“Certainly. I string along with the majority. We’ll take a vote. How many of you like yourselves? Raise your hands.”
A hand went up with a bare arm shooting out of the purple folds, then two more, then the rest of them, including the redhead.
“Okay,” I said, “that’s settled. Unanimous. My problem is that I decided to look you over and ask the most absolutely irresistibly beautiful and fascinating one of the bunch for her phone number, and I’m stalled. You are all it. In beauty and fascination you are all far beyond the wildest dreams of any poet, and I’m not a poet. So obviously I’m in a fix. How can I possibly pick on one of you, any one, when—”
“Nuts.” It was the redhead. “Me, of course. Peggy Choate. Argyle two, three-three-four-eight. Don’t call before noon.”
“That’s not fair,” a throaty voice objected. It came from one who looked a little too old for Hebe, and just a shade too plump. It went on, “Do I call you Archie?”
“Sure, that’s my name.”
“All right, Archie, have your eyes examined.” She lifted an arm, baring it, to touch the shoulder of one beside her. “We admit we’re all beautiful, but we’re not in the same class as Helen Iacono. Look at her!”
I was doing so, and I must say that the throaty voice had a point. Helen Iacono, with deep dark eyes, dark velvet skin, and wavy silky hair darker than either skin or eyes, was unquestionably rare and special. Her lips were parted enough to show the gleam of white teeth, but she wasn’t laughing. She wasn’t reacting at all, which was remarkable for an actress.
“It may be,” I conceded, “that I am so dazzled by the collective radiance that I am blind to the glory of any single star. Perhaps I’m a poet after all, I sound like one. My feeling that I must have the phone numbers of all of you is certainly no reflection on Helen Iacono. I admit that that will not completely solve the problem, for tomorrow I must face the question which one to call first. If I feel as I do right now I would have to dial all the numbers simultaneously, and that’s impossible. I hope to heaven it doesn’t end in a stalemate. What if I can never decide which one to call first? What if it drives me mad? Or what if I gradually sink—”
I turned to see who was tugging at my sleeve. It was Benjamin Schriver, the host, with a grin on his ruddy round face. He said, “I hate to interrupt your speech, but perhaps you can finish it later. We’re ready to sit. Will you join us?”
II
The dining room, on the same floor as the kitchen, three feet or so below street level, would have been too gloomy for my taste if most of the dark wood paneling hadn’t been covered with pictures of geese, pheasants, fish, fruit, vegetables, and other assorted edible objects; and also it helped that the tablecloth was white as snow, the wineglasses, seven of them at each place, glistened in the soft light from above, and the polished silver shone. In the center was a low gilt bowl, or maybe gold, two feet long, filled with clusters of Phalaenopsis Aphrodite, donated by Wolfe, cut by him that afternoon from some of his most treasured plants.
As he sat he was scowling at them, but the scowl was not for the orchids; it was for the chair, which, though a little fancy, was perfectly okay for you or me but not for his seventh of a ton. His fundament lapped over at both sides. He erased the scowl when Schriver, at the end of the table, complimented him on the flowers, and Hewitt, across from him, said he had never seen Phalaenopsis better grown, and the others joined in the chorus, all but the aristologist who sat between Wolfe and me. He was a Wall Street character and a well-known theatrical angel named Vincent Pyle, and was living up to his reputation as an original by wearing a dinner jacket, with tie to match, which looked black until you had the light at a certain slant and then you saw that it was green. He eyed the orchids with his head cocked and his mouth puckered, and said, “I don’t care for flowers with spots and streaks. They’re messy.”
I thought, but didn’t say, Okay, drop dead. If I had known that that was what he was going to do in about three hours I might not even have thought it. He got a rise, not from Wolfe or me, or Schriver or Hewitt, but from three others who thought flowers with spots and streaks were wonderful: Adrian Dart, the actor who had turned down an offer of a million a week, more or less, from Hollywood; Emil Kreis, Chairman of the Board of Codex Press, book publishers; and Harvey M. Leacraft, corporation lawyer.
