Too Many Cooks

by Rex Stout

  I said firmly, “Vukcic has only been in this country eight years and knows very little about the detective business.”

  “Oh, no!” She gurgled. “I’m not young enough to be such a big. fool as that. I’ve been out of school three years.”

  “All right.” I waved a hand. “Forget the horses. What kind of a school do girls go to over there?”

  “A convent school. I did. At Toulouse.”

  “You don’t look like any nun I ever saw.”

  She finished a sip of ginger ale and then laughed. “I’m not anything at all like a nun. I’m not a bit religious, I’m very worldly. Mother Cecilia used to tell us girls that a life of service to others was the purest and sweetest, but I thought about it and it seemed to me that the best way would be to enjoy life for a long while, until you got fat or sick or had a big family, and then begin on service to others. Don’t you think so?”

  I shook my head doubtfully. “I don’t know, I’m pretty strong on service. But of course you shouldn’t overdo it. You’ve been enjoying life so far?”

  She nodded. “Sometimes. My mother died when I was young, and father has a great many rules for me. I saw how American girls acted when they came to San Remo, and I thought I would act the same way, but I found out I didn’t know how, and anyway father heard about it when I sailed Lord Gerley’s boat around the cape without a chaperon.”

  “Was Gerley along?”

  “Yes, he was along, but he didn’t do any of the work. He went to sleep and fell overboard and I had to tack three times to get him. Do you like Englishmen?”

  I lifted a brow. “Well … I suppose I could like an Englishman, if the circumstances were exactly right. For instance, if it was on a desert island, and I had had nothing to eat for three days and he had just caught a rabbit—or, in case there were no rabbits, a wild boar or a walrus. Do you like Americans?”

  “I don’t know!” She laughed. “I have only met a few since I grew up, at San Remo and around there, and it seemed to me they talked funny and tried to act superior. I mean the men. I liked one I knew in London once, a rich one with a bad stomach who stayed at the Tarleton, and my father had special things prepared for him, and when he left he gave me nice presents. I think lots of them I have seen since I got to New York are very good-looking. I saw one at the hotel yesterday who was quite handsome. He had a nose something like yours, but his hair was lighter. I can’t really tell whether I like people until I know them pretty well…”

  She went on, but I was busy making a complicated discovery. When she had stopped to sip ginger ale my eyes had wandered away from her face to take in accessories, and as she had crossed her knees like American girls, without undue fuss as to her skirt, the view upward from a well-shaped foot and a custom-built ankle was as satisfactory as any I had ever seen. So far, so good; but the trouble was that I became aware that the blue-eyed athlete on the other side of her had one eye focused straight past the edge of his book, and its goal was obviously the same interesting object that I was studying, and my inner reaction to that fact was unsociable and alarming. Instead of being pleased at having a fellow man share a delightful experience with me, I became conscious of an almost uncontrollable impulse to do two things at once: glare at the athlete, and tell her to put her skirt down!

  I pulled myself together inwardly, and considered it logically: there was only one theory by which I could possibly justify my resentment at his looking at that leg and my desire to make him stop, and that was that the leg belonged to me. Obviously, therefore, I was either beginning to feel that the leg was my property, or I was rapidly developing an intention to acquire it. The first was nonsense; it was not my property. The second was dangerous, since, considering the situation as a whole, there was only one practical and ethical method of acquiring it.

  She was still talking. I gulped down the rest of the milk, which was not my habit, waited for an opening, and then turned to her without taking the risk of another dive into the dark purple eyes.

  “Absolutely,” I said. “It takes a long time to know people. How are you going to tell about anyone until you know them? Take love at first sight, for instance, it’s ridiculous. That’s not love, it’s just an acute desire to get acquainted. I remember the first time I met my wife, out on Long Island, I hit her with my roadster. She wasn’t hurt much, but I lifted her in and drove her home. It wasn’t until after she sued me for $20,000 damages that I fell in what you might call love with her. Then the inevitable happened, and the children began to come, Clarence and Merton and Isabel and Melinda and Patricia and—”

  “I thought Mr. Vukcic said you weren’t married.”

