Too Many Cooks

10

IT LOOKED HOPELESS TO ME. I would have made it at least ten to one that Wolfe’s unlimited conceit was going to cost us most of a night’s sleep with nothing to chalk up against it. It struck me as plain silly, and I might have gone so far as to say that his tackling that array of Africans in a body showed a dangerous maladjustment to the natural and healthy environment of a detective. Picture it: Lio Coyne had caught a glimpse of a greenjacket she couldn’t recognize standing by the end of the screen with his finger on his lips, and another servant’s face-chiefly his eyes, and she couldn’t recognize him either-peeking through a crack in the door that led to the pantry hall and on to the kitchen. That was our crop of facts. And the servants had already told the sheriff that they had seen and heard nothing. Fat chance. There might have been a slim one if they had been taken singly, but in a bunch like that, not for my money.

The chair problem was solved by letting them sit on the floor. Fourteen altogether. Wolfe, using his man-to-man tone, apologized for that. Then he wanted to know their names, and made sure that he got everyone; that used up ten minutes. I was curious to see how he would start the ball rolling, but there were other preliminaries to attend to; he asked what they would like to drink. They mumbled that they didn’t want anything, but he said nonsense, we would probably be there most of the night, which seemed to startle them and caused some murmuring. It ended by my being sent to the phone to order an assortment of beer, bourbon, ginger ale, charged water, glasses, lemons, mint and ice. An expenditure like that meant that Wolfe was in dead earnest. When I rejoined the gathering he was telling a plump little runt, not a greenjacket, with a ravine in his chin:

“I’m glad of this opportunity to express my admiration, Mr. Crabtree. Mr. Servan tells me that the shad roe mousse was handled entirely by you. Any chef would have been proud of it. I noticed that Mr. Mondor asked for more. In Europe they don’t have shad roe.”

The runt nodded solemnly, with reserve. They were all using plenty of reserve, not to mention constraint, suspicion and reticence. Most of them weren’t looking at Wolfe or at much of anything else. He sat facing them, running his eyes over them. Finally he sighed and began:

“You know, gentlemen, I have had very little experience in dealing with black men. That may strike you as a tactless remark, but it really isn’t. It is certainly true that you can’t deal with all men alike. It is popularly supposed that in this part of the country whites adopt a well-defined attitude in dealing with the blacks, and blacks do the same in dealing with whites. That is no doubt true up to a point, but it is subject to enormous variation, as your own experience will show you. For instance, say you wish to ask a favor here at Kanawha Spa, and you approach either Mr. Ashley, the manager, or Mr. Servan. Ashley is bourgeois, irritable, conventional, and rather pompous, Servan is gentle, generous, sentimental, and an artist-and also Latin. Your approach to Mr. Ashley would be quite different from your approach to Mr. Servan.

“But even more fundamental than the individual differences are the racial and national and tribal differences. That’s what I mean when I say I’ve had limited experience in dealing with black men. I mean black Americans. Many years ago I handled some affairs with dark-skinned people in Egypt and Arabia and Algiers, but of course that has nothing to do with you. You gentlemen are Americans, must more completely Americans than I am, for I wasn’t born here. This is your native country. It was you and your brothers, black and white, who let me come here to live, and I hope you’ll let me say, without getting maudlin, that I’m grateful to you for it.”

Somebody mumbled something. Wolfe disregarded it and went on: “I asked Mr. Servan to have you come over here tonight because I want to ask you some questions and find out something. That’s the only thing I’m interested in: the information I want to get. I’ll be frank with you; if I thought I could get it by bullying you and threatening you, I wouldn’t hesitate a moment. I wouldn’t use physical violence even if I could, because one of my romantic ideas is that physical violence is beneath the dignity of a man, and that whatever you get by physical aggression costs more than it is worth. But I confess that if I thought threats or tricks would serve my purpose with you, I wouldn’t hesitate to use them. I’m convinced they wouldn’t, having meditated on this situation, and that’s why I’m in a hole. I have been told by white Americans that the only way to get anything out of black Americans is by threats, tricks, or violence. In the first place, I doubt if it’s true; and even if it is true generally I’m sure it isn’t in this case. I know of no threats that would be effective, I can’t think up a trick that would work, and I can’t use violence.”

