Too Many Cooks nwo-5

by Rex Stout

  Servan’s dignified old face clouded over when he saw me. “Ah, Mr. Goodwin! I’ve just heard of that terrible… to Mr. Wolfe. Mr. Ashley phoned from the hotel. That a guest of mine-our guest of honor-terrible! I’ll call on him as soon as I can manage to leave here. It’s not serious? He can be with us?”

  I reassured him, and two or three others trotted up, and I accepted their sympathy for my boss and told them it would be just as well not to pay any calls for a few hours. Then I told Servan I hated to interrupt a busy man but needed a few words with him, and he went with me to the small parlor. After some conversation he called in Moulton, the headwaiter with a piece out of his ear, and gave him instructions.

  When Moulton had departed Servan hesitated before he said, “I wanted to see Mr. Wolfe anyway. Mr. Ashley tells me that he got a startling story from two of my waiters. I can understand their reluctance… but I can’t have… my friend Laszio murdered here in my own dining room…” He passed his hand wearily across his forehead. “This should have been such a happiness… I’m over seventy years old, Mr. Goodwin, and this is the worst thing that has ever happened to me… and I must get back to the kitchen… Crabtree’s a good man, but he’s flighty and I don’t trust him with all that commotion in there…”

  “Forget it.” I patted his arm. “I mean forget the murder. Let Nero Wolfe do the worrying, I always do. Did you elect your four new members this morning?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I was just curious about Malfi. Did he get in?”

  “Malfi? In Les Quinze Maitres? Good heavens, no!”

  “Okay. I was just curious. You go on back to the kitchen and enjoy yourself. I’ll give Wolfe your message about lunch.”

  He nodded and pattered away. I had then been gone from Upshur more than an hour, and I hotfooted it back by the shortest path.

  Going in after the outdoor sunshine, Wolfe’s room seemed somber, but the maid had been in and the bed was made and everything tidy. He had the big chair turned to face the windows, and sat there with his speech in his hand, frowning at the last page. I had sung out from the foyer to let him know all was well, and now approached to take a look at the bandage. It seemed in order, and there was no sign of any fresh bleeding.

  I reported: “Everything’s set. Servan turned the details over to Moulton. They all send their best regards and wish you were along. Servan’s going to send a couple of trays of lunch over to us. It’s a grand day outdoors, too bad you’re cooped up like this. Our client has taken advantage of it by going horseback riding.”

  “We have no client.”

  “I was referring to Mr. Liggett. I still think that since he offered to pay for a job of detective work you might as well give him that pleasure. Not to mention hiring Berin for him. Did you get Saul and Cramer?”

  “Weren’t you at the switchboard?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t know who you got.”

  “I got them. That alternative is being cared for.” He sighed. “This thing hurts. What are they cooking for lunch?”

  “Lord, I don’t know. Five or six of them are messing around. Certainly it hurts, and you won’t collect a damn cent for it.” I sat down and rested my head against the back of the chair because I was tired of holding it up. “Not only that, it seems to have made you more contrary even than usual, it and the loss of sleep. I know you sneer at what you call routine, but I’ve seen you get results from it now and then, and no matter how much of a genius you are it wouldn’t do any harm to find out what various people were doing at a quarter past ten this morning. For instance, if you found that Leon Blanc was in the kitchen making soup, he couldn’t very well have been out there in the shrubbery shooting at you. I’m just explaining how it’s done.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Thank me, and go on being contrary, huh?”

  “I’m not contrary, merely intelligent. I’ve often told you, a search for negative evidence is a desperate last resort when no positive evidence can be found. Collecting and checking alibis is dreary and usually futile drudgery. No. Get your positive evidence, and if you find it confronted by an alibi, and if your evidence is any good, break the alibi. Anyhow, I’m not interested in the man who shot me. The man I want is the one who stabbed Laszio.”

  I stared. “What’s this, a riddle? You yourself said it was the same one.”

  “Certainly. But since it was his murdering Laszio that led to his shooting me, obviously it’s the murder we must prove. Unless we can prove he killed Laszio, how can we give him a motive for trying to kill me? And if you can’t demonstrate a motive, what the devil does it matter where he was at a quarter past ten? The only thing that will do us any good is direct evidence that he committed the murder.”

