Too Many Cooks/Champagne for One (10 page)

“Someone could have gone from the large parlor to the small one and from there entered the dining room and killed him. You should establish beyond doubt the presence of everyone in the large parlor, especially during the interim between Berin’s leaving the dining room and Vukcic’s entering it, which, as you say, was some eight or ten minutes.”

“I have done so. Of course, I covered everybody pretty fast.”

“Then cover them again. Another possibility: someone could have been concealed behind either of the screens and struck from there when the opportunity offered.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“I’m sure I couldn’t say.” Wolfe frowned. “I may as well tell you, Mr. Tolman, I am extremely skeptical regarding your two chief suspects, Mr. Berin and Mr. Vukcic. That is putting it with restraint. As for Mr. Blanc, I am without an opinion; as you have pointed out, he could unquestionably have left his room, made an exit at the end of the left wing corridor, circled the building, entered by the dining room
terrace, achieved his purpose, and returned the way he had come. In that case, might he not have been seen by Mrs. Coyne, who was outdoors at the time, looking at the night?”

Tolman shook his head. “She says not. She was at the front and the side both. She was no one but a nigger in uniform, and stopped him and asked him what the sound of a whippoorwill was. We’ve found him—one of the boys from the spring on his way to Mingo Pavilion.”

“So. As for Berin and Vukcic, if I were you I would pigeonhole them for the present. Or at least—I offer a suggestion: get the slips, the tasting reports, from Mr. Servan—”

“I have them.”

“Good. Compare them with the correct list, which you also got from Mr. Servan no doubt—”

“He didn’t have it. It was in Laszio’s pocket.”

“Very well. Compare each list with it, and see how nearly each taster was correct.”

Sheriff Pettigrew snorted. Tolman asked dryly, “You call that being helpful, do you?”

“I do. I am already—by the way!” Wolfe straightened a little. “If you have the correct list there—the one you took from Laszio’s pocket—do you mind if I look at it a moment?”

Tolman, with his brows up, shuffled through the papers before him, extracted one, handed it to me, and I passed it to Wolfe. Wolfe looked at it with his forehead wrinkled, and exclaimed, “Good God!” He looked at it again, and turning to me, shaking the paper in his hand. “Archie. Coyne was right! Number 3 was shallots!”

Tolman asked sarcastically, “Comedy relief? Much obliged for
that
help.”

I grinned at him. “Comedy hell, he won’t sleep for a week, he guessed wrong.”

Wolfe reproved me: “It was not a guess. It was a deliberate conclusion, and it was wrong.” He handed me the paper. “Pardon me, Mr. Tolman, I’ve had a blow. Actually. I wouldn’t expect you to appreciate it. As I was saying, I am already more than skeptical regarding Berin and Vukcic. I have known Mr. Vukcic all my life. I can conceive of his stabbing a man, under hypothetical conditions, but I am sure that if he did you wouldn’t find the knife in the man’s back. I don’t know Mr. Berin well, but I saw him at close range and heard
him speak less than a minute after he left the dining room last night, and I would stake something that he wasn’t fresh from the commission of a cowardly murder. He had but a moment before sunk a knife in Mr. Laszio’s back, and I detected no residue of that experience in his posture, his hands, his eyes, his voice? I don’t believe it.”

“And about comparing these lists—”

“I’m coming to that. I take it that Mr. Servan has described the nature of that test to you—each sauce lacking one or another of the seasonings. We were permitted but one taste from each dish—only one! Have you any conception of the delicacy and sensitivity required? It took the highest degree of concentration and receptivity of stimuli. To detect a single false note in one of the wood winds in a symphonic passage by full orchestra would be the same. So, compare those lists. If you find that Berin and Vukcic were substantially correct—say seven or eight out of nine—they are eliminated. Even six. No man about to kill another, or just having done so, could possibly control his nervous system sufficiently to perform such a feat. I assure you this is not comedy.”

Tolman nodded. “All right, I’ll compare them.”

“It would be instructive to do so now.”

“I’ll attend to it. Any other suggestions?”

“No.” Wolfe got his hands on the chair arms, pulled his feet back, braced, and arose. “The ten minutes are up.” He did his little bow. “I offer you again, gentlemen, my sympathy and best wishes.”

The sheriff said, “I understand you’re sleepin’ in Upshur. Of course you realize you’re free to go anywhere you want to around the grounds here.”

“Thank you, sir.” Wolfe sounded bitter. “Come, Archie.”

Not to crowd the path, I let him precede me among the greenery back to Upshur Pavilion. We didn’t go through darkness, but through the twilight of dawn, and there were so many birds singing you couldn’t help noticing it. In the main hall of the pavilion the lights were turned on, and a couple of state cops were sitting there. Wolfe passed them without a glance.

I went to his room with him to make sure that everything was jake. The bed had been turned down, and the colored rugs and things made it bright and pleasant, and the room was big and classy enough to make it worth at least half of the
twenty bucks a day they charged for it, but Wolfe frowned around as if it had been a pigpen.

I inquired, “Can I help on the disrobing?”

“No.”

“Shall I bring a pitcher of water from the bathroom?”

“I can walk. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, boss.” I went.

His voice halted me at the door. “Archie. This Mr. Laszio seems to have had unpleasant characteristics. Do you suppose there is any chance he deliberately made that list incorrect, to disconcert his colleagues—and me?”

“Huh-uh. Not the faintest. Professional ethics, you know. Of course I’m sorry you got so many wrong—”

“Two! Shallots and chives! Leave me! Get out!”

He sure was one happy detective that night.

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:

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 entrée 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.”