Too Many Cooks/Champagne for One (12 page)

“Hello, cockroach.”

I wheeled and narrowed my eyes at it. “Hello, rat. Not even rat. Something I don’t know the name of, because it lives underground and eats the roots of weeds.”

Gershom Odell shook his head. “Not me. Wrong number. What you said about Laszio getting croaked, I had already told the night clerk just as conversation, and of course they faced me with it after it happened, and what could I do? But your shooting off your face about throwing stones—didn’t you have brains enough to know you would make the damn sheriff suspicious?”

“I haven’t got any brains, I’m a detective. The sheriff’s busy elsewhere anyhow.” I waved a hand. “Forget it. I want to see Tolman. Is he around here?”

Odell nodded. “He’s in the manager’s office with Ashley.
Also a few other people, including a man from New York named Liggett. Which reminds me I want to see you. You think you’re so damn smart I’d like to lay you flat and sit on you, but I’ll have to let that go because I want you to do me a favor.”

“Let it go anyway. Sit not lest you be sat on.”

“Okay. What I wanted to ask you about, I’m fed up with the sticks. It’s a good job here in a way, but in other ways it’s pretty crummy. To-day when Raymond Liggett landed here in a plane, the first person he asked for was Nero Wolfe, and he hoofed it right over to Upshur without going to his room or even stopping to say hello to Ashley. So I figured Wolfe must stand pretty high with him, and it occurred to me that about the best berth in this country for a house detective is the Hotel Churchill.” Odell’s eyes gleamed. “Boy, would that be a spot for a good honest man like me! So while Liggett’s here, if you could tell Wolfe about me and he could tell Liggett and arrange for me to meet him without the bunch here getting wise in case I don’t land it.…”

I was thinking, sure as the devil we’re turning into an employment agency. I hate to disappoint people, and therefore I kidded Odell along, without actually misrepresenting the condition of Wolfe’s intimacy with Raymond Liggett, and keeping one eye on the closed door which was the entrance to the manager’s office. I told him that I was glad to see that he wasn’t satisfied to stay in a rut and had real ambition and so forth, and it was a very nice chat, but I knocked off abruptly when I saw the closed door open and my friend Barry Tolman emerge alone. Giving Odell a friendly clap on the shoulder with enough muscle in it to give him an idea how easy I would be to sit on, I left him and followed my prey among the pillars and palms, and at a likely spot near the main entrance pounced on him.

His blue eyes looked worried and his whole face untidy. He recognized me: “Oh. What do you want? I’m in a hurry.”

I said, “So am I. I’m not going to apologize about Wolfe not coming to the phone this morning, because if you know anything about Nero Wolfe you know he’s eccentric and try and change him. I happened to see you going by just now, and I met you on the train Monday night and liked your face because you looked like a straight-shooter, and a little while ago I saw you pinching Berin for murder—I suppose you
didn’t notice me, but I was there—and I went back to the suite and told Wolfe about it, and I think you ought to know what he did when I told him. He pinched his nose.”

“Well?” Tolman was frowning. “As long as he didn’t pinch mine—what about it?”

“Nothing, except that if you knew Wolfe as I do … I have never yet seen him pinch his nose except when he was sure that some fellow being was making a complete jackass of himself. Do as you please. You’re young and so you’ve got most of your bad mistakes ahead of you yet. I just had a friendly impulse, seeing you go by, and I
think
I can persuade Wolfe to have a talk with you if you want to come over to the suite with me right now. Anyhow, I’m willing to try it.” I moved back a step. “Suit yourself, since you’re in a hurry.…”

He kept the frown on. But I was pleased to see that he didn’t waste time in fiddle-faddle. He frowned into my frank eyes a few seconds, then said abruptly, “Come on,” and headed for the exit. I trotted behind glowing like a boy scout.

When we got to Upshur I had to continue the play, but I didn’t feel like leaving him loose in the public hall, so I took him to the suite and put him in my room and shut the door on him. Then I went across to Wolfe’s room, shutting that door too, and sat down on the couch and grinned at the fat son-of-a-gun.

“Well?” he demanded. “Couldn’t you find him?”

