Too Many Cooks

5

AT TWO O’CLOCK the next day, Wednesday, I was feeling pretty screwy and dissatisfied with life, but in one way completely at home. Getting to bed too late, or having my sleep disturbed unduly, poisons my system, and I had had both to contend with. Having neglected to hang up a notice, a damn fool servant had got me to the door of our suite at nine o’clock to ask if we wanted baths drawn or any other little service, and I had told him to return at sundown. At ten-thirty the phone woke me; my friend Barry Tolman wanted to speak to Wolfe. I explained that Wolfe’s first exposure to the light of day would have to be on his own initiative, and told the operator no more calls until further notice. In spite of that, an hour later the phone rang again and kept on ringing. It was Tolman, and he just had to speak to Wolfe. I told him absolutely nothing doing, without a search and seizure warrant, until Wolfe had announced himself as conscious. But that time I was roused enough to become aware of other necessities besides sleep, so I bathed and shaved and dressed and phoned Room Service for some breakfast, since I couldn’t go and get it under the circumstances. I had finished the third cup of coffee when I heard Wolfe yelling for me. He was certainly getting demoralized. At home in New York, I hadn’t heard him yell more than three times in ten years.

He gave me his breakfast order, which I phoned, and then issued the instructions which made me feel at home. It was his intention to confine his social contacts for that afternoon exclusively to me. Business and professional contacts were out. The door was to be kept locked, and any caller, unless it should happen to be Marko Vukcic, was to be told that Wolfe was immersed in something, no matter what. Telephone calls were to be handled by me, since he knew nothing that I didn’t know. (This jarred my aplomb, since it was the first time he had ever admitted it.) Should I feel the need of more fresh air than was obtainable through open windows, which was idiotic but probable, the DO NOT DISTURB card was to be hung on the door and the key kept in my pocket.

I phoned for whatever morning papers were available, and when they came passed a couple to Wolfe and made myself comfortable on a couch with the remainder. Those from New York and Pittsburgh and Washington, being early train editions, had no mention of the Laszio murder, but there were big headlines and a short piece in the Charleston Journal, which had only sixty miles to come.

But before the day was out Wolfe’s arrangements for peaceful privacy got shot full of holes. The first and least important of the upsets came before he had finished with the newspapers when, around two o’clock, there were sounds at the outer door and I went and opened it a discreet twelve inches to find myself confronted by two gentlemen who did not look local and whom I had never seen before. One was shorter than me and somewhat older, dark-skinned, wiry and compact, in a neat gray herringbone with padded shoulders and cut-in waist; the other, medium both in age and size, wore his hairline well above his temples and had small gray eyes that looked as if nobody would ever have to irritate him again because he was already irritated for good. But he spoke and listened politely as he asked me if that was Mr. Nero Wolfe’s suite and I informed him it was, and announced that he was Mr. Liggett and the padded specimen was Mr. Malfi, and he would like to see Wolfe. I explained that Wolfe was immersed, and he looked impatient and dug an envelope from his pocket and handed it to me. I apologized for shutting them in the hall before I did so, and returned to the pigpen.

“Two male strangers, vanilla and caramel. To see you.”

Wolfe’s eyes didn’t leave his newspapers. “If either of them was Mr. Vukcic, I presume you would have recognized him.”

“Not Vukcic, no, but you didn’t prohibit letters, and he handed me one.”

“Read it.”

I took it from the envelope, saw that it was on engraved stationery, and wired it for sound:

New York

April 7, 1937

Dear Mr. Wolfe:

This will introduce my friend Mr. Raymond Liggett, manager and part owner of the Hotel Churchill. He wants to ask your advice or assistance, and has requested this note from me.

I hope you’re enjoying yourself down there. Don’t eat too much, and don’t forget to come back to make life in New York pleasanter for us.

Yours BURKE WILLIAMSON

Wolfe grunted. “You said April 7th? That’s today.”