Wolfe put his hands at them palms up. “I need the information. What are we going to do?”

Someone snickered, and others glanced at him-a tall skinny one squatting against the wall, with high cheekbones, dark brown. The runt whom Wolfe had complimented on the shad roe mousse glared around like a sergeant at talking in the ranks. The one that sat stillest was the one with the flattest nose, a young one, big and muscular, a greenjacket that I had noticed at the pavilion because he never opened his mouth to reply to anything. The headwaiter with the chopped-off ear said in a low silky tone:

“You just ask us and we tell you. That’s what Mr. Servan said we was to do.”

Wolfe nodded at him. “I admit that seems the obvious way, Mr. Moulton. And the simplest. But I fear we would find ourselves confronted by difficulties.”

“Yes, sir. What is the nature of the difficulties?”

A gruff voice boomed: “You just ask us and we tell you anything.” Wolfe aimed his eyes at the source of it:

“I hope you will. Would you permit a personal remark? That is a surprising voice to come from a man named Hyacinth Brown. No one would expect it. As for the difficulties-Archie, there’s the refreshment. Perhaps some of you would help Mr. Goodwin?”

That took another ten minutes, or maybe more. Four or five of them came along, under the headwaiter’s direction, and we carried the supplies in and got them arranged on a table against the wall. Wolfe was provided with beer. I had forgot to include milk in the order, so I made out with a bourbon highball. The muscular kid with the flat nose, whose name was Paul Whipple, took plain ginger ale, but all the rest accepted stimulation. Getting the drinks around, and back to their places on the floor, they loosened up a little for a few observations, but fell dead silent when Wolfe put down his empty glass and started off again:

“About the difficulties, perhaps the best way is to illustrate them. You know of course that what we are concerned with is the murder of Mr. Laszio. I am aware that you have told the sheriff that you know nothing about it, but I want some details from you, and besides, you may have recollected some incident which slipped your minds at the time you talked with the sheriff. I’ll begin with you, Mr. Moulton. You were in the kitchen Tuesday evening?”

“Yes, sir. All evening. There was to be the oeufs au cheval served after they got through with those sauces.”

“I know. We missed that. Did you help arrange the table with the sauces?”

“Yes, sir.” The headwaiter was smooth and suave. “Three of us helped Mr. Laszio. I personally took in the sauces on the serving wagon. After everything was arranged he rang for me only once, to remove the ice from the water. Except for that, I was in the kitchen all the time. All of us were.”

“In the kitchen, or the pantry hall?”

“The kitchen. There was nothing to go to the pantry for. Some of the cooks were working on the oeufs au cheval, and the boys were cleaning up, and some of us were eating what was left of the duck and other things. Mr. Servan told us we could.”

“Indeed. That was superlative duck.”

“Yes, sir. All of these gentlemen can cook like nobody’s business. They sure can cook.”

‘They are the world’s best. They are the greatest living masters of the subtlest and kindliest of the arts.” Wolfe sighed, opened beer, poured, watched it foam to the top, and then demanded abruptly, “So you saw and heard nothing of the murder?”

“No, sir.”

“The last you saw of Mr. Laszio was when you went in to take the ice from the water?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I understand there were two knives for slicing the squabs. One of stainless steel with a silver handle, the other a kitchen carver. Were they both on the table when you took the ice from the water?”

The greenjacket hesitated only a second. “Yes, sir, I think they were. I glanced around the table to see that everything was all right, because I felt responsible, and I would have noticed if one of the knives had been gone. I even looked at the marks on the dishes-the sauces.”

“You mean the numbered cards?”

“No, sir, you wouldn’t, because the numbers were small, dishes with chalk so they wouldn’t get mixed up in the kitchen or while I was taking them in.”

“I didn’t see them.”

“No, sir, you wouldn’t because the numbers were small, below the rim on the far side from you. When I put the dishes by the numbered cards I turned them so the chalk numbers were at the back, facing Mr. Laszio.”