Actually, cupbearers was what the Hebes were not. The wines, beginning with the Montrachet with the first course, were poured by Felix; but the girls delivered the food, with different routines for different items. The first course, put on individual plates in the kitchen, with each girl bringing in a plate for her aristologist, was small Minis sprinkled with chopped chives, piled with caviar, and topped with sour cream—the point, as far as Fritz was concerned, being that he had made the blinis, starting on them at eleven that morning, and also the sour cream, starting on that Sunday evening. Fritz’s sour cream is very special, but Vincent Pyle had to get in a crack. After he had downed all of his blinis he remarked, loud enough to carry around the table, “A new idea, putting sand in. Clever. Good for chickens, since they need grit.”
The man on my left, Emil Kreis, the publisher, muttered at my ear, “Ignore him. He backed three flops this season.”
The girls, who had been coached by Fritz and Felix that afternoon, handled the green turtle soup without a splash. When they had brought in the soup plates Felix brought the bowl, and each girl ladled from it as Felix held it by the plate. I asked Pyle cordially, “Any sand?” but he said no, it was delicious, and cleaned it up.
I was relieved when I saw that the girls wouldn’t dish the fish—flounders poached in dry white wine, with a mussel-and-mushroom sauce that was one of Fritz’s specialties. Felix did the dishing at a side table, and the girls merely carried. With the first taste of the sauce there were murmurs of appreciation, and Adrian Dart, the actor, across from Wolfe, sang out, “Superb!” They were making various noises of satisfaction, and Leacraft, the lawyer, was asking Wolfe if Fritz would be willing to give him the recipe, when Pyle, on my right, made a face and dropped his fork on his plate with a clatter. I thought he was putting on an act, and still thought so when his head drooped and I heard him gnash his teeth, but then his shoulders sagged and he clapped a hand to his mouth, and that seemed to be overdoing it. Two or three of them said something, and he pushed his chair back, got to his feet, said, “You must excuse me, I’m sorry,” and headed for the door to the hall. Schriver arose and followed him out. The others exchanged words and glances.
Hewitt said, “A damn shame, but I’m going to finish this,” and used his fork. Someone asked if Pyle had a bad heart, and someone else said no. They all resumed with the flounder, and the conversation, but the spirit wasn’t the same.
When, at a signal from Felix, the maidens started removing the plates, Lewis Hewitt got up and left the room, came back in a couple of minutes, sat, and raised his voice. “Vincent is in considerable pain, and a doctor has come. There is nothing we can do, and Ben wishes us to proceed. He will rejoin us when—when he can.”
“What is it?” someone asked.
Hewitt said the doctor didn’t know. Zoltan entered bearing an enormous covered platter, and the Hebes gathered at the side table, and Felix lifted the cover and began serving the roast pheasant, which had been larded with strips of pork soaked for twenty hours in Tokay, and then—but no. What’s the use? The annual dinner of the Ten for Aristology was a flop. Since for years I have been eating three meals a day cooked by Fritz Brenner I would like to show my appreciation by getting in print some idea of what he can do in the way of victuals, but it won’t do here. Sure, the pheasant was good enough for gods if there had been any around, and so was the suckling pig, and the salad, with a dressing which Fritz calls Devil’s Rain, and the chestnut croquettes, and the cheese—only the one kind, made in New Jersey by a man named Bill Thompson under Fritz’s supervision; and they were all eaten, more or less. But Hewitt left the room three more times and the last time was gon
e a good ten minutes, and Schriver didn’t rejoin the party at all, and while the salad was being served Emil Kreis went out and didn’t come back.
When, as coffee and brandy were being poured and cigars and cigarettes passed, Hewitt left his chair for the fifth time, Nero Wolfe got up and followed him out. I lit a cigar just to be doing something, and tried to be sociable by giving an ear to a story Adrian Dart was telling, but by the time I finished my coffee I was getting fidgety. By the glower that had been deepening on Wolfe’s face for the past hour I knew he was boiling, and when he’s like that, especially away from home, there’s no telling about him. He might even have had the idea of aiming the glower at Vincent Pyle for ruining Fritz’s meal. So I put what was left of the cigar in a tray, arose, and headed for the door, and was halfway to it when here he came, still glowering.
“Come with me,” he snapped, and kept going.
