Too Many Cooks

14

MY FRIEND ODELL STOOD beside a lobby pillar with an enormous leaf of a palm spread over his head, looking at me with a doubtful glint in his eye that I didn’t deserve.

I said, “Nor am I trying to negotiate a hot date, nor am I engaged in snooping. I’ve told you straight, I merely want to make sure that a private phone call is private. It’s not suspicion, it’s just precaution. As for your having to consult the manager, what the hell kind of a house dick are you if you haven’t even got the run of your own corral? You come along and stay with me, and if I start anything you don’t like you can throw stones at me. Which reminds me, this Kanawha Spa seems to be pretty hard on guests. If you don’t get hit with a rock you get plugged with a bullet. Huh?”

Without erasing the doubt, he made to move. “Okay. The next time I tell a man a joke it’ll be the one about Pat and Mike. Come on, Rollo.”

He led me through the lobby, down past the elevators, and along a ways to a narrow side corridor. It had doors with frosted glass panels, and he opened one on the right side and motioned me in. It was a small room, and all its furniture consisted of a switchboard running its entire length, perhaps fifteen feet, six maidens in a row with their backs to us, and the straight-backed chairs which the maidens inhabited. Odell went to the one at the end and conversed a moment, and then thumbed me over to the third in the line. From the back her neck looked a little scrawny, but when she turned to us she had smooth white skin and promising blue eyes. Odell said something to her, and she nodded, and I told her:

“I’ve just thought up a new way to make a phone call. Mr. Wolfe in Suite 60, Upshur Pavilion, wants to put in a call to New York and I’m going to stay and watch you do it.”

“Suite 60? That’s the man that was shot.”

“Yep.”

“And it was you that told me I’m a wonder.”

“Yep. In a way I came to check up. If you’ll just get-”

“Excuse me.” She turned and talked and listened, and monkeyed with some plugs. When she was through I said:

“Get New York, Liberty 2-3306, and put it on Suite 60.”

She grinned. “Personally conducted phone calls, huh?”

“Right. I haven’t had so much fun in ages.”

She got busy. I became aware of activity at my elbow, and saw that Odell had got out a notebook and pencil and was writing something down. I craned the neck for a glimpse of his scrawl, and then told him pleasantly, “I like a man that knows his job the way you do. To save you the trouble of listening for the next one, it’s going to be Spring 7-3100. New York Police Headquarters.”

“Much obliged. What’s he doing, yelling for help because he got a little scratch on the face?”

I made a fitting reply with my mind elsewhere, because I was watching operations. The board was an old style, and it was easy to tell if she was listening in. Her hands were all over the place, pushing and dropping plugs, and it was only five minutes or so before I heard her say, “Mr. Wolfe? Ready with New York. Go ahead, please.” She flashed me a grin. “Who was I supposed to tell about it? Mr. Odell here?”

I grinned back. “Don’t you bother your little head about it. Be good, dear child-”

“And let who will wear diamonds. I know. Have you heard the one-excuse me.”

Odell stayed with me till the end. He had a long wait, for Wolfe’s talk with Saul Panzer lasted a good quarter of an hour, and the second one, with Inspector Cramer-provided he got Cramer-almost as long. When it was finished and the plugs had been pulled, I thought it was only sociable to ask the maiden whether she preferred oblong diamonds or round ones, and she replied that she would much rather have a copy of the Bible because most of hers were getting worn out, she read them so much. I made a feint to pat her on the head and she ducked and Odell plucked me by the sleeve.

I left him in the lobby with thanks and an assurance that I hadn’t forgotten his aspirations to the Hotel Churchill, regarding which Mr. Wolfe would sound out Mr. Liggett at the first opportunity.

A minute later I had an opportunity myself, but was too busy to take advantage of it. Going away from the main entrance in the direction of my next errand took me past the mounting block, and there was a bunch of horses around, some mounted and some not, with greenjacket grooms. I like the look of horses at a distance of ten feet or more, and I slowed down as I went by. It was there I saw Liggett, with the right clothes on which I suppose he had borrowed, dismounting from a big bay. Another reason I slowed down was because I thought I might see another guest get stepped on, but it didn’t happen so. Not that I have anything against guests as guests; it’s only my natural feeling about people who pay twenty bucks a day for a room to sleep in, and they always look either too damn sleek or as if they had been born with a bellyache. I know if I was a horse…

But I had errands. Wolfe had already been alone in that room for over half an hour, and although I had left strict orders with the greenjacket to admit no one to Suite 60 under any pretext, and the door- was locked, I didn’t care much for the setup. So I got along to Pocahontas Pavilion in quick time. I met Lisette Putti and Vallenko, with tennis rackets, near the entrance, and Mamma Mondor was on the veranda knitting. On the driveway a state cop and a plug-ugly in cits sat in a car smoking cigarettes. Inside both parlors were empty, but there was plenty going on in the kitchen-cooks and helpers, greenjackets, masters, darting around looking concentrated. Apparently another free-for-all lunch was in preparation, not to mention the dinner for that evening, which was to illustrate the subject of Wolfe’s speech by consisting of dishes that had originated in America. That, of course, was to be concocted under the direction of Louis Servan, and he was there in white cap and apron, moving around feeling, looking, smelling, tasting, and instructing. I allowed myself a grin at the sight of Albert Malfi the Corsican fruit slicer, also capped and aproned, trotting at Servan’s heels, before I went across to accost the dean, just missing a collision with Domenico Rossi as he bounced away from a range.

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…”