“Of course I could find him. I’ve got him.” I thumbed to indicate where. “I had to come in first to try to persuade you to grant him an audience. It ought to take about five minutes. It’s even possible he’ll sneak into the foyer to listen at the door.” I raised my voice. “What about justice? What about society? What about the right of every man?…”

Wolfe had to listen because there was no way out. I laid it on good and thick. When I thought enough time had elapsed I closed the valve, went to my room and gave Tolman the high sign with a look of triumph, and ushered him in. He looked so preoccupied with worry that for a second I thought he was going to miss the chair when he sat down.

He plunged into it. “I understand that you think I’m pulling a boner.”

Wolfe shook his head. “Not my phrase, Mr. Tolman. I can’t
very well have an intelligent opinion until I know the facts that moved you. Offhand, I fear you’ve been precipitate.”

“I don’t think so.” Tolman had his chin stuck out. “I talked with people in Charleston on the phone, and they agreed with me. Not that I’m passing the buck; the responsibility is mine. Incidentally, I’m supposed to be in Charleston at six o’clock for a conference, and it’s sixty miles. I’m not bull-headed about it; I’ll turn Berin loose like that”—he snapped his fingers—“if I’m shown cause. If you’ve any information I haven’t got I’d have been damned thankful to get it when I phoned you this morning, and I’d be thankful now. Not to mention the duty of a citizen …”

“I have no information that would prove Mr. Berin innocent.” Wolfe’s tone was mild. “It was Mr. Goodwin’s ebullience that brought you here. I gave you my opinion last night. It might help if I knew what you based your decision on, short of what you value as secret. You understand I have no client. I am representing no one.”

“I have no secrets. But I have enough to hold Berin and indict him and I think convict him. As for opportunity, you know about that. He has threatened Laszio’s life indiscriminately, in the hearing of half a dozen people. I suppose he figured that it would be calculated that a murderer would not go around advertising it in advance, but I think he overplayed it. This morning I questioned everybody again, especially Berin and Vukcic, and I counted Vukcic out. I got various pieces of information. But I admit that the most convincing fact of all came through a suggestion from you. I compared those lists with the one we found in Laszio’s pocket. No one except Berin got more than two wrong.”

He got papers from his pocket and selected one. “The lists of five of them, among them Vukcic, agreed exactly with the correct list. Four of them, including you, made two mistakes each, and the same ones.” He returned the papers to his pocket and leaned forward at Wolfe. “Berin had just two right! Seven wrong!”

In the silence Wolfe’s eyes went nearly closed. At length he murmured, “Preposterous. Nonsense.”

“Precisely!” Tolman nodded with emphasis. “It is incredible that in a test on which the other nine averaged over 90% correct, Berin should score 22%. It is absolutely conclusive of one of two things: either he was so upset by a murder he had just committed or was about to commit that he couldn’t
distinguish the tastes, or he was so busy with the murder that he didn’t have time to taste at all, and merely filled out his list haphazard. I regard it as conclusive, and I think a jury will. And I want to say that I am mighty grateful to you for the suggestion you made. I freely admit it was damned clever and it was you who thought of it.”

“Thank you. Did you inform Mr. Berin of this and request an explanation?”

“Yes. He professed amazement. He couldn’t explain it.”

“You said ‘absolutely conclusive.’ That’s far too strong. There are other alternatives. Berin’s list may be forged.”

“It’s the one he himself handed to Servan, and it bears his signature. It hadn’t been out of Servan’s possession when he gave the lists to me. Would you suspect Servan?”

“I suspect no one. The dishes or cards might have been tampered with.”

“Not the cards. Berin says they were in consecutive order when he tasted, as they were throughout. As for the dishes, who did it, and who put them back in place again after Berin left?”

After another silence Wolfe murmured again, obstinately, “It remains preposterous.”

“Sure it does.” Tolman leaned forward, further than before. “Look here, Wolfe. I’m a prosecuting attorney and all that, and I’ve got a career to make and I know what it means to have a success in a sensational case like this, but you’re wrong if you think it gave me any pleasure to make a quick grab for Berin as a victim. It didn’t. I …” He stopped. He tried it again. “I … well, it didn’t. For certain reasons, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. But let me ask you a question. I want to make it a tight question. Granted these premises as proven facts: one, that Berin made seven mistakes on the list he filled out and signed; two, that when he tasted the dishes they and the cards were in the same condition and order as when the others did; three, that nothing can be discovered to cast doubt on those facts; four, that you have taken the oath of office as prosecuting attorney. Would you have Berin arrested for murder and try to convict him?”