“Yeah, they must have flown. Formerly a figure of speech, now listed under common carriers. Do we let them in?”

“Confound it.” Wolfe let the paper down. “Courtesy is One’s own affair, but decency is a debt to life. You remember that Mr. Williamson was kind enough to let us use the grounds of his estate for the ambush and robbery of Miss Anna Fiore.” He sighed. “Show them in.”

I went and got them, pronounced names around, and placed chairs. Wolfe greeted them, made his customary statement regarding his tendency to stay seated, and then glanced a second time at the padded one.

“Did I catch your name, sir? Malfi? Perhaps, Albert Malfi?”

The wiry one’s black eyes darted at him. “That’s right. I don’t know how you knew the Albert.”

Wolfe nodded. “Formerly Alberto. I met Mr. Berin on the train coming down here, and he told me about you. He says you are an excellent entree man, and it is always a pleasure to meet an artist and a sound workman.”

Liggett put in, “Oh, you were with Berin on the train?”

“I was.” Wolfe grimaced. “We shared that ordeal. Mr. Williamson says you wish to ask me something.”

“Yes. Of course you know why we came. This-Laszio. It’s terrible. You were right there, weren’t you? You found the body.”

“I did. You wasted no time, Mr. Liggett.”

“I know damn well I didn’t. I usually turn in late and get up late, but this morning Malfi had me on the telephone before eight o’clock. Reporters had been after me earlier, but of course didn’t get through. The city editions had the story. I knew Williamson was a friend of yours, and sent to him for that note, and hired a plane from Newark. Malfi insisted on coming along, and I’m afraid one of your jobs will be to watch him as soon as they find out who did it.” Liggett showed a thin smile. “He’s a Corsican, and while Laszio wasn’t any relation of his, he’s got pretty devoted to him. Haven’t you, Malfi?”

The padded one nodded emphatically. “I have. Phillip Laszio was a mean man and a great man. He was not mean to me.” He spread both palms at Wolfe. “But of course Mr. Liggett is only joking. The world thinks all Corsicans stab people. That is a wrong idea and a bad one.”

“But you wanted to ask me something, Mr. Liggett?” Wolfe sounded impatient. “You said one of my jobs. I have no jobs.”

“I’m hoping you will have. First, to find out who killed Laszio. Judging from the account in the papers, it looks as if it will be too tough for a West Virginia sheriff. It seems likely that whoever did it was able to use finesse for other purposes than tasting the seasonings in Sauce Printemps. I can’t say I was devoted to Laszio in the sense that Malfi here was, but after all he was the chef of my hotel, and I understand he had no family except his wife, and I thought-it’s an obligation. It was a damned cowardly murder, a stab in the back. He ought to be caught, and I suspect it will take you to do it. That’s what I came for. Knowing your-er, peculiarities, I took the precaution of getting that note from Williamson.”

“It’s too bad.” Wolfe sighed. “I mean too bad you came. You could have telephoned from New York.”

“I asked Williamson what he thought about that, and he said if I really wanted your services I’d better come and get them.”

“Indeed. I don’t know why Mr. Williamson should assume difficulties. My services are on the market. Of course, in this particular instance they are unfortunately not available; that’s why I say it’s too bad you came.”

“Why not available?”

“Because of the conditions.”

“Conditions?” The irritation in Liggett’s eyes became more intense. “I’ve made no conditions.”

“Not you. Space. Geography. Should I undertake to discover Mr. Laszio’s murderer, I would see it through. That might take a day, a week, with bad luck a fortnight. I intend to board a train for New York tomorrow night.” Wolfe winced.

“Williamson warned me.” Liggett compressed his lips. “But good Lord, man! It’s your business! It’s your-”

“I beg you, sir. Don’t. I won’t listen. If I offend by being curt, very well. Anyone has the privilege of offending who is willing to bear the odium. I will consider no engagement that might detain me in this parasitic outpost beyond to-morrow night. You said ‘jobs.’ Is there anything else you wish to discuss?”

