by Rex Stout
16
THE TRADITION WAS VIOLATED, and I overheard a few grumbles about it, in the big parlor before the door to the dining room was thrown open and Louis Servan appeared on the threshold to invite us in. Chiefly, though, as they sipped sherry or vermouth in scattered groups, the grumbles were on another subject: the decree that had been issued that none of them was to leave the jurisdiction of West Virginia until permission had been given by the authorities. Domenico Rossi orated about it, making it plenty loud enough to be heard by Barry Tolman, who stood by the radio looking worried but handsome; Ramsey Keith bellowed his opinion of the outrage; while Jerome Berin said God above, it was barbarous, but they would be fools to let it interfere with digestion. Albert Malfi, looking a little subdued but with darts still in his eyes, seemed to have decided that courting Mamma Mondor was a sensible first step in his campaign for election in 1942; Raymond Liggett sat on the couch conversing quietly with Marko Vukcic. My friend Tolman got it right in the neck, or rather he didn’t get it at all, when Constanza Berin came in and he went up to her looking determined, and spoke. She failed to see or hear him so completely that for a second I thought he wasn’t there at all, I had just imagined it.
A couple of minutes before we started for the dining room Dina Laszio entered. The noise died down. Rossi, her father, hurried over to her, and not far behind him was Vukcic; then several others went up to pay their respects to the widow. She resembled a grieving widow about as much as I resemble a whirling dervish, but of course it can’t be expected that every time a woman packs for a little trip with her husband she will take weeds along in case he happens to get bumped off. And I couldn’t very well disapprove of her showing up at the feast, since I knew that Nero Wolfe had requested Servan to see her personally and insist on it.
At the table I was next to Constanza again, which was tolerable. Wolfe was at Servan’s right. Vukcic was on the other side of Dina Laszio, down a “ways. Liggett and Malfi were directly across from me, next to each other. Berin was across from Wolfe, on Servan’s left, which seemed to me quite an honor for a guy just out of jail, and next to him was Clay Ashley, not making much of a success of attempts to appear affable. The others were here and there, with the meager supply of ladies spotted at intervals. On each plate when we sat down was an engraved menu:
LES QUINZE MAÎTRES
Kanawha Spa, West Virginia,
Thursday, April 8th, 1937.
AMERICAN DINNER
Oysters Baked in the Shell
Terrapin Maryland Beaten Biscuits
Pan Broiled Young Turkey
Rice Croquettes with Quince Jelly
Lima Beans in Cream Sally Lunn
Avocado Todhunter
Pineapple Sherbet Sponge Cake
Wisconsin Dairy Cheese Black Coffee
As the waiters, supervised by Moulton, smoothly brought and took, Louis Servan surveyed the scene with solemn and anxious dignity. The first course should have helped to allay the anxiety, for the oysters were so plump and savory, not to mention aromatic, that it seemed likely they had been hand-fed on peanuts and blueberries. They were served with ceremony and a dash of pomp. As the waiters finished distributing the enormous tins, each holding a dozen oysters, they stood back in a line against one of the screens—the one which forty-eight hours previously had concealed the body of Phillip Laszio—and the door to the pantry hall opened to admit a brown-skinned cook in immaculate white cap and apron. He came forward a few paces, looking embarrassed enough to back right out again, but Servan stood up and beckoned to him and then turned to the table and announced to the gathering, “I wish to present to you Mr. Hyacinth Brown, the fish chef of Kanawha Spa. The baked oysters we are about to eat is his. You will judge whether it is worthy of the honor of being served to Les Quinze Maîtres. Mr. Brown wishes me to tell you that he appreciates that honor.—Isn’t that so, Brown?”
“Yes, sir. You said it.”
There was a ripple of applause. Brown looked. more embarrassed than ever, bowed, and turned and went. The masters lifted forks and waded in, and the rest of us followed suit. There were grunts and murmurs of appreciation. Rossi called something across the length of the table. Pierre Mondor stated with quiet authority, “Superb. Extreme oven?” Servan nodded gravely, and the forks played on.
With the terrapin the performance was repeated, this time the introduction being accorded to Crabtree; and when the course was finished there was a near riot of enthusiasm and it was demanded that Crabtree reappear. Most of them got up to shake his hand, and he wasn’t embarrassed at all, though he was certainly pleased. Two of them came in with the turkey. One was Grant, with wrinkled face and gray kinky hair, and the other was a tall black one that I didn’t know, since he hadn’t been at the party Wednesday night. I never tasted better turkey, but the other servings had been generous and my capacity limited me to one portion. Those guys eating were like a woman packing a trunk—it’s not a question of capacity but of how much she has to put in. Not to mention the claret they washed it down with. They were getting merrier as they went along, and even old Servan was sending happy smiles around.