  “Oh, well.” I waved a hand, feebly. “If that’s all. Naturally you’ve got that.”

  “I have. It is being tested.”

  “I’ll call. What evidence and who?”

  He started to shake his head, and winced and stopped. “It is being tested. I don’t pretend that the evidence is conclusive, far from it. We must await the test. It is so little conclusive that I have arranged for this performance with Mr. Blanc because we are pressed for time and no alternative can be ignored. And after all it is quite possible-though I shouldn’t think he would have a gun-There’s someone at the door.”

  The performance with Blanc was elaborate but a complete wash-out. Its only advantage was that it kept me occupied and awake until lunch time. I wasn’t surprised at the result, and I don’t think Wolfe was either; he was just being thorough and not neglecting anything.

  The first arrivals were Moulton and Paul Whipple, and they had the props with them. I took them into Wolfe for an explanation of the project, and then deposited them in my room and shut the door on them. A few minutes later Leon Blanc came.

  The chef and the gastronome had quite a chat. Blanc was of course distressed at Wolfe’s injury and said so at length. Then they got on to the business. Blanc had come, he said, at Servan’s request, and would answer any questions Mr. Wolfe might care to ask. That was an order for anybody, but Blanc filled it pretty well, including the pointed and insistent queries regarding the extent of his acquaintanceship with Mrs. Laszio. Blanc stuck to it that he had known her rather well when she had been Mrs. Vukcic and he had been chef de cuisine at the Churchill, but that in the past five years, since he had gone to Boston, he had seen her only two or three times, and they had never been at all intimate. Then Wolfe got onto Tuesday night and the period Blanc had spent in his room at Pocahontas Pavilion, while the others were tasting Sauce Printemps and someone was stabbing Laszio. I heard most of it from a distance because I was in the bathroom, with the door open a crack, experimenting with the burnt cork on the back of my hand. Servan had sent an alcohol burner and enough corks for a minstrel show.

  Blanc balked a little when Wolfe got to the suggestion of the masquerade test, but not very strenuously, and I opened the bathroom door and invited him in. We had a picnic. With him stripped to his underwear, I first rubbed in a layer of cold cream and then started with the cork. I suppose I didn’t do it like an expert, since I wasn’t one, but by gosh I got him black. The ears and the edge of the hair were a problem, and he claimed I got some in his eye, but it was only because he blinked too hard. Then he put on the suit of livery, including the cap, and it wasn’t a bad job at all, except that Moulton hadn’t been able to dig up any black gloves, and we had to use dark brown ones.

  I took him in to Wolfe for approval, and telephoned Pocahontas Pavilion and got Mrs. Coyne and told her we were ready.

  In five minutes she was there. I stepped into the corridor to give her a brief explanation of the program, explaining that she wasn’t to open her mouth if she wanted to help Wolfe keep her out of it, and then, admitting her to the foyer and leaving her there, I went back in to pose Blanc. He had got pretty well irritated before I had finished with him in the bathroom, but now Wolfe had him all soothed down again. I stood him over beyond the foot
of the bed, at what looked like the right distance, pulled his cap lower, had him put his finger to his lips, and told him to hold it. Then I went to the door to the foyer and opened it six inches.

  After ten seconds I told Blanc that would do for that pose and went to the foyer and took Lio Coyne out to the corridor again.

  “Well?”

  She shook her head. “No. It wasn’t that man.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t?”

  “His ears are too big. It wasn’t him.”

  “Could you swear to that in a court?”

  “But you…” Her eyes got narrow. “You said I wouldn’t…”

  “All right, you won’t. But how sure are you?”

  “I’m very sure. This man is more slender, too.”

  “Okay. Much obliged. Mr. Wolfe may want to speak to you later on.”

  The others said the same thing. I posed Blanc twice more, once facing the door for Paul Whipple, and the second time with his back to it for Moulton. Whipple said he would be willing to swear that the man he had seen by the screen in the dining room was not the one he had seen in Wolfe’s room, and Moulton said he couldn’t swear to it because he had only seen the man’s back, but he thought it wasn’t the same man. I sent them back to Pocahontas.