“There was.” Liggett looked as if he would prefer to continue the discussion with shrapnel or a machine gun. He sat and stared at Wolfe a while, then finally shrugged it off. He said, “The fact is, the main job is something quite different. The main thing I came down here for. Laszio is dead, and the way he died was terrible, and as a man I have, I hope, the proper feelings about it, but in addition to being a man I’m a business man, and the Hotel Churchill is left without a chef de cuisine. You know the Churchill’s worldwide reputation, and it has to be maintained. I want to get Jerome Berin.”

Wolfe’s brows went up. “I don’t blame you.”

“Of course you don’t. There are a few others as good as Berin, but they’re out. Mondor wouldn’t leave his Paris restaurant. Servan and Tassone are too old. I wouldn’t mind having Leon Blanc back, but he is also too old. Vukcic is tied up at Rusterman’s, and so on. I happen to know that Berin has received five offers from this country, two of them from New York, in the past two years, and has turned them all down. I’d like to have him. In fact, he’s the only one that I consider both available and desirable. If I can’t get him, Malfi can put a blue ribbon on his cap.” He turned to his companion. “Is that in accord with our agreement, Albert? When you got that offer from Chicago a year ago, I told you that if you would stick, and the position of chef de cuisine at the Churchill should become vacant, I would first try to get Berin, and if I couldn’t, you could have it. Right?”

Malfi nodded. “That was the understanding.”

Wolfe murmured, “This is all very interesting. But you were speaking of a job-”

“Yes. I want you to approach Berin for me. He’s one of the best seven chefs in the world, but he’s hard to handle. Last Saturday he deliberately spilled two plates of sausage in the middle of the carpet in my Resort Room. Williamson says you have remarkable ability as a negotiator, and you are the guest of honor here and Berin will listen to you with respect, and I believe unquestionably you can swing him. I would offer him forty thousand, but I tell you frankly I am willing to go to sixty, and your commission-”

Wolfe was showing him a palm. “Please, Mr. Liggett. It’s no go. Absolutely out of the question.”

“You mean you won’t do it?”

“I mean I wouldn’t undertake to persuade Mr. Berin to do anything whatever. I would as soon try to persuade a giraffe. I could elaborate-but I can’t see that I owe you that.”

“You won’t even attempt it?”

“I will not. The truth is, you have come to me at the most inauspicious moment in the past twenty years, and with proposals much more likely to vex me than to interest me. I don’t care a hang who your new chef will be, and while I always like to make money, that can wait until I am back in my office. There are others here better qualified to approach Mr. Berin for you than I am-Mr. Servan or Mr. Coyne, for instance, old friends of his.”

“They’re chefs themselves. I don’t want that. You’re the man to do it for me…”

He was a persistent cuss, but it didn’t get him anywhere. When he tried to insist Wolfe merely got curter, as he naturally would, and finally Liggett realized he was calling the wrong dog and gave it up. He popped up out of his chair, snapped at Malfi to come along, and without any ceremony showed Wolfe his back. Malfi trotted behind, and I followed them to the hall to see that the door was locked after them.

When I got back to the room, Wolfe was already behind his paper again. I felt muscle-bound and not inclined to settle down, so I said to him, “You know, Werowance, that’s not a bad idea-”

A word he didn’t know invariably got him. The paper went down to the level of his nose. “What the devil is that? Did you make it up?”