The way to the kitchen from the dining room was through a pantry, twenty feet long, with counters and shelves and cupboards on both sides. Wolfe marched through with me behind. In the kitchen the twelve maidens were scattered around on chairs and stools at tables and counters, eating. A woman was busy at a sink. Zoltan was busy at a refrigerator. Fritz, who was pouring a glass of wine, presumably for himself, turned as Wolfe entered and put the bottle down.
Wolfe went to him, stood, and spoke. “Fritz. I offer my apologies. I permitted Mr. Hewitt to cajole you. I should have known better. I beg your pardon.”
Fritz gestured with his free hand, the wineglass steady in the other. “But it is not to pardon, only to regret. The man got sick, that’s a pity, only not from my cooking. I assure you.”
“You don’t need to. Not from your cooking as it left you, but as it reached him. I repeat that I am culpable, but I won’t dwell on that now; it can wait. There is an aspect that is exigent.” Wolfe turned. “Archie. Are those women all here?”
I had to cover more than half a circle to count them, scattered as they were. “Yes, sir, all present. Twelve.”
“Collect them. They can stand”—he pointed to the alcove—“over there. And bring Felix.”
It was hard to believe. They were eating; and for him to interrupt a man, or even a woman, at a meal, was unheard of. Not even me. Only in an extreme emergency had he ever asked me to quit food before I was through. Boiling was no name for it. Without even bothering to raise a brow, I turned and called out, “I’m sorry, ladies, but if Mr. Wolfe says it’s urgent that settles it. Over there, please? All of you.” Then I went through the pantry corridor, pushed the two-way door, caught Felix’s eye, and wiggled a beckoning finger at him, and he came. By the time we got to the kitchen the girls had left the chairs and stools and were gathering at the alcove, but not with enthusiasm. There were mutterings, and some dirty looks for me as I approached with Felix. Wolfe came, with Zoltan, and stood, tight-lipped, surveying them.
“I remind you,” he said, “that the first course you brought to the table was caviar on blinis topped with sour cream. The portion served to Mr. Vincent Pyle, and eaten by him, contained arsenic. Mr. Pyle is in bed upstairs, attended by three doctors, and will probably die within an hour. I am speaking—”
He stopped to glare at them. They were reacting, or acting, no matter which. There were gasps and exclamations, and one of them clutched her throat, and another, baring her arms, clapped her palms to her ears. When the glare had restored order Wolfe went on, “You will please keep quiet and listen. I am speaking of conclusions formed by me. My conclusion that Mr. Pyle ate arsenic is based on the symptoms: burning throat, faintness, intense burning pain in the stomach, dry mouth, cool skin, vomiting. My conclusion that the arsenic was in the first course is based, first, on the amount of time it takes arsenic to act; second, on the fact that it is highly unlikely it could have been put in the soup or the fish; and third, that Mr. Pyle complained of sand in the cream or caviar. I admit the possibility that one or both of my conclusions will be proven wrong, but I regard it as remote and I am acting on them.” His head turned. “Fritz. Tell me about the caviar from the moment it was put on the individual plates. Who did that?”
I had once told Fritz that I could imagine no circumstances in which he would look really unhappy, but now I wouldn’t have to try. He was biting his lips, first the lower and then the upper. He began, “I must assure you—”
“I need no assurance from you, Fritz. Who put it on the plates?”
“Zoltan and I did.” He pointed. “At that table.”
“And left them there? They were taken from that table by the women?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Each woman took one plate?”
“Yes, sir. I mean, they were told to. I was at the range.”
Zoltan spoke up. “I watched them, Mr. Wolfe. They each took one plate. And believe me, nobody put any arsenic—”
“Please, Zoltan. I add another conclusion: that no one put arsenic in one of the portions and then left to chance which one of the guests would get it. Surely the poisoner intended it to reach a certain one—either Mr. Pyle, or, as an alternative, some other one and it went to Mr. Pyle by mishap. In any case, it was the portion Pyle ate that was poisoned, and whether he got it by design or by mischance is for the moment irrelevant.” His eyes were at the girls. “Which one of you took that plate to Mr. Pyle?”
No reply. No sound, no movement.