“And the chalk numbers were in the proper order when you took the ice from the water?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was someone tasting the sauces when you were in there?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Keith.”

“Mr. Laszio was there alive?”

“Yes, sir, he was plenty alive. He bawled me out for putting in too much ice. He said it froze the palate.”

“So it does. Not to mention the stomach. When you were in there, I don’t suppose you happened to look behind either of those screens.”

“No, sir. We had shoved the screens back when we cleaned up after dinner.”

“And after, you didn’t enter the dining room again until after Mr. Laszio’s body was discovered?”

“No, sir, I didn’t.”

“Nor look into the dining room?”

“No, sir.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Sure I’m sure. I guess I’d remember my movements.”

“I suppose you would.” Wolfe frowned, fingered at this glass of beer, and raised it to his mouth and gulped. The headwaiter, self-possessed, took a sip of his highball, but I noticed that his eyes didn’t leave Wolfe.

Wolfe put his glass down. “Thank you, Mr. Moulton.” He put his eyes on the one on Moulton’s left, a medium-sized one with gray showing in his kinky hair and wrinkles on his face. “Now Mr. Grant. You’re a cook?”

“Yes, sir.” His tone was husky and he cleared his throat and repeated, “Yes, sir. I work on fowl and game over at the hotel, but here I’m helping Crabby. All of us best ones, Mr. Servan sent us over here, to make an impression.”

“Who is Crabby?”

“He means me.” It was the plump runt with a ravine in his chin, the sergeant.

“Ah. Mr. Crabtree. Then you helped with the shad roe mousse.”

Mr. Grant said, “Yes, sir. Crabby just supervised. I done the work.”

“Indeed. My respects to you. On Tuesday evening, you were in the kitchen?”

“Yes, sir. I can make it short and sweet, mister. I was in the kitchen, I didn’t leave the kitchen, and in the kitchen I remained. Maybe that covers it.”

“It seems to. You didn’t go to the dining room or the pantry hall?”

“No, sir. I just said about remaining in the kitchen.”

“So you did. No offense, Mr. Grant. I merely want to make sure.” Wolfe’s eyes moved on. “Mr. Whipple. I know you, of course. You are an alert and efficient waiter. You anticipated my wants at dinner. You seem young to have developed such competence. How old are you?”

The muscular kid with the flat nose looked straight at Wolfe and said, “I’m twenty-one.”

Moulton, the headwater, gave him an eye and told him, “Say sir.” Then turned to Wolfe: “Paul’s a college boy.”

“I see. What college, Mr. Whipple?”

“Howard University. Sir.”

Wolfe wiggled a finger. “If you feel rebellious about the sir, dispense with it. Enforced courtesy is worse than none. You are at college for culture?”

“I’m interested in anthropology.”

“Indeed. I have met Franz Boas, and have his books autographed. You were, I remember, present on Tuesday evening. You waited on me at dinner.”

“Yes, sir. I helped in the dining room after dinner, cleaning up and arranging for that demonstration with the sauces.”

“Your tone suggests disapproval.”

“Yes, sir. If you ask me. It’s frivolous and childish for mature men to waste their time and talent, and other people’s time-”

“Shut up, Paul.” It was Moulton.

Wolfe said, “You’re young, Mr. Whipple. Besides, each of us has his special set of values, and if you expect me to respect yours you must respect mine. Also I remind you that Paul Lawrence Dunbar said ‘the best thing a ’possum ever does is fill an empty belly.’”

The college boy looked at him in surprise. “Do you know Dunbar?”

“Certainly. I am not a barbarian. But to return to Tuesday evening, after you finished helping in the dining room did you go to the kitchen?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And left there-”

“Not at all. Not until we got word of what had happened.”