“I would resign.”

Tolman threw up both hands. “Why?”

“Because I saw Mr. Berin’s face and heard him speak less than a minute after he left the dining room last night.”

“Maybe you did, but I didn’t. If our positions were reversed, would you accept my word and judgment as to the evidence of Berin’s face and voice?”

“No.”

“Or anyone’s?”

“No.”

“Have you any information that will explain, or help to explain, the seven errors on Berin’s list?”

“No.”

“Have you any information in addition to what you have given me that would tend to prove him innocent?”

“No.”

“All right.” Tolman sat back. He looked at me resentfully and accusingly, which struck me as unfair, and then let his eyes go back to Wolfe. His jaw was working, in a nervous side-to-side movement, and after awhile he seemed to become suddenly aware of that and clamped it tight. Then he loosened it again: “Candidly, I was hoping you would have. From what Goodwin said, I thought maybe you did. You said if you were in my place you’d resign. But what the devil good—”

I didn’t get to hear the rest of it, on account of another rupture to Wolfe’s plans for an afternoon of peaceful privacy. The knock on the outer door was loud and prolonged. I went to the foyer and opened up, half expecting to see the two visitors from New York again, in view of the recent developments, but instead it was a trio of a different nature: Louis Servan, Vukcic, and Constanza Berin.

Vukcic was brusque. “We want to see Mr. Wolfe.”

I told them to come in. “If you wouldn’t mind waiting in here?” I indicated my room. “He’s engaged at the moment with Mr. Barry Tolman.”

Constanza backed up and bumped the wall of the foyer. “Oh!” Her expression would have been justified if I had told her that I had my pockets full of toads and snakes and poisonous lizards. She made a dive for the knob of the outer door. Vukcic grabbed her arm and I said: “Now, hold it. Can Mr. Wolfe help it if an attractive young fellow insists on coming to cry on his shoulder? Here, this way, all of you—”

The door to Wolfe’s room opened and Tolman appeared. It was a little dim in the foyer, and it took him a second to call the roll. When he saw her, he had called it a day. He stared at her and turned a muddy white, and his mouth
opened three times for words which got delayed en route. It didn’t seem that she got any satisfaction out of the state he was in, for apparently she didn’t see him; she looked at me and said that she supposed they could see Mr. Wolfe now, and Vukcic took her elbow, and Tolman sidestepped in a daze to let them by. I stayed behind to let Tolman out, which I did after he had exchanged a couple of words with Servan.

The new influx appeared neither to cheer Wolfe nor enrage him. He received Miss Berin without enthusiasm but with a little extra courtesy, and apologized to Vukcic and Servan for having stayed away all day from the gathering at Pocahontas Pavilion. Servan assured him politely that under the unhappy circumstances no apology was required, and Vukcic sat down and ran all his fingers through his dense tangle of hair and growled something about the rotten luck for the meeting of the fifteen masters. Wolfe inquired if the scheduled activities would be abandoned, and Servan shook his head. No, Servan said, they would continue with affairs although his heart was broken. He had for years been looking forward to the time when, as doyen of Les Quinze Maîtres, he would have the great honor of entertaining them as his guests; it was to have been the climax of his career, fittingly and sweetly in his old age; and what had happened was an incredible disaster. Nevertheless, they would proceed; he would that evening, as dean and host, deliver his paper on
Les Mystères du Goût
, on the preparation of which he had spent two years; at noon the next day they would elect new members—now, alas, four—to replace those deceased; and Thursday evening they would hear Mr. Wolfe’s discourse on
Contributions Américaines à la Haute Cuisine
. What a calamity, what a destruction of friendly, confraternity!

Wolfe said, “But such melancholy, Mr. Servan, is the worst possible frame of mind for digestion. Since placidity is out of the question, wouldn’t active hostility be better? Hostility for the person responsible?”

Servan’s brows went up. “You mean for Berin?”

“Good heavens, no. I said the person responsible. I don’t think Berin did it.”

“Oh!” It was a cry from Constanza. From the way she jerked up in her chair, and the look she threw at Wolfe, I was expecting her to hop over and kiss him, or at least spill ginger ale on him, but she just sat and looked.