“I did not. I got it from a piece in the Charleston Journal. Werowance is a term that was used for an Indian Chief in Virginia and Maryland. I’m going to call you Werowance instead of Boss as long as we’re in this part of the country. As I was saying, Werowance, it might be a good idea to start an employment bureau for chefs and waiters, maybe later branch out into domestic help generally. You are aware, I suppose, that you have just turned down a darned good offer for a case. That Liggett has really got it in quantities. I suspect he may be half bright too; for instance, do you imagine he might have come to see you in order to let Alberto know indirectly that if he tried sticking something into Berin in order to make Berin ineligible for the Churchill job, it would have deplorable consequences? Which opens up a train of thought that might solve the unemployment question. If a job becomes vacant and you want it, first you kill all the other candidates and then-”

The paper was up again, so I knew I had made myself sufficiently obnoxious. I said, “I’m going out and wade in the brook, and maybe go to the hotel and ruin a few girls. See you later.”

I got my hat, hung up the DO NOT DISTURB, and wandered out, noting that there was a greenjacket at the door of the main hall but no cop. Apparently vigilance was relaxed. I turned my nose to the hotel, just to see what there was to see, and it wasn’t long before I regretted that, for if I hadn’t gone to the hotel first I would have got to see the whole show that my friend Tolman was putting on, instead of arriving barely in time for the final curtain. As it was, I found various sights around the hotel entrance and lobby that served for mild diversion, including an intelligent-looking horse stepping on a fat dowager’s foot so hard they had to carry her away, and it was around 3:30 when I decided to make an excursion to Pocahontas Pavilion and thank Vukcic, my host, for the good time I was having. In a secluded part of the path a guy with his necktie over his shoulder and needing a shave jumped out from behind a bush and grabbed my elbow, talking as he came: “Hey, you’re Archie Goodwin, aren’t you, Nero Wolfe’s man? Listen, brother-”

I shook him off and told him, “Damn it, quit scaring people. I’ll hold a press conference tomorrow morning in my study. I don’t know a thing, and if I did and told you I’d get killed by my werowance. Do you know what a werowance is?”

He told me to go to hell and started looking for another bush.

The tableau at Pocahontas Pavilion was in two sections when I got there. The first section, not counting the pair of troopers standing outside the entrance, was in the main hall. The greenjacket who opened the door for me was looking popeyed in another direction as he pulled it open. The door to the large parlor was closed. Standing with her back against the right wall, with her arms folded tight against her and her chin up, and her dark purple eyes flashing at the guys who hemmed her in, was Constanza Berin. The hemmers were two state cops in uniform and a hefty bird in cits with a badge on his vest, and while they weren’t actually touching her at the moment I entered, it looked as though they probably had been. She didn’t appear to see me. A glance showed me that the door to the small parlor was open, and a voice was coming through. As I started for it one of the cops called a sharp command to me, but it seemed likely he was too occupied to interfere in person, so I ignored it and went on.

There were cops in the small parlor too, and the squint-eyed sheriff, and Tolman. Between two of the cops stood Jerome Berin, with handcuffs on his wrists. I was surprised that under the circumstances Berin wasn’t breaking furniture or even skulls, but all he was doing was glaring and breathing. Tolman was telling him:

“…We appreciate that you’re a foreign visitor and a stranger here, and we’ll show you every consideration. In this country a man charged with murder can’t get bail. Your friends will of course arrange for counsel for you. I have not only told you that anything you say may be used against you, I have advised you to say nothing until you have consulted with counsel.-Go on, boys. Take him by the back path to the sheriff’s car.”

But they didn’t get started right then. Yells and other sounds came suddenly from the main hall, and Constanza Berin came through the door like a tornado with the cops behind. One in the parlor tried to grab her as she went by, but he might as well have tried to stop the great blizzard. I thought she was going right on over the table to get at Tolman, but she stopped there and turned with her eyes blazing at the cops, and then wheeled to Tolman and yelled at him, “You fool! You pig of a fool! He’s my father! Would he kill a man in the back?” She pounded the table with fists. “Let him go! Let him go, you fool!”

