by Rex Stout
“No? Prove it. I’ll concede that yours may not be, but I have known cases – for example, remember that guy, I forget his name, that wanted to hire you to arrange a meeting of his first four wives and persuade them -”
“Shut up!” He put his hands on the chair arms.
“Yes, sir.”
“There are degrees of discomfort, and some of them stop short of torment, thank heaven. Very well.” He levered himself upright, making some faces, assorted, on the way. “It is lumbago. And with it I am to sit at a strange table with a jumble of strangers. Are you coming?”
He headed for the door.
II
THERE WAS A HARDSHIP after all; the lodge had no dining room. Or maybe it did; but the assorted heads of deer and bear and moose on the walls, with planked fish here and there, made it also a trophy room; the billiard table at one end made it a game room; the cabinets of weapons and rods made it a gun-and-tackle room; the chairs and rugs and scattered tables with lights made it a living room; and the over-all size made it a barn.
There was nothing wrong with the food, which was served by two male experts in uniform, but I damn near roasted. There were nine of us at the big square table, with three seated at each of three sides, and no one at the side next to the fireplace. The fireplace was twelve feet wide, and from a distance it was cheerful and sporty, with flame curling around the eight-foot logs their whole length, but my seat at a forward corner of the table was not at a distance. By the time I had finished my clams I was twisting my legs around to the left to keep my pants from blazing up, and my right cheek was about ready for basting. As the soup was being served I twisted the legs still further, and my foot nicked the ankle of my neighbor on the left.
“Sorry,” I told him. “What’s the name of that animal that can live in fire?”
“Salamander.” He was a gravelly tenor, a wiry little specimen with black hair slicked back and broad bulgy shoulders away out of proportion to the rest of him. “What,” he asked, “are you doing here?”
“Frying.” I turned my head square to him to give my cheek a break. “Please remember this, these may be my last words. My name is Archie Goodwin, and I came here by invitation to bring fourteen things: parsley, onions, chives, chervil, tarragon, fresh mushrooms, brandy, bread crumbs, fresh eggs, paprika, tomatoes, cheese, and Nero Wolfe. That’s only thirteen, so I must have left out one. They are ingredients of baked brook trout Montbarry, except the last; Mr. Wolfe is not exactly an ingredient.”
He giggled. “I hope not. It would be a very greasy dish, yes?”
“No. That’s not fat, it’s solid muscle. You should see him lift a pen to sign a letter, absolutely effortless. What are you doing here?”
He tackled his soup and kept at it, so I did likewise. I thought he had crossed me off as a delivery boy, but when his cup was empty he turned to me. “I am an expert, a financier, and a man of guile. I am here -”
“The name first, please. I didn’t catch it.”
“Certainly, forgive me. Spiros Papps. I am here with my friend, Mr. Theodore Kelefy, the ambassador, to advise him on technical aspects of his mission. I am also here, at this spot, to catch trout, and in the four days we have been here I have caught thirty-eight. Eleven this morning – much better than the ambassador, who got only three. It is claimed that your eastern brook trout, Salvelinus fontinalis, is the most savory of all on earth, but I am reserving my opinion until I have tasted one prepared by Mr. Wolfe. Did you say onions?”
“Don’t worry,” I assured him. “He just waves one at the pan. Do you give advice only to ambassadors, or could I have a little? About these people. The introductions were a little skimpy.”
We were interrupted by a servitor with a platter of roast beef, and then one with vegetables, but after that had been attended to he briefed me around the table, keeping his tenor down. O. V. Bragan, the host, was at the best side in the center, the one farthest from the fire. He was a burly six-footer with cold and sharp gray eyes and a square bony chin, somewhere between Wolfe and me in age, and in our brief exchange with him on arrival I had felt no impulse to switch to Hemoco gas, a product of the Hemisphere Oil Company, of which he was it.
