apparently created him to steal, let God defend him.” Berin sat up. “I arrived in New York Saturday, on the Rex. That evening I went with my daughter to dine at the Churchill, driven by an irresistible hatred. We went to a salon which Laszio calls the Resort Room; I don’t know where he stole the idea. The waiters wear the liveries of the world-famous resorts, each one different: Shepheard’s of Cairo, Les Figuiers of Juan-les-pins, the Continental of Biarritz, the Del Monte of your California, the Kanawha Spa where this train carries us-many of them, dozens-everything is big here. We sat at a table, and what did I see? A waiter-a waiter carrying Laszio slop-in the livery of my own Corridona! Imagine it! I would have rushed to him and demanded that he take it off-I would have torn it from him with these hands”-he shook them violently at Wolfe’s face-“but my daughter held me. She said I must not disgrace her; but my own disgrace? No matter, that?”

  Wolfe shook his head, visibly, in sympathy, and reached to pour beer. Berin went on: “Luckily his table was far from us, and I turned my back on it. But wait. Hear this. I looked at the menu. Fourth of the entrees, what did I see? What?”

  “Not, I hope, saucisse minuit.”

  “Yes! I did! Printed fourth of the entrees! Of course I had been informed of it before. I knew that Laszio had for years been serving minced leather spiced with God knows what and calling it saucisse minuit-but to see it printed there, as on my own menu! The whole room, the tables and chairs, all those liveries, danced before my eyes. Had Laszio appeared at that moment I would have killed him with these hands. But he did not. I ordered two portions of it from the waiter-my voice trembled as I pronounced it. It was served on porcelain-bah!-and looked like-I shall not say what. This time I gave my daughter no chance to protest. I took the services, one in each hand, arose from my chair, and with calm deliberation turned my wrists and deposited the vile mess in the middle of the carpet! Naturally, there was comment. My waiter came running. I took my daughter’s arm and departed. We were intercepted by a chef des garcons. I silenced him! I told him in a sufficient tone: ‘I am Jerome Berin of the Corridona at San Remo! Bring Phillip Laszio here and show him what I have done, but keep me from his throat!’ I said little more; it was not necessary. I took my daughter to Rusterman’s, and met Vukcic, and he soothed me with a plate of his goulash and a bottle of Chateau Latour. The ’29.”

  Wolfe nodded. “It would soothe a tiger.”

  “It did. I slept well. But the next morning-yesterday-do you know what happened? A man came to me at my hotel with a message from Phillip Laszio inviting me to lunch! Can you credit such effrontery? But wait, that was not all. The man who brought the message was Alberto Malfi!”

  “Indeed. Should I know him?”

  “Not now. Now he is not Alberto, but Albert-Albert Malfi, once a Corsican fruit slicer whom I discovered in a cafe in Ajaccio. I took him to Paris-I was then at the Provencal-trained and taught him, and made a good entree man of him. He is now Laszio’s first assistant at the Churchill. Laszio stole him from me in London in 1930. Stole my best pupil, and laughed at me! And now the brazen frog sends him to me with an invitation to lunch! Alberto appears before me in a morning coat, bows, and as if nothing had ever happened, delivers such a message in perfect English!”

  “I take it you didn’t go.”

  “Pah! Would I eat poison? I kicked Alberto out of the room.” Berin shuddered. “I shall never forget-once in 1926, when I was ill and could not work, I came that close”-he held thumb and forefinger half an inch apart-“to giving Alberto the recipe for saucisse minuit. God above! If I had! He would be making it now for Laszio’s menu! Horrible!”

  Wolfe agreed. He had finished another bottle, and he now started on a suave speech of sympathy and understanding. It gave me a distinct pain. He might have seen it was wasted effort, that there wasn’t a chance of his getting what he wanted; and it made me indignant to see him belittling himself trying to horn a favor out of that wild-eyed sausage cook. Besides, the train had made me so sleepy I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I stood up.

  Wolfe looked at me. “Yes, Archie?”

  I said in a determined voice, “Club car,” opened the door, and beat it.

  It was after eleven o’clock, and half the chairs in the club car were empty. Two of the wholesome young fellows who pose for the glossy hair ads were there drinking highballs, and there was a scattering of the baldheads and streaked grays who had been calling porters George for thirty years. Vukcic and Miss Berin were seated with empty glasses in front of them, neither looking animated or entranced. Next to her on the other side was a square-jawed blue-eyed athlete in a quiet gray suit who would obviously be a self-made man in another ten years. I stopped in front of my friends and dropped a greeting on them. They replied. The blue-eyed athlete looked up from his book and made preparations to
raise himself to give me a seat.

  But Vukcic was up first. “Take mine, Goodwin. I’m sure Miss Berin won’t mind the shift. I was up most of last night.”

  He said goodnights, and was off. I deposited myself, and flagged the steward when he stuck his nose out. It appeared that Miss Berin had fallen in love with American ginger ale, and I requested a glass of milk. Our needs were supplied and we sipped.

  She turned the purple eyes on me. They looked darker than ever, and I saw that that question would not be settled until I met them in daylight. She said, with throat in her voice, “You really are a detective, aren’t you? Mr. Vukcic has been telling me, he dines every month at Mr. Wolfe’s house, arid you live there. He says you are very brave and have saved Mr. Wolfe’s life three times.” She shook her head and let the eyes scold me. “But you shouldn’t have told me that about watering the horses. You might have known I would ask about it and find out.”

  I said firmly, “Vukcic has only been in this country eight years and knows very little about the detective business.”

  “Oh, no!” She gurgled. “I’m not young enough to be such a big. fool as that. I’ve been out of school three years.”

  “All right.” I waved a hand. “Forget the horses. What kind of a school do girls go to over there?”

  “A convent school. I did. At Toulouse.”

  “You don’t look like any nun I ever saw.”

  She finished a sip of ginger ale and then laughed. “I’m not anything at all like a nun. I’m not a bit religious, I’m very worldly. Mother Cecilia used to tell us girls that a life of service to others was the purest and sweetest, but I thought about it and it seemed to me that the best way would be to enjoy life for a long while, until you got fat or sick or had a big family, and then begin on service to others. Don’t you think so?”