  Then I had to help Blanc clean up. Getting it off was twice as hard as putting it on, and I don’t know if he ever did get his ears clean again. Considering that he wasn’t a murderer at all, he was pretty nice about it. What with Wolfe’s blood and Blanc’s burnt cork, I certainly raised cain with Kanawha Spa towels that day.

  Blanc stood and told Wolfe: “I have submitted to all this because Louis Servan requested it. I know murderers are supposed to be punished. If I were one, I would expect to be. This is a frightful experience for all of us, Mr. Wolfe, frightful. I didn’t kill Phillip Laszio, but if it were possible for me to bring him to life again by lifting a finger, do you know what I’d do? I would do this.” He thrust both hands into his pockets as far as they would go, and kept them there.

  He turned to go, but his departure was postponed a few minutes longer, by a new arrival. The change in program had of course made it necessary to tell the greenjacket in the hall that the embargo on visitors was lifted, and now came the first of a string that kept knocking at the door intermittently all afternoon.

  This one was my friend Barry Tolman.

  “How’s Mr. Wolfe?”

  “Battered and belligerent. Go on in.”

  He entered, opened his mouth at Wolfe, and then saw who was standing there.

  “Oh. You here, Mr. Blanc?”

  “Yes. At Mr. Servan’s request-”

  Wolfe put in, “We’ve been doing an experiment. I don’t believe you’ll need to waste time with Mr. Blanc. What about it, Archie? Did Mr. Blanc kill Laszio?”

  I shook my head. “No, sir. Three outs and the side’s retired.”

  Tolman looked at me, at Wolfe, at Blanc. “Is that so. Anyhow, I may want to see you later. You’ll be at Pocahontas?”

  Blanc told him yes, not very amiably, expressed a hope that Wolfe would feel better by dinnertime, and went. When I got back from escorting him to the door, Tolman had sat down and had his head cocked on one side for a look at Wolfe’s bandage, and Wolfe was saying:

  “Not to me, no, sir. The doctor called it superficial. But I assure you it is highly dangerous to the man who did it. And look here.” He displayed the mangled script of the speech. “The bullet did that before it struck me. Mr. Goodwin saved my life by tossing my speech at the window. So he says. I am willing to grant it. Where is Mr. Berin?”

  “Here. At Pocahontas with… with his daughter, I brought him myself, just now. They phoned me at Quinby about your being shot. Do you think it was the one that stabbed Laszio who did it?”

  “Who else?”

  “But why was he after you? You were through with it.”

  “He didn’t know that.” Wolfe stirred in his chair, winced, and added bitterly, “I’m not through with it now.”

  “That suits me. I don’t say I’m glad you got shot… and you started on Blanc? What made you decide it wasn’t him?”

  Wolfe started to explain, but another interruption took me away. This time it was the lunch trays, and Louis Servan had certainly put on the dog. There were three enormous trays and three waiters, and a fourth greenjacket as an outrider for opening doors and clearing traffic. I was hungry, and the smells that came from under the covered services made me more so. The outrider, who was Moulton himself, after a bow and an announcement to Wolfe, unfolded serving stands for the trays and advanced to the table with a cloth in his hand.

  Wolfe told Tolman, “Excuse me, please.” With a healthy grunt he lifted himself from his chair and made his way across to the serving stands. Moulton joined him and hovered deferentially. Wolfe lifted one of the covers, bent his head and gazed, and sniffed. Then he looked at Moulton. “Piroshki?”

  “Yes, sir. By Mr. Vallenko.”

  “Yes. I know.” He lifted other covers, bent and smelled, with careful nods to himself. He straightened up again. “Artichokes barigoule?”

  “I think, sir, he called them drigante. Mr. Mondor. Something like that.”

  “No matter. Leave it all here, please. We’ll serve ourselves, if you don’t mind.”

  “But Mr. Servan told me-”

  “I prefer it that way. Leave it here on the trays.”

  “I’ll leave a man-”

  “No. Please. I’m having a conversation. Out, all of you.”

