Too Many Cooks/Champagne for One (26 page)

He reached the end. Even though I knew his program, and knew the time was short, I had supposed he would at least pause there, and perhaps give Louis Servan a chance to make a few remarks of appreciation, but he didn’t even stop long enough for them to realize that the speech was finished. He looked around—a brief glance at the rectangle of faces—and went right on:

“I hope I won’t bore you if I continue, but on another subject. I count on your forbearance, for what I have to say is as much in your interest as in my own. I have finished my remarks on cooking. Now I’m going to talk to you about murder. The murder of Phillip Laszio.”

There were stirs and murmurs. Lisette Putti squeaked. Louis Servan put up a hand:

“If you please. I would like to say, Mr. Wolfe does this by arrangement. It is distressing to end thus the dinner of Les Quinze Maîtres but it appears … unavoidable. We do not even … however, there is no help …”

Ramsey Keith, glancing at Tolman, Malfi, Liggett, Ashley, growled inhospitably, “So that’s the reason these people—”

“Yes, that’s the reason.” Wolfe was brisk. “I beg you, all of you, don’t blame me for intruding a painful subject into an occasion of festivity. The intruder was the man who killed Laszio, and thereby worked disaster on a joyous gathering, cast the gloom of suspicion over a group of
eminent men, and ruined my holiday as well as yours. So not only do I have a special reason for rancor for that man”—he put the tip of a fìnger to his bandage—“but we all have a general one. Besides, before dinner I heard several of you complaining of the fact that you will all be detained here until the authorities release you. But you know that’s a natural consequence of the misfortune that overtook you. The authorities can’t be expected to let you disperse to the four corners of the earth as long as they have reason to suspect that one of you is a murderer. That’s why I say I count on your forbearance. You can’t leave here until the guilty man is discovered. So that’s what I intend to do here and now. I’m going to expose the murderer, and demonstrate his guilt, before we leave this room.”

Lisette Putti squeaked again, and then covered her mouth with her palm. There were no murmurs. A few glanced around, but most of them kept their eyes on Wolfe.

He went on, “First I think I’d better tell you what was done here—in this room—Tuesday evening, and then we can proceed to the question of who did it. There was nothing untoward until Mondor, Coyne, Keith and Servan had all been here and tasted the sauces. The instant Servan left, Laszio reached across the table and changed the position of the dishes, all but two. Doubtless he would have shifted those also if the door had not begun to open for the entrance of Berin. It was a childish and malicious trick intended to discredit Berin, and possibly Vukcic too. It may be that Laszio intended to replace the dishes when Berin left, but he didn’t, because he was killed before he got a chance to.

“While Berin was in here the radio in the parlor was turned on. That was a prearranged signal for a man who was waiting for it out in the shrubbery. He was close enough to the parlor window—”

“Wait a minute!” The cry wasn’t loud, nor explosive; it was quite composed. But everyone was startled into turning to Dina Laszio, who had uttered it. There was as little turmoil in her manner as in her voice, though maybe her eyes were a little longer and sleepier even than usual. They were directed at Wolfe: “Do we interrupt you when you tell lies?”

“I think not, madam—granting your premise. If each of my statements is met with a challenge we’ll never get anywhere. Why don’t you wait till I’m through? By that time, if I have lied, you can bankrupt me with a suit for slander.”

“I turned on the radio. Everyone knows that. You said it was a prearranged signal.…”

“So I did. I beg you, let’s don’t turn this into a squabble. I’m discussing murder and making serious charges. Let me finish, let me expose myself, then rebut me if you can; and either I shall be discredited and disgraced, or someone here will be … do you hang in West Virginia, Mr. Tolman?”

Tolman, his eyes riveted on Wolfe’s face, nodded.