A cop made a pass at her arm. Berin growled and took a step, and the two held him. Tolman looked as if the one thing he could use to advantage would be a trap door. Constanza had jerked away from the cop, and Berin said something to her, low and quiet, in Italian. She walked to him, three steps, and he went to lift a hand and couldn’t on account of the bracelets, and then stooped and kissed her on top of the head. She turned and stood still for ten seconds, giving Tolman a look which I couldn’t see, but which probably made a trap door all the more desirable, and then turned again and walked out of the room.

Tolman couldn’t speak. At least he didn’t. Sheriff Pettigrew shook himself and said, “Come on, boys, I’ll go along.”

I shoved off without waiting for their exit. Constanza wasn’t in the main hall. I halted there for an instant, thinking I might explore the large parlor in search of persons who might add to my information, and then decided that I had better first deposit what I had. So I went on out and hot-footed it back to Upshur.

Wolfe had finished with the papers and piled them neatly on the dresser, and was in the big chair, not quite big enough for him, with a book. He didn’t look up as I went in, which meant that for the time being my existence was strictly my own affair. I adopted the suggestion and parked myself on the couch with a newspaper, which I opened up and looked at but didn’t read. In about five minutes, after Wolfe had turned two pages, I said:

“By the way, it’s a darned good thing you didn’t take that job for Liggett. I mean the last one he offered. If you had, you would now be up a stump. As it stands now, you’d have a sweet time persuading Berin to be chef even for a soda fountain.”

Neither he nor the book moved, but he did speak. “I presume Mr. Malfi has stabbed Mr. Berin. Good.”

“No. He hasn’t and he won’t, because he can’t get at him. Berin is wearing gyves on his way to jail. My friend Tolman has made a pinch. Justice has lit her torch.”

“Pfui. If you must pester me with fairy tales, cultivate some imagination.”

I said patiently, “Mr. Tolman has arrested Mr. Berin for the murder of Mr. Laszio and removed him to custody without bail. I saw it with these eyes.”

The book went down. “Archie. If this is flummery-”

“No, sir. Straight.”

“He has charged Berin?”

“Yes, sir.”

“In the name of God, why? The man’s a fool.”

“That’s what Miss Berin said. She said pig of a fool.”

The book had remained suspended in the air; now it was lowered to rest on the expanse of thigh. In a few moments it was lifted again and opened for a page to get turned down, and was then deposited on a little stand beside the chair. Wolfe leaned back and shut his eyes and his fingers met at the front of his belly; and I saw his lips push out, then in again… then out, then in… It startled me, and I wondered what all the excitement was about.

After a while he said without opening his eyes, “You understand, Archie, that I would hesitate to undertake anything which might conceivably delay our return to New York.”

“It could be called hesitating. There’re stronger words.”

“Yes. On the other hand, I should be as great a fool as Mr. Tolman were I to ignore such an opportunity as this. It looks as if the only way to take advantage of it is to learn who killed Mr. Laszio. The question is, can we do it in thirty-one hours? Twenty-eight really, since at the dinner to-morrow evening I am to deliver my talk on American contributions to la haute cuisine. Can we do it in twenty-eight hours?”

“Sure we can.” I waved a hand. “Gosh, with me to do the planning and you to handle the details-”

“Yes. Of course they may have abandoned the idea of that dinner, but I should think not, since only once in five years… well. The first step-”

“Excuse me.” I had dropped the paper to the floor and straightened up, with a warm feeling that here was going to be a chance to get my circulation started. “Why not get in touch with Liggett and accept his offer? Since we’re going to do it anyway, we might as well annex a fee along with it.”

“No. If I engage with him and am not finished by to-morrow evening-no. Freedom is too precious collateral for any fee. We shall proceed. The first step is obvious. Bring Mr. Tolman here at once.”

That was like him. Some day he would tell me to go gel the Senate and the House of Representatives. I said, “Tolman’s sore at you because you wouldn’t come to the phone this morning. Also he thinks he has his man and is no longer interested. Also I don’t believe-”

“Archie! You said you will do the planning. Please go for Mr. Tolman, and plan how to persuade him on the way.”

I went for my hat.