Unquestionably it was first class fodder. I went slow on the wine. My head was fuzzy anyhow, and if I was going to be called on to save Wolfe’s life again I might need what wits I had left.
There was nothing strained about the atmosphere, it was just a nice party with everyone well filled and the smell of good coffee and brandy in front of us, when finally, a little after ten o’clock, Wolfe arose to start his speech. He looked more like the plaintiff in a suit for damages than an after-dinner speaker, and he was certainly aware of it, but it didn’t seem to bother him. We all got our chairs moved around to face him more comfortably and got settled into silence. He began in an easy informal tone:
“Mr. Servan, Ladies, Masters, Fellow Guests. I feel a little silly. Under different circumstances it might be both instructive and amusing for you, at least some of you, to listen to a discussion of American contributions to la haute cuisine, and it might be desirable to use what persuasiveness I can command to convince you that those contributions are neither negligible nor meager. But when I accepted an invitation to offer you such a discussion, which greatly pleased and flattered me, I didn’t realize how unnecessary it would be at the moment scheduled for its delivery. It is delightful to talk about food, but infinitely more delightful to eat it; and we have eaten. A man once declared to me that one of the keenest pleasures in life was to close his eyes and dream of beautiful women, and when I suggested that it would be still more agreeable to open his eyes and look at them, he said not at all, for the ones he dreamed about were all beautiful, far more beautiful than any his eye ever encountered. Similarly it might be argued that if I am eloquent the food I talk to you about may be better than the food you have eaten; but even that specious excuse is denied me. I can describe, and pay tribute to, some superlative American dishes, but I can’t surpass the oysters and terrapin and turkey which were so recently there”—he indicated the table—“and are now here.” With a gentle palm he delicately patted the appropriate spot.
They applauded. Mondor cried, “Bien dit!” Servan beamed.
Properly speaking, he hadn’t started the speech yet, for that wasn’t in it. Now he started. For the first ten minutes or so I was uneasy. There was nothing in the world I would enjoy more than watching Nero Wolfe wallowing in discomfiture, but not in the presence of outsiders. When that happy time came, which it never had yet, I wanted it to be a special command performance for Archie Goodwin and no one else around. And I was uneasy because it seemed quite possible that the hardships on the train and loss of sleep and getting shot at might have upset him so that he would forget the darned speech, but after the first ten minutes I saw there was nothing to worry about. He was sailing along. I took another sip of brandy and relaxed.
By the time he was half through I began to worry about something else. I glanced at my wrist. It was getting late. Charleston was only sixty mile
s away, and Tolman had said it was a good road and could easily be made in an hour and a half. Knowing how complicated the program was, it was my opinion that there wasn’t much chance of getting away that night anyhow, but it would have ruined the setup entirely if anything had happened to Saul. So my second big relief came when the greenjacket from the hall entered softly from the parlor, as he had been instructed, and gave me the high sign. I sidled out of my chair with as little disturbance as possible and tiptoed out.
There in the small parlor sat a little guy with a big nose, in need of a shave, with an old brown cap hanging on his knee. He stood up and stuck out his hand and I took it with a grin.
“Hello, darling, I never would have thought that the time would come when you would look handsome to me. Turn around, how do you look behind?”
Saul Panzer demanded, “How’s Mr. Wolfe?”
“Swell. He’s in there making a speech I taught him.”
“You sure he’s all right?”
“Why not? Oh, you mean his casualty.” I waved a hand. “A mere nothing. He thinks he’s a hero. I wish to God they’d shoot me next time so he’d stop bragging. Have you got anything?”
Saul nodded. “I’ve got everything.”
“Is there anything you heed to explain to Wolfe before he springs it?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve got everything he asked for. The whole Charleston police force jumped into it.”
“Yeah, I know. My friend Mr. Tolman arranged that. I’ve got another friend named Odell that throws stones at people—remind me to tell you about it sometime. This is a jolly place. Then you wait here till you’re called. I’d better go back in. Have you had anything to eat?”
He said his inside was attended to, and I left him. Back in the dining room again, I resumed my seat beside Constanza, and when Wolfe paused at the end of a paragraph, I took my handkerchief from my breast pocket, passed it across my lips, and put it back again. He gave me a fleeting glance to acknowledge the signal, he had reached the part about the introduction of filé powder to the New Orleans market by the Choctaw Indians on Bayou Lacombe, so I knew he had got to page 14. It looked as though he was putting it over in good style. Even Domenico Rossi looked absorbed, in spite of the fact that in one place Wolfe specifically stated that in the three most important centers of American contributions to fine cooking—Louisiana, South Carolina, and New England—there had been no Italian influence whatever.
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 finger 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 hand. “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.