“Then someone will die at the end of a rope.—As I was saying, the man concealed in the shrubbery out there”—he pointed to the door leading to the terrace—“was close enough to the open parlor window so that when the radio warned him he could observe the return of Berin to the parlor. Instantly he proceeded to the terrace and entered this room by that door. Laszio, here alone by the table, was surprised at the entrance of a liveried servant—for the man wore Kanawha Spa livery and had a black face. The man approached the table and made himself known, for Laszio knew him well. ‘See,’ the man said with a smile, ‘don’t you know me, I am Mr. White’—we may call him that for the present, for he was in fact a white man—‘I am Mr. White, masquerading, ha ha, and we’ll play a joke on these fellows. It will be quite amusing, ha ha, Laszio old chap. You go behind that screen and I’ll stay here by the table …’

“I confess that no one except Laszio heard those words, or any others. The words actually spoken may have been quite different, but whatever they were, the upshot was that Laszio went behind the screen, and Mr. White, having procured a knife from the table, followed him there and stabbed him to the heart, from behind. It was certainly done with finesse and dispatch, since there was no struggle and no outcry loud enough to be heard in the pantry hall. Mr. White left the knife where he had put it, seeing that it had done its work, and emerged from behind the screen. As he did so a glance showed him that the door to the pantry hall—that door—was open a few inches and a man, a colored man, was peering at him through the crack. Either he had already decided what to do in case of such an emergency, or he showed great presence of mind, for he merely stood still at the end of the screen, looking straight at the eyes peering at him, and placed his finger to his lips. A simple and superb gesture. He may or may not have known—probably he didn’t—that at the same moment the door leading to the terrace, behind him,
had also opened, and a woman was looking through at him. But his masquerade worked both ways. The colored man knew he was a fake, a white man blacked up, took him for one of the guests playing a joke, and so was not moved to inquire or interfere. The woman supposed he was a servant and let it go at that. Before he left this room Mr. White was seen by still another man—the headwaiter, Moulton here—but by the time Moulton looked through the door Mr. White was on his way out and his back was turned, so Moulton didn’t see his face.—We might as well record names as we go along. The man who first peered through the door was Paul Whipple, one of our waiters here—who, by the way, is studying anthropology at Howard University. The one who saw Mr. White going out was Moulton. The woman who looked through the terrace door was Mrs. Lawrence Coyne.”

Coyne jerked around to look, startled, at his wife. She put up her chin at Wolfe. “But … you promised me …”

“I promised you nothing. I’m sorry, Mrs. Coyne, but it’s much better not to leave out anything I don’t think—”

Coyne sputtered indignantly. “I’ve heard nothing—nothing—”

“Please.” Wolfe put up a and. “I assure you, sir, you and your wife have no cause for worry. Indeed, we should all be grateful to her. If she hadn’t hurt her finger in the door, and asked you to kiss it in my hearing, it’s quite probable that Mr. Berin would have got the noose instead of the man who earned it. But I needn’t go into that.

“That’s what happened here Tuesday night. I’ll clear up a point now about the radio. It might be thought of, since it was turned on, as a prearranged signal, while Berin was in here tasting the sauces, that it was timed at that moment so as to throw suspicion on Berin, but not so. There was probably no intention to have suspicion aimed at any specific person, but if there was, that person was Marko Vukcic. The arrangement was that the radio should be turned on a few minutes prior to the visit of Vukcic to the dining room, no matter who was tasting the sauces at that moment. It was chance that made it Berin, and chance also that Laszio had shifted the sauces around to trick Berin. And the chance trap for Berin was actually sprung, innocently, by Moulton, who came to the table and changed the dishes back again before Vukcic entered. I haven’t told you about that. But the point I am making is that the radio signal was given a few minutes prior to the scheduled entrance of Vukcic to the dining room,
because Vukcic was the one man here whom Mrs. Laszio could confidently expect to detain in the parlor, delaying his visit to the dining room, and giving Mr. White the necessary time alone with Laszio to accomplish his purpose. As we all know, she insured the delay by putting herself into Vukcic’s arms for dancing, and staying there.”

“Lies! You know it’s lies—”

“Dina! Shut up!”

It was Domenico Rossi, glaring at his daughter. Vukcic, with his jaw set, was gazing at her. Others sent glances at her and looked away again.

“But he tells lies—”

“I say shut up!” Rossi was much quieter, and more impressive, than when he was picking a scrap. “If he tells lies, let him tell all of them.”

“Thank you, sir.” Wolfe inclined his head half an inch. “I think now we had better decide who Mr. White is. You will notice that the fearful risks he took in this room Tuesday night were more apparent than real. Up to the moment he sank the knife into Laszio’s back he was taking no risk at all; he was merely an innocent masquerader. And if afterwards he was seen—well, he
was
seen, and what if he was, since he was blacked up? The persons who saw him here Tuesday night have all seen him since, with the blacking and livery gone, and none has suspected him. He depended for safety on his certainty that he would never be suspected at all. He had several bases for that certainty, but the chief one was that on Tuesday evening he wasn’t in Kanawha Spa; he was in New York.”