  I waved a hand. “I’m not intimate with Vukcic. He and I have never discussed family matters. Did you know that in Japan it is bad form to mention your wife to another man or to ask him how his is? It would be the same as if you told him, he was getting bald or asked him if he could still reach down to pull his socks on.”

  “Then you are married.”

  “I sure am. Very happily.”

  “What are the names of the rest of the children?”

  “Well … I guess I told you the most important ones. The others are just tots.”

  I chattered on, and she chattered back, in the changed atmosphere, with me feeling like a man just dragged back from the edge of a perilous cliff, but with sadness in it too. Pretty soon something happened. I wouldn’t argue about it, I am perfectly willing to admit the possibility that it was an accident, but all I can do is describe it as I saw it. As she sat talking to me, her right arm was extended along the arm of her chair on the side next to the blue-eyed athlete, and in that hand was her half-full glass of ginger ale. I didn’t see the glass begin to tip, but it must have been gradual and unobtrusive, and I’ll swear she was looking at me. When I did see it, it was too late; the liquid had already begun to trickle onto the athlete’s quiet gray trousers. I interrupted her and reached across to grab the glass; she turned and saw it and let out a gasp; the athlete turned red and went for his handkerchief. As I say, I wouldn’t argue about it, only it was quite a coincidence that four minutes after she found out that one man was married she began spilling ginger ale on another one.

  “Oh, I hope—does it stain? Si gauche! I am so sorry! I wasn’t thinking … I wasn’t looking…”

  The athlete: “Quite all right—really—really—rite all kight—it doodn’t stain—”

  More of the same. I enjoyed it. But he was quick on the recovery, for in a minute he quit talking Chinese, collected himself, and spoke to me in his native tongue: “No damage at all, sir, you see there isn’t. Really. Permit me; my name is Tolman. Barry Tolman, prosecuting attorney of Marlin County, West Virginia.”

  So he was a trouble-vulture and a politician. But in spite of the fact that most of my contacts with prosecuting attorneys had not been such as to induce me to keep their photographs on my dresser, I saw no point in being churlish. I described my handle to him and presented him to Constanza, and offered to buy a drink as compensation for us spilling one on him.

  For myself, another milk, which would finish my bedtime quota. When it came I sat and sipped it and restrained myself from butting in on the progress of the new friendship that was developing on my right, except for occasional grunts to show that I wasn’t sulking. By the time my glass was half empty Mr. Barry Tolman was saying:

  “I heard you—forgive me, but I couldn’t help hearing—I heard you mention San Remo. I’ve never been there. I was at Nice and Monte Carlo back in 1931, and someone, I forget who, told me I should see San Remo because it was more beautiful than any other place on the Riviera, but I didn’t go. Now I … well … I can well believe it.”

  “Oh, you should have gone!” There was throat in her voice again, and it made me happy to hear it. “The hills and the vineyards and the sea!”

  “Yes, of course. I’m very fond of scenery. Aren’t you, Mr. Goodwin? Fond of—” There was a concussion of the air and a sudden obliterating roar as we
thundered past a train on the adjoining track. It ended. “Fond of scenery?”

  “You bet.” I nodded, and sipped.

  Constanza said, “I’m so sorry it’s night. I could be looking out and seeing America. Is it rocky—I mean, is it the Rocky Mountains?”

  Tolman didn’t laugh. I didn’t bother to glance to see if he was looking at the purple eyes; I knew that must be it. He told her no, the Rocky Mountains were 1500 miles away, but that it was nice country we were going through. He said he had been in Europe three times, but that on the whole there was nothing there, except of course the historical things, that could compare with the United States. Right where he lived, in West Virginia, there were mountains that he would be willing to put alongside Switzerland and let anyone take their pick. He had never seen anything anywhere as beautiful as is native valley, especially the spot in it where they had built Kanawha Spa, the famous resort. That was in his county.

  Constanza exclaimed, “But that’s where I’m going! Of course it is! Kanawha Spa!”