“You were in the kitchen all the time?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you.” Wolfe’s eyes moved again. “Mr. Daggett…”

He went on, and got more of the same. I finished my highball and tilted my chair back against the wall and closed my eyes. The voices, the questions and answers, were just noises in my ears. I didn’t get the idea, and it didn’t sound to me as if there was any. Of course Wolfe’s declaration that he wouldn’t try any tricks because he didn’t know any, was the same as a giraffe saying it couldn’t reach up for a bite on account of its short neck. But it seemed to me that if he thought that monotonous ring around the rosie was a good trick, the sooner he got out of the mountain air of West Virginia and back to sea level, the better. On the questions and answers went; he didn’t skimp anybody and he kept getting personal; he even discovered that Hyacinth Brown’s wife had gone off and left him three pickaninnies to take care of. Once in awhile I opened my eyes to see how far around he had got, and then closed them again. My wrist watch said a quarter to two when I heard, through the open window, a rooster crowing away off.

I let my chair come down when I heard my name. “Archie. Beer please.”

I was a little slow on the pickup and Moulton got to his feet and beat me to it. I sat down again. Wolfe invited the others to replenish, and a lot of them did. Then, after he had emptied a glass and wiped his lips, he settled back and ran his eyes over the gang, slowly around and back, until he had them all waiting for him.

He said in a new crisp tone: “Gentlemen, I said I would illustrate the difficulty I spoke of. It now confronts us. It was suggested that I ask for the information I want. I did so. You have all heard everything that was said. I wonder how many of you know that one of you told me a direct and deliberate lie.”

Perfect silence. Wolfe let it gather for five seconds and then went on:

“Doubtless you share the common knowledge that on Tuesday evening some eight or ten minutes elapsed from the moment that Mr. Berin left the dining room until the moment that Mr. Vukcic entered it, and that Mr. Berin says that when he left Mr. Laszio was there alive, and Mr. Vukcic says that when he entered Mr. Laszio was not there at all. Of course Mr. Vukcic didn’t look behind the screen. During that interval of eight or ten minutes someone opened the door from the terrace to the dining room and looked in, and saw two colored men. One, in livery, was standing beside the screen with his finger to his lips; the other had opened the door, a few inches, which led to the pantry hall, and was peering through, looking directly at the man by the screen. I have no idea who the man by the screen was. The one peering through the pantry hall door was one of you who are now sitting before me. That’s the one who has lied to me.”

Another silence. It was broken by a loud snicker, again from the tall skinny one who was still squatting against the wall. This time he followed it with a snort: “You tell ’em, boss!” Half a dozen black heads jerked at him and Crabtree said in disgust, “Boney, you damn drunken fool!” and then apologized to Wolfe, “He’s a no good clown, that young man. Yes, sir. About what you say, we’re all sorry you’ve got to feel that one of us told you a lie. You’ve got hold of some bad information.”

“No. I must contradict you. My information is good.”

Moulton inquired in his silky musical voice, “Might I ask who looked in the door and saw all that?”

“No. I’ve told you what was seen, and I know it was seen.” Wolfe’s eyes swept the faces. “Dismiss the idea, all of you, of impeaching my information. Those of you who have no knowledge of that scene in the dining room are out of this anyway; those who know of it know also that my information comes from an eye-witness. Otherwise how would I know, for instance, that the man by the screen had his finger to his lips? No, gentlemen, the situation is simple: I know that at least one of you lied, and he knows that I know it. I wonder if there isn’t a chance of ending so simple a situation in a simple manner and have it done with? Let’s try. Mr. Moulton, was it you who looked through that door-the door from the dining room to the pantry hall and saw the man by the screen with his finger to his lips?”

The headwaiter with the chopped-off ear slowly shook his head. “No, sir.”

“Mr. Grant, was it you?”

“No, sir.”

“Mr. Whipple, was it you?”

“No, sir.”

He went on around, and piled up fourteen negatives out of fourteen chances. Still batting a thousand. When he had completed that record he poured a glass of beer and sat and frowned at the foam. Nobody spoke and nobody moved. Finally, without drinking the beer, Wolfe leaned back and sighed patiently. He resumed in a murmur:

“I was afraid we would be here most of the night. I told you so. I also told you that I wasn’t going to use threats, and I don’t intend to. But by your unanimous denial you’ve turned a simple situation into a complicated one, and it has to be explained to you.