Berin burst out, “God above! If he wasn’t here—”

“I mean he wasn’t supposed to be here. It is always assumed that a man is where probability places him, unless suspicion is aroused that he is somewhere else, and Mr. White figured that such a suspicion was an impossibility. But he was too confident and too careless. He permitted his own tongue to create the suspicion in a conversation with me.

“As you all know, I’ve had wide experience in affairs of this kind. It’s my business. I told Mr. Tolman Tuesday night that I was sure Berin hadn’t done it, but I withheld my best reason for that assurance, because it wasn’t my case and I don’t like to involve people where I have no concern. That reason was this, I was convinced that Mrs. Laszio had signaled to the murderer by turning on the radio. Other details connected
with that might be attributed to chance, but it would take great credulity to believe that her hanging onto Vukcic in that dance, delaying his trip to the dining room while her husband was being killed, was also coincidence. Especially when, as I did, one saw her doing it. She made a bad mistake there. Ordinary intelligence might have caused her to reflect that I was present and that therefore more subtlety was called for.

“When Berin was arrested I did become interested, as you know, but when I had got him released I was again unconcerned with the affair. Whereupon another idiotic mistake was made, almost unbelievable. Mr. White thought I was discovering too much, and without even taking the trouble to learn that I had withdrawn, he sneaked through the shrubbery outside my window and shot me. I think I know how he approached Upshur Pavilion. My assistant, Mr. Goodwin, an hour or so later, saw him dismounting from a horse at the hotel. The bridle path runs within fifty yards of the rear of Upshur. He could easily have left the path, tied his horse, advanced through the shrubbery to my window, and after the shot got back to the horse again and off on the path without being seen. At all events, he made that mistake, and by it, instead of removing me, he encountered me. My concern revived.

“I assumed, as I say, that the murderer was in league with Mrs. Laszio. I dismissed the idea that it was solely her project and he had been hired by her, for that would have rendered the masquerade meaningless; besides, it was hard to believe that a hired murderer, a stranger to Laszio, could have entered this room, got a knife from the table, enticed Laszio behind the screen, and killed him, without an outcry or any struggle. And just as yesterday, when Berin was arrested and I undertook to find evidence to free him, I had one slender thread to start with, Mrs. Coyne’s appeal to her husband to kiss her finger because she had caught it in a door, so to-day, when I undertook to catch the murderer, I had another thread just as slender. It was this. Yesterday about two o’clock Mr. Malfi and Mr. Liggett arrived at Kanawha Spa after a nonstop airplane flight from New York. They came directly to my room at Upshur Pavilion before talking with anyone but servants, and had a conversation with me. During the conversation Liggett said—I think this is verbatim: ‘It seems likely that whoever did it was able to use
finesse for other purposes than tasting the seasonings in Sauce Printemps.’ Do you remember that, sir?”

“For God’s sake.” Liggett snorted. “You damn fool, are you trying to drag me into it?”

“I’m afriad I am. You may enter your action for slander along with Mrs. Laszio. Do you remember saying that?”

“No. Neither do you.”

Wolfe shrugged. “It’s unimportant now. It was vital in its function as my thread.—Anyway, it seemed suitable for inquiry. It seemed unlikely that such a detail as the name of the sauce we were tasting had been included in the first brief reports of the murder wired to New York. I telephoned there, to an employee of mine, and to Inspector Cramer of the police. My requests to Mr. Cramer were somewhat inclusive: for instance, I asked him to check on all passengers of airplanes, scheduled or specially chartered, from all airports, leaving New York Tuesday, which had stopped no matter where in this part of the country in time for a passenger to have arrived at Kanawha Spa by nine o’clock Tuesday evening. I made it nine o’clock because when we went to the parlor after dinner Tuesday Mrs. Laszio immediately disappeared and was not seen again for an hour; and if there was anything to my theory at all it seemed likely that that absence was for a rendezvous with her collaborator. I also asked Mr. Cramer to investigate Mrs. Laszio’s life in New York—her friends and associates—now, madam. Please. You’ll get a chance.—For suspicion was at that point by no means confined to Liggett. There was even one of you here not entirely clear; and I want to express publicly to Mr. Blanc my thanks for his tolerance and good nature in assisting with the experiment which eliminated him. No doubt he thought it ridiculous.