  “I … I hope so.” His cheek showed red. “I mean, three of these pullmans are Kanawha Spa cars, and I thought it likely … I thought it possible I might have a chance of meeting you, though of course I’m not in the social life there…”

  “And then we met on the train. Of course, I won’t be there very long. But since you think it’s nicer than Europe, I can hardly wait to see it, but I warn you I love San Remo and the sea. I suppose on your trips to Europe you take your wife and children along?”

  “Oh, now!” He was groggy. “Now, really! Do I look old enough to have a wife and children?”

  I thought, you darned nut, cover up that chin! My milk was finished. I stood up.

  “If you folks will excuse me, I’ll go and make sure my boss hasn’t fallen off the train. I’ll come back soon, Miss Berin, and take you to your father. You can’t be expected to learn the knack of acting like the American girls the first day out.”

  Neither of them broke into tears to see me go.

  In the first car ahead I met Jerome Berin striding down the passage. He stopped and of course I had to.

  He roared, “My daughter? Vukcic left her!”

  “She’s perfectly all right.” I thumbed to the rear. “She’s back in the club car talking with a friend of mine I introduced to her. Is Mr. Wolfe okay?”

  “Okay? I don’t know. I just left him.”

  He brushed past me and I went on.

  Wolfe was alone in the room, still on the seat, the picture of despair, gripping with his hands, his eyes wide open. I stood and surveyed him.

  I said, “See America first. Come and play with us in vacationland! Not a draft on the train and sailing like a gull!”

  He said, “Shut up!”

  He couldn’t sit there all night. The time had come when it must be done. I rang the bell for the porter to do the bed. Then I went up to him—but no. I remember in an old novel I picked up somewhere it described a lovely young maiden going into her bedroom at night and putting her lovely fingers on the top button of her dress and then it said, “But now we must leave her. There are some intimacies which you and I, dear reader, must not venture to violate; some girlish secrets which we must not betray to the vulgar gaze. Night has drawn its protecting veil; let us draw ours!”

  Okay by me.

  2

  I SAID, “I wouldn’t have thought this was a job for a house dick, watching for a kid to throw stones. Especially a ritzy house dick like you.”

  Gershom Odell spit through his teeth at a big fern ten feet away from where we sat on a patch of grass. “It isn’t. But I told you. These birds pay from fifteen to fifty bucks a day to stay at this caravansary and to write letters on Kanawha Spa stationery, and they don’t like to have niggers throwing stones at them when they go horseback riding. I didn’t say a kid, I said a nigger. They suspect it was one that got fired from the garage about a month ago.”

  The warm sun was on me through a hole in the trees, and I yawned. I asked, to show I wasn’t bored, “You say it happened about here?”

  He pointed. “Over yonder, from the other side of the path. It was old Crisler that got it both times, you know, the fountain pen Crisler, his daughter married Ambassador Willetts.”

  There were sounds from down the way. Soon the hoofbeats were plainer, and in a minute a couple of genteel but good-looking horses came down the path from around a curve, and trotted by, close enough so that I could have tripped them with a fishing pole. On one of them was a dashing chap in a loud-checked jacket, and on the other a dame plenty old and fat enough to start on service to others any time the spirit moved her.

  Odell said, “That was Mrs. James Frank Osborn, the Baltimore Osborn, ships and steel, and Dale Chatwin, a good bridge player on the make. See him worry his horse? He can’t ride worth a damn.”

  “Yeah? I didn’t notice. You sure are right there on the social list.”

  “Got to be, on this job.” He spit at the fern again, scratched the back of his head, and plucked a blade of grass and stuck it in his mouth. “I guess nine out of ten that come to this joint, I know ’em without being told. Of course sometimes there’s strangers. For instance, take your crowd. Who the hell are they? I understand they’re a bunch of good cooks that the chef invited. Looks funny to me. Since when was Kanawha Spa a domestic science school?”

  I shook my head. “Not my crowd, mister.”

  “You’re with ’em.”

  “I’m with Nero Wolfe.”

  “He’s with ’em.”

  I grinned. “Not this minute, he ain’t. He’s in Suite 60, on the bed fast asleep. I think I’ll have to chloroform him Thursday to get him on the train home.” I stretched in the sun. “At that, there’s worse things than cooks.”