  They went. It appeared that if I was going to get anything to eat I’d have to work for it, so I called on the muscles for another effort. As Wolfe returned to his chair I asked, “How do we do it? Boardinghouse style a la scoop shovel?”

  He waited until he got deposited before he answered. Then he sighed first. “No. Telephone the hotel for a luncheon menu.”

  I stared at him. “Maybe you’re delirious?”

  “Archie.” He sounded savage. “You may guess the humor I’m in. That piroshki is by Vallenko, and the artichokes are by Mondor. But how the devil do I know who was in that kitchen or what happened there? These trays were intended for us, and probably everyone knew it. For me. I am still hoping to go home to-night. Phone the hotel, and get those trays out of here so I can’t smell them. Put them in your room and leave them there.”

  Tolman said, “But my God, man… if you really think… we can have that stuff analyzed…”

  “I don’t want to analyze it, I want to eat it. And I can’t. I’m not going to. There probably is nothing at all wrong with it, and look at me, terrorized, intimidated by that blackguard! What good would it do to analyze it? I tell you, sir-Archie?”

  It was the door again. The smell from those covered dishes had me in almost as bad a state as Wolfe, and I was hoping it might be a food inspector from the Board of Health to certify them unadulterated, but it was only the greenjacket from the hall. He had a telegram addressed to Nero Wolfe.

  I went back in with it, tore the envelope open, and handed it to him.

  He pulled it out and read it.

  He murmured, “Indeed.” At the sound of the new tone in his voice I gave him a sharp glance. He handed the telegram back to me, unfolded. “Read it to Mr. Tolman.”

  I did so:

  NERO WOLFE KANAWHA SPA W VA NOT MENTIONED ANY PAPER STOP CRAMER COOPERATING STOP PROCEEDING STOP WILL PHONE FROM DESTINATION

  PANZER

  Wolfe said softly, “That’s better. Much better. We might almost eat that piroshki now, but there’s a chance… no. Phone the hotel, Archie. And Mr. Tolman, I believe there will be an opportunity for you also to cooperate…”

  15

  JEROME BERIN SHOOK BOTH his fists so that his chair trembled under him. “God above! Such a dirty dog! Such a-” He stopped himself abruptly and demanded, “You say it was not Blanc? Not Vukcic? Not my old friend Zelota?”

  Wolfe murmured, “None of them, I think.”

  “Then I repeat
, a dirty dog!” Berin leaned forward and tapped Wolfe on the knee. “I tell you frankly, it did not take a dog to kill Laszio. Anyone might have done that, anyone at ail, merely as an incident in the disposal of garbage. En passant. True, it is bad to stab a man in the back, but when one is in a hurry the niceties must sometimes be overlooked. No, only for killing Laszio, even in that manner, I would not say a dog. But to shoot at you through a window-you, the guest of honor of Les Quinze Maitres! Only because you had interested yourself in the cause of justice! Because you had undertaken to establish my innocence! Because you had the good sense to know that I could not possibly have made seven mistakes of those nine sauces! And let me tell you… will you credit it when I tell you what they gave me to eat in that place… in that jail in that place?”

  He went on to tell, and it sounded awful. He had come, with his daughter, to express his appreciation of Wolfe’s efforts in his behalf. It was nearly four o’clock, and there was sunlight in the room, for Tolman had arranged for a double guard on the windows, the other side of the shrubbery, and the shades were up and the windows open. The lunch from the hotel may not have been piroshki by Vallenko, but it had been adequate for my purposes, and Wolfe had been able to get it down in spite of the difficulty he had chewing. I had completely abandoned the idea of a little nap; there wasn’t a chance. Tolman had stayed nearly until the end of lunch, and after that was finished Rossi and Mondor and Coyne had dropped in to offer commiseration for Wolfe’s wound, and they had been followed by others. Even Louis Servan had made it for a few minutes, though I didn’t understand how he had been able to get away from the kitchen. Also, around three o’clock, there had been a phone call from New York, which Wolfe took himself. His end of it consisted mostly of grunts, and all I knew about it when he got through was that he had been talking with Inspector Cramer. But I knew he hadn’t got any bad news, for afterwards he sat and rubbed the side of his nose and looked self-satisfied.