“First, let’s say that you persist in the denial. In that case, the only thing I can do is inform the authorities and let them interview the person who looked into the dining room from the terrace. They will be convinced, as I am, of the correctness of the information, and they will start on you gentlemen with that knowledge in their possession. They will be certain that one of you saw the man by the screen. I don’t pretend to know what they’ll do to you, or how long you’ll hold out, but that’s what the situation will be, and I shall be out of it.”

Wolfe sighed again, and surveyed the faces. “Now, whoever you are, let’s say that you abandon your denial and tell me the truth, what will happen? Similarly, you will sooner or later have to deal with the local authorities, but under quite different circumstances. I am talking now to one of you-you know which one, I don’t. It doesn’t seem to me that any harm will be done if I tell Mr. Tolman and the sheriff that you and your colleagues came to see me at my request, and that you volunteered the information about what you saw in the dining room. There will be no reason why the person who first gave me the information should enter into it at all, if you tell the truth-though you may be sure that I am prepared to produce that person if necessary. Of course, they won’t like it that you withheld so important a fact Tuesday night, but I think I can arrange beforehand that they’ll be lenient about that. I shall make it a point to do so. None of the rest of you need be concerned in it at all.

“Now…” Wolfe looked around at them again “…here comes the hard part. Whoever you are, I can understand your denial and sympathize with it. You looked through the door-doubtless on account of a noise you had heard-and saw a man of your race standing by the screen, and some forty minutes later, when you learned what had happened, you knew that man had murdered Laszio. Or at the least, strongly suspected it. You not only knew that the murderer was a black man, you probably recognized him, since he wore the Kanawha Spa livery and was therefore a fellow employee, and he directly faced you as you looked through the door. And that presents another complication. If he is a man who is close to you and has a place in your heart, I presume you’ll hold to your denial in spite of anything I may say and the sheriff may do. In that event your colleagues here will share a lot of discomfort with you, but that can’t be helped.

“But if he is not personally close to you, if you have refused to expose him only because he is a fellow man-or more particularly because he is of your color-I’d like to make some remarks. First the fellow man. That’s nonsense. It was realized centuries ago that it is impossible for a man to protect himself against murder, because it’s extremely easy to kill a man, so it was agreed that men should protect each other. But if I help protect you, you must help protect me, whether you like me or not. If you don’t do your part you’re out of the agreement; you’re an outlaw.

“But this murderer was a black man, and you’re black too. I confess that makes it ticklish. The agreements of human society embrace not only protection against murder, but thousands of other things, and it is certainly true that in America-not to mention other continents-the whites have excluded the blacks from some of the benefits of those agreements. It is said that the exclusion has sometimes even extended to murder-that in parts of this country a white man may kill a black one, if not with impunity, at least with a good chance of escaping the penalty which the agreement imposes. That’s bad. It’s deplorable, and I don’t blame black men for resenting it. But you are confronted with a fact, not a theory, and how do you propose to change it?

“I am talking to you who saw that man by the screen. If you shield him because he is dear to you, or for any valid personal reason, I have nothing to say, because I don’t like futile talk, and you’ll have to fight it out with the sheriff. But if you shield him because he is your color, there is a great deal to say. You are rendering your race a serious disservice. You are helping to perpetuate and aggravate the very exclusions which you justly resent. The ideal human agreement is one in which distinctions of race and color and religion are totally disregarded; anyone helping to preserve those distinctions is postponing that ideal; and you are certainly helping to preserve them. If in a question of murder you permit your action to be influenced by the complexion of the man who committed it, no matter whether you yourself are white or pink or black-”

“You’re wrong!”

It was a sharp explosion from the mouth of the muscular kid with the flat nose, the college boy. Some of them jumped, I was startled, and everybody looked at him.

Wolfe said, “I think I can justify my position, Mr. Whipple. If you’ll let me complete-”

“I don’t mean your position. You can have your logic. I mean your facts. One of them.”

Wolfe lifted his brows. “Which one?”

“The complexion of the murderer.” The college boy was looking him straight in the eye. “He wasn’t a black man. I saw him. He was a white man.”