Sharing the best side with him, on his right, was Theodore Kelefy, the ambassador. Short but broad, a little pudgy, with no neck to speak of, he looked as if he had been taking on a deep tan for ten years, but it could have been for ten generations. He thought he spoke English, and maybe he did know the words, but he could have used some advice from Spiros Papps on how to pronounce them. On Bragan’s other side, his left, was David M. Leeson. If you had looked him over and listened to him – his cool professional smile, his cool cultivated baritone, his cool well-kept and well-handled face – you would have guessed that he was a career diplomat who had worked up to Assistant Secretary of State before he was forty, and you would have hit it right on the nose. It was he who had phoned Wolfe to ask him to cook for his country. One of his footholds on the way up, Spiros Papps told me, had been a couple of years as secretary of the embassy in the capital that Ambassador Kelefy came from.
It helps a career diplomat to have a helpful wife, and, according to Papps, Leeson had one. Papps spoke highly of her, keeping his voice down because she was there on the other side of him, between him and the ambassador. I had no serious objection to her looks, but she had too much forehead for a top rating. Smooth fair skin, light brown hair in a bun, quick brown eyes – that was all very well, but another trouble was the mouth. It had probably started out all right, but something had pulled the corners down. Either she had got bitter about something or she was working too hard on the career. If she had been a little younger I wouldn’t have minded finding out which it was and suggesting steps. If Wolfe could serve his country by cooking trout for an ambassador, why couldn’t I serve it by perking up the helpful wife of an Assistant Secretary of State?
The other woman at the table didn’t need any perking. At the opposite side of the table, kitty-cornered from me, was Adria Kelefy, not the ambassador’s daughter, as might have been thought, but his wife. She didn’t look especially helpful, but she certainly looked. Small and dark and dainty, with sleepy dark eyes and silky black hair. She was unquestionably fit to pick up and carry somewhere, if only to a drugstore to buy her a Coke, though I doubt if that would have been her idea of a treat. Assistant Secretary Leeson was on her right and Nero Wolfe on her left, and she was going great with both of them. Once she put her hand on Wolfe’s arm and kept it there ten seconds, and he didn’t pull away. Considering two of his strongest feelings, one about physical contacts and the other about women, I decided it was my duty to get close enough to study her.
But that had to wait. Next to Wolfe, across from me, was the ninth and last, a tall skinny guy with a perpetual squint and a thin tight mouth that was just a hyphen between his bony jaws. His left cheek was four shades redder than his right one, which I understood and sympathized with. The fireplace, on my right, was on his left. His name, Papps said, was James Arthur Ferris. I said he must be something scrubby like a valet or a varlet, since he had been stuck in the other baking seat.
Papps giggled. “Not a valet, not at all. A very important man, Mr. Ferris. I am responsible for his presence. Mr. Bragan would as soon have invited a cobra, but since he had maneuvered to get the ambassador and Secretary Leeson here I thought it only fair that Mr. Ferris should be invited too, and I insisted. Also I am a man of malice. It entertains me to see big men displaying bad blood. You say you are frying. Why are you frying? Because the table is too close to the fire. Why was it placed too close to the fire? So Mr. Bragan could seat Mr. Ferris where he would be highly uncomfortable. No little man is ever as petty as a big man.”
My plate empty, I arranged my knife and fork on it according to Hoyle. “Which are you, little or big?”
“Neither. I am unbranded. What you Americans call a maverick.”
“What makes Ferris big?”
“He represents big interests –
a syndicate of five great oil companies. That is why Mr. Bragan would like to scorch him. Hundreds of millions are at stake. These four days here, we have fished in the morning, squabbled in the afternoon, and fraternized in the evening. Mr. Ferris has gained some ground with the ambassador, but not, I fear, with Secretary Leeson. I find that entertaining. In the end the decision will in effect be mine, and I invite a situation that should mean another ten or twenty million for the government that employs me. If you think I am indiscreet you are wrong. If you repeat what I have said to Mr. Wolfe, and it goes from him to any or all of the others, including Secretary Leeson, I would not reproach you as a chatterbox. I am a man of simple candor. In fact I would go so far as -”
I didn’t get to hear how far a man of guile and malice and simple candor would go, on account of an interruption. James Arthur Ferris suddenly shoved his chair back, not quietly, left it, marched the length of the room to the far wall, a good twenty paces, and took a billiard cue from the rack. All heads turned to him, and probably I wasn’t alone with my notion that he was going to march back and take a swing at our host, but he merely put the cue ball on the head spot, and, not bothering with any sawing, smashed it into the cluster. The heads turned to Bragan, and then to one another, in dead silence. I grabbed the opportunity. Bragan’s scorching Ferris was nothing to me, but scorching me too was uncalled for, and here was my chance. I got up and went to the billiard table and asked Ferris politely, “Shall I rack ‘em up and we’ll lag for the break?”
