Rex Stout: Poison à la Carte

“I know who you are,” one declared. “You’re a detective and you work for Nero Wolfe. You’re Archie Goodwin.”

She was a redhead with milky skin. “I don’t deny it,” I told her, “but I’m not here professionally. I don’t ask if I’ve met you because if I had I wouldn’t have forgot—”

“You haven’t met me. I’ve seen you and I’ve seen your picture. You like yourself. Don’t you?”

“Certainly. I string along with the majority. We’ll take a vote. How many of you like yourselves? Raise your hands.”

A hand went up with a bare arm shooting out of the purple folds, then two more, then the rest of them, including the redhead.

“Okay,” I said, “that’s settled. Unanimous. My problem is that I decided to look you over and ask the most absolutely irresistibly beautiful and fascinating one of the bunch for her phone number, and I’m stalled. You are all it. In beauty and fascination you are all far beyond the wildest dreams of any poet, and I’m not a poet. So obviously I’m in a fix. How can I possibly pick on one of you, any one, when—”

“Nuts.” It was the redhead. “Me, of course. Peggy Choate. Argyle two, three-three-four-eight. Don’t call before noon.”

“That’s not fair,” a throaty voice objected. It came from one who looked a little too old for Hebe, and just a shade too plump. It went on, “Do I call you Archie?”

“Sure, that’s my name.”

“All right, Archie, have your eyes examined.” She lifted an arm, baring it, to touch the shoulder of one beside her. “We admit we’re all beautiful, but we’re not in the same class as Helen Iacono. Look at her!”

I was doing so, and I must say that the throaty voice had a point. Helen Iacono, with deep dark eyes, dark velvet skin, and wavy silky hair darker than either skin or eyes, was unquestionably rare and special. Her lips were parted enough to show the gleam of white teeth, but she wasn’t laughing. She wasn’t reacting at all, which was remarkable for an actress.

“It may be,” I conceded, “that I am so dazzled by the collective radiance that I am blind to the glory of any single star. Perhaps I’m a poet after all, I sound like one. My feeling that I must have the phone numbers of all of you is certainly no reflection on Helen Iacono. I admit that that will not completely solve the problem, for tomorrow I must face the question which one to call first. If I feel as I do right now I would have to dial all the numbers simultaneously, and that’s impossible. I hope to heaven it doesn’t end in a stalemate. What if I can never decide which one to call first? What if it drives me mad? Or what if I gradually sink—”

I turned to see who was tugging at my sleeve. It was Benjamin Schriver, the host, with a grin on his ruddy round face. He said, “I hate to interrupt your speech, but perhaps you can finish it later. We’re ready to sit. Will you join us?”

The dining room, on the same floor as the kitchen, three feet or so below street level, would have been too gloomy for my taste if most of the dark wood paneling hadn’t been covered with pictures of geese, pheasants, fish, fruit, vegetables, and other assorted edible objects; and also it helped that the tablecloth was white as snow, the wineglasses, seven of them at each place, glistened in the soft light from above, and the polished silver shone. In the center was a low gilt bowl, or maybe gold, two feet long, filled with clusters of Phalaenopsis Aphrodite, donated by Wolfe, cut by him that afternoon from some of his most treasured plants.

As he sat he was scowling at them, but the scowl was not for the orchids; it was for the chair, which, though a little fancy, was perfectly okay for you or me but not for his seventh of a ton. His fundament lapped over at both sides. He erased the scowl when Schriver, at the end of the table, complimented him on the flowers, and Hewitt, across from him, said he had never seen Phalaenopsis better grown, and the others joined in the chorus, all but the aristologist who sat between Wolfe and me. He was a Wall Street character and a well-known theatrical angel named Vincent Pyle, and was living up to his reputation as an original by wearing a dinner jacket, with tie to match, which looked black until you had the light at a certain slant and then you saw that it was green. He eyed the orchids with his head cocked and his mouth puckered, and said, “I don’t care for flowers with spots and streaks. They’re messy.”

I thought, but didn’t say, Okay, drop dead. If I had known that that was what he was going to do in about three hours I might not even have thought it. He got a rise, not from Wolfe or me, or Schriver or Hewitt, but from three others who thought flowers with spots and streaks were wonderful: Adrian Dart, the actor who had turned down an offer of a million a week, more or less, from Hollywood; Emil Kreis, Chairman of the Board of Codex Press, book publishers; and Harvey M. Leacraft, corporation lawyer.

Actually, cupbearers was what the Hebes were not. The wines, beginning with the Montrachet with the first course, were poured by Felix; but the girls delivered the food, with different routines for different items. The first course, put on individual plates in the kitchen, with each girl bringing in a plate for her aristologist, was small Minis sprinkled with chopped chives, piled with caviar, and topped with sour cream — the point, as far as Fritz was concerned, being that he had made the blinis, starting on them at eleven that morning, and also the sour cream, starting on that Sunday evening. Fritz’s sour cream is very special, but Vincent Pyle had to get in a crack. After he had downed all of his blinis he remarked, loud enough to carry around the table, “A new idea, putting sand in. Clever. Good for chickens, since they need grit.”

The man on my left, Emil Kreis, the publisher, muttered at my ear, “Ignore him. He backed three flops this season.”

The girls, who had been coached by Fritz and Felix that afternoon, handled the green turtle soup without a splash. When they had brought in the soup plates Felix brought the bowl, and each girl ladled from it as Felix held it by the plate. I asked Pyle cordially, “Any sand?” but he said no, it was delicious, and cleaned it up.

I was relieved when I saw that the girls wouldn’t dish the fish — flounders poached in dry white wine, with a mussel-and-mushroom sauce that was one of Fritz’s specialties. Felix did the dishing at a side table, and the girls merely carried. With the first taste of the sauce there were murmurs of appreciation, and Adrian Dart, the actor, across from Wolfe, sang out, “Superb!” They were making various noises of satisfaction, and Leacraft, the lawyer, was asking Wolfe if Fritz would be willing to give him the recipe, when Pyle, on my right, made a face and dropped his fork on his plate with a clatter. I thought he was putting on an act, and still thought so when his head drooped and I heard him gnash his teeth, but then his shoulders sagged and he clapped a hand to his mouth, and that seemed to be overdoing it. Two or three of them said something, and he pushed his chair back, got to his feet, said, “You must excuse me, I’m sorry,” and headed for the door to the hall. Schriver arose and followed him out. The others exchanged words and glances.

Hewitt said, “A damn shame, but I’m going to finish this,” and used his fork. Someone asked if Pyle had a bad heart, and someone else said no. They all resumed with the flounder, and the conversation, but the spirit wasn’t the same.

When, at a signal from Felix, the maidens started removing the plates, Lewis Hewitt got up and left the room, came back in a couple of minutes, sat, and raised his voice. “Vincent is in considerable pain, and a doctor has come