Wolfe grunted. “Pfui. If you didn’t know his name, you do now. The man who left during the fish course and who is now dying. Who served him?”
No reply; and I had to hand it to them that no pair of eyes left Wolfe to fasten on Peggy Choate, the redhead. Mine did. “What the heck,” I said. “Speak up, Miss Choate.”
“I didn’t!” she cried.
“That’s silly. Of course you did. Twenty people can swear to it. I looked right at you while you were dishing his soup. And when you brought the fish—”
“But I didn’t take him that first thing! He already had some! I didn’t!”
Wolfe took over. “Your name is Choate?”
“Yes.” Her chin was up. “Peggy Choate.”
“You deny that you served the plate of caviar, the first course, to Mr. Pyle?”
“I certainly do.”
“But you were supposed to? You were assigned to him?”
“Yes. I took the plate from the table there and went in with it, and started to him, and then I saw that he had some, and I thought I had made a mistake. We hadn’t seen the guests. That man”—she pointed to Felix—“had shown us which chair our guest would sit in, and mine was the second from the right on this side as I went in, but that one had already been served, and I thought someone else had made a mistake or I was mixed up. Anyway, I saw that the man next to him, on his right, hadn’t been served, and I gave it to him. That was you. I gave it to you.”
“Indeed.” Wolfe was frowning at her. “Who was assigned to me?”
That wasn’t put on. He actually didn’t know. He had never looked at her. He had been irritated that females were serving, and besides, he hates to twist his neck. Of course I could have told him, but Helen Iacono said, “I was.”
“Your name, please?”
“Helen Iacono.” She had a rich contralto that went fine with the deep dark eyes and dark velvet skin and wavy silky hair.
“Did you bring me the first course?”
“No. When I went in I saw Peggy serving you, and a man on the left next to the end didn’t have any, so I gave it to him.”
“Do you know his name?”
“I do,” Nora Jaret said. “From the card. He was mine.” Her big brown eyes were straight at Wolfe. “His name is Kreis. He had his when I got there. I was going to take it back to the kitchen, but then I thought, someone had stage fright but I haven’t, and I gave it to the man at the end.”
“Which end?”
“The left end. Mr. Schriver. He came and spoke to us this afternoon.”
She was corroborated by Carol Annis, the one with hair lik
e corn silk who had no sense of humor, “That’s right,” she said. “I saw her. I was going to stop her, but she had already put the plate down, so I went around to the other side of the table with it when I saw that Adrian Dart didn’t have any. I didn’t mind because it was him.”
“You were assigned to Mr. Schriver?”
“Yes. I served him the other courses, until he left.”
It was turning into a ring-around-a-rosy, but the squat was bound to come. All Wolfe had to do was get to one who couldn’t claim a delivery, and that would tag her. I was rather hoping it wouldn’t be the next one, for the girl with the throaty voice had been Adrian Dart’s, and she had called me Archie and had given Helen Iacono a nice tribute. Would she claim she had served Dart herself?
No. She answered without being asked. “My name is Lucy Morgan,” she said, “and I had Adrian Dart, and Carol got to him before I did. There was only one place that didn’t have one, on Dart’s left, the next but one, and I took it there. I don’t know his name.”
I supplied it. “Hewitt. Mr. Lewis Hewitt.” A better name for it than ring-around-a-rosy would have been passing-the-buck. I looked at Fern Faber, the tall self-made blonde with a wide lazy mouth who had been my first stop on my phone-number tour. “It’s your turn, Miss Faber,” I told her. “You had Mr. Hewitt. Yes?”
“I sure did.” Her voice was pitched so high it threatened to squeak.
“But you didn’t take him his caviar?”
“I sure didn’t.”
“Then who did you take it to?”
“Nobody.”
I looked at Wolfe. His eyes were narrowed at her. “What did you do with it, Miss Faber?”
“I didn’t do anything with it. There wasn’t any.”
“Nonsense. There are twelve of you, and there were twelve at the table, and each got a portion. How can you say there wasn’t any?”
“Because there wasn’t. I was in the john fixing my hair, and when I came back in she was taking the last one from the table, and when I asked where mine was he said he didn’t know, and I went to the dining room and they all had some.”
Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe Page 2