He was so damn mad he couldn’t speak. He just nodded.
A couple of hours later, going on ten o’clock, Nero Wolfe said to me, “Archie. About your leaving the dinner table. You know what I think of any disturbance at a meal.”
“Yes, sir.”
We were in his room, bound for bed. Mine was down the hall, and I had stopped in at his by request.
“I concede,” he said, “that there may be exceptions, and this was one. Mr. Bragan is either a dunce or a ruffian.”
“Yeah. Or both. At least I wasn’t tied to a stake – I must remember to thank him. You going fishing tomorrow?”
“You know I’m not.” Seated, he grunted as he bent over to unlace his shoes. That done, he straightened. “I inspected the kitchen and equipment, and it will serve. They’ll be back at eleven-thirty with the morning’s catch, and lunch will be at twelve-thirty. I’ll take over the kitchen at ten. The cook is civil and fairly competent. I wish to make an avowal. You were right to oppose this expedition. These people are engaged in bitter and savage combat, with Ambassador Kelefy at the center of it, and in his present humor I doubt if he could distinguish between trout Montbarry and carp fried in lard. As for the others, their mouths would water only at the prospect of long pig. Do you know what that is?”
I nodded. “Cannibal stew. Only each one would want to pick the pig.”
“No doubt.” He kicked his shoes off. “If we leave immediately after lunch, say three o’clock, will we be home by bedtime?”
I said sure, and told him good night. As I opened the door he spoke to my back, “By the way, it is not lumbago.”
III
THE NEXT MORNING at nine-thirty Wolfe and I had breakfast together at a little table in the big room, by the only window that the sun was hitting through a gap in the trees outside. The griddle cakes were not up to Fritz’s by a long shot, but they were edible, and the bacon and maple syrup and coffee were admitted by Wolfe to be a pleasant surprise. The five fishermen had gone off before eight o’clock, each to his assigned stretch of the three miles of private water.
I had my own personal program and had cleared it with our host the evening before. Ever since I caught my first little shiner at the age of seven in an Ohio creek, at sight of wild water I have always had twin feelings: that there must be fish in it, and that they needed to be taught a lesson. Admitting that the Crooked River was privately stocked, the fish didn’t know it and were just as cocky as if they had never been near a hatchery. So I had arranged matters with Bragan. The five anglers were due back at the lodge at eleven-thirty, leaving the whole three miles vacant. Wolfe didn’t intend to join them at the lunch table anyhow, and certainly I wouldn’t be missed. I would have two hours for it, and Bragan told me, though not very cordially, to help myself to tackle and waders from the cabinets and drawers.
After breakfast I offered to go and help in the kitchen, chopping herbs and mushrooms and doing other chores, but Wolfe said I would only be in the way, so I went to the cabinets and started poking around. That was quite a collection, considering that five men had already helped themselves, presumably to the best. I finally ended up with a Walton Special three-piece rod, a Poughqueag reel with a seven-taper Maxim line, tapered leaders, a fly box with two dozen assorted flies, a 14-inch willow creel, an aluminum-frame net, and Wethersill waders. Assaying at around four hundred bucks on the hoof, I went to the kitchen and got three roast-beef sandwiches and a pair of chocolate bars and stowed them in the creel.