  “I suppose so,” he admitted. “Where do they all come from, anyway?”

  I pulled a paper from my pocket—a page I had clipped from the magazine section of the Times—and unfolded it and glanced at the list again before passing it across to him:

  LES QUINZE MAÎTRES

  Jerome Berin, the Corridona, San Remo.

  Leon Blanc, the Willow Club, Boston.

  Ramsey Keith, Hotel Hastings, Calcutta.

  Phillip Laszio, Hotel Churchill, New York.

  Domenico Rossi, Empire Café, London.

  Pierre Mondor, Mondor’s, Paris.

  Marko Vukcic, Rusterman’s Restaurant, New York.

  Sergei Vallenko, Chateau Montcalm, Quebec.

  Lawrence Coyne, The Rattan, San Francisco.

  Louis Servan, Kanawha Spa, West Virginia.

  Ferid Khaldah, Café de l’Europe, Istanbul.

  Henri Tassone, Shepheard’s Hotel, Cairo.

  DECEASED:

  Armand Fleury, Fleury’s, Paris.

  Pasquale Donofrio, the Eldorado, Madrid.

  Jacques Raleine, Emerald Hotel, Dublin.

  Odell took a look at the extent of the article, made no offer to read it, and then went over the names and addresses with his head moving slowly back and forth. He grunted. “Some bunch of names. You might think it was a Notre Dame football team. How’d they get all the press? What does that mean at the top, less quinzy something?”

  “Oh, that’s French.” I pronounced it adequately. “It means ‘The Fifteen Masters.’ These babies are famous. One of them cooks sausages that people fight duels over. You ought to see him and tell him you’re a detective and ask him to give you the recipe; he’d be glad to. They meet every five years on the home grounds of the oldest one of their number; that’s why they came to Kanawha Spa. Each one is allowed to bring one guest—it’s all there in the article. Nero Wolfe is Servan’s guest, and Vukcic invited me so I could be with Wolfe. Wolfe’s the guest of honor. Only ten of ’em are here. The last three died since 1932, and Khaldah and Tassone couldn’t come. They’ll do a lot of cooking and eating and drinking, and tell each other a lot of lies, and elect three new members, and listen to Nero Wolfe make a speech—and oh yeah, one of ’em’s goin
g to get killed.”

  “That’ll be fun.” Odell spit through his teeth again. “Which one?”

  “Phillip Laszio, Hotel Churchill, New York. The article says his salary is sixty thousand berries per annum.”

  “Which may be. Who’s going to kill him?”

  “They’re going to take turns. If you want tickets for the series, I’d be glad to get you a couple of ringsides, and here’s a tip, you’d better tell the desk to collect for his room in advance, because you know how long it takes—well God bless my eyes! All with a few spoonfuls of ginger ale!”

  A horseman and horsewoman had cantered by on the path, looking sideways at each other, laughing, their teeth showing and their faces flushed. As their dust drifted toward us I asked Odell, “Who’s that happy pair?”

  He grunted. “Barry Tolman, prosecuting attorney of this county. Going to be president some day, ask him. The girl came with your crowd, didn’t she? Incidentally, she’s easy on the eyes. What was the crack about ginger ale?”

  “Oh, nothing.” I waved a hand. “Just an old quotation from Chaucer. It wouldn’t do any good to throw stones at them, they wouldn’t notice anything less than an avalanche.—By the way, what is this stone-throwing gag?”

  “No gag. Just part of the day’s work.”

  “You call this work? I’m a detective. In the first place, do you suppose anyone is going to start a bombardment with you and me sitting here in plain sight? And this bridle path winds around here for six miles, and why couldn’t he pick another spot? Secondly, you told me that a Negro that got fired from the garage is suspected of doing it to annoy the management, but in that case it was just a coincidence that he picked fountain pen Crisler for a target both times? It’s a phony. You didn’t show me the bottom. Not that it’s any of my business, but just for fun I thought I’d demonstrate that I’m only dumb on Sundays and holidays.”