Not bothering to take off the waders, I moseyed outdoors for a look at the sky and a feel of the wind. It was a fine day, maybe too fine for good fishing, with a few white clouds floating high above the pines, not enough to discourage the sun, and a baby breeze sliding in from the southwest. The river curved around the lodge in almost a full semicircle, with the lodge’s main veranda, about the size of a tennis court, facing the big bulge of the curve. I found myself faced with a problem in etiquette. Toward one end of the veranda, ten yards to my left, was seated Adria Kelefy, reading a magazine. Toward the other end, ten yards to my right, was seated Sally Leeson, her chin propped on her fist, gazing across the veranda rail at nature. Neither had paid me any visible or audible attention. The problem was, should I wish them good morning, and if so, which one first, the ambassador’s wife or the Assistant Secretary of State’s wife?
I passed. If they wanted a snubbing contest, okay. But I thought they might as well realize the kind of man they were snubbing, so I acted. There were no trees between the veranda and the river, which wasn’t a river at all, merely a creek. From the assortment on the veranda I took an aluminum chair with a canvas seat and high back, carried it down the steps and across the clearing, put it on a level spot ten feet from the creek’s edge, got a Gray Hackle from my fly book and put it on the leader, sat in the chair, leaning back to rest my head comfortably, whipped a little line out, dropped the fly onto the ripples, let it float twenty feet downstream, whipped it back gently, and put it out again.
If you ask whether I expected a hit in that unlikely piece of riffle, the answer is yes. I figured that a guy who went to that much trouble to put on an act for the wives of two big men who had snubbed him deserved some co-operation from a mature male trout, and if he deserved it why shouldn’t he get it? I might have, too, if Junior hadn’t come along and spoiled it. About the twentieth cast my eyes caught a tiny flash and my fingers felt the take, and there I was with Junior on. I gave him the air immediately, hoping he would flop off, but he had it good. If it had been Daddy I could have tired him out, swung him in to me, and taken him off the hook with a dry hand, since he would soon be on the menu, but that little cuss had to be put back with a wet hand. So I had to leave the chair, to dip a hand in the creek before I touched him, which ruined the act.
As I put him back where he belonged, having taught him a lesson, I was considering my position. To return to the chair and carry on as if nothing had happened was out of the question. That damn minnow had made a monkey of me. I might back up in the clearing and do some serious practice casting – but then the sound of steps came, and a voice. “I didn’t know you could fish like that from a chair! Where is it?” She said “feesh.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Kelefy. I put it back. Too small.”
“Oh!” She had reached me. “Let me.” She put out a hand. “I’m going to catch one.” She looked fully as portable in the strong daylight as she had at night, and the dark eyes just as sleepy. When a woman has eyes like that, a man
with any scientific instinct at all wants to find out what it takes to light them up. But a glance at my wrist told me I would be shoving off in eighteen minutes, not time enough to get acquainted and start on research, especially with Sally Leeson sitting there on the veranda gazing, apparently now at us.
I shook my head. “It would be fun to see you catch a fish,” I told her, “but I can’t give you this rod because it isn’t mine. Mr. Bragan lent it to me, and I’m sure he’ll lend you one. I’m sorry. To show you how sorry I am, would you care to know one thing I thought as I looked at you last evening at the dinner table?”
“I want to catch a fish. I never saw a fish caught before.” She actually reached to close her fingers on the rod.
I held on. “Mr. Bragan will be here any minute.”
“If you give it to me I’ll let you tell me what you thought last evening.”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure I remember it anyhow. Skip it.”
No spark in the eyes. But her hand left the rod and her voice changed a little, person to person. “Of course you remember. What was it?”
“Let’s see, how did it go? Oh yes. That big green thing in the ring on your husband’s left hand – is it an emerald?”
“Certainly.”
“I thought it might be. So I was thinking your husband should display his assets more effectively. With those two assets, the emerald and you, he should have combined them. The best way would be an earring on your right ear, with nothing on the left ear. I had a notion to suggest it to him.”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t like it. I like pearls.” She reached again for a hold on the rod. “Now I’ll catch a fish.”
It looked as if we were headed for a tussle, with a good chance of breaking the Walton Special, but an arrival broke it up. James Arthur Ferris, his lanky length fully accoutered, stepped into the clearing and approached, speaking. “Good morning, Mrs. Kelefy! A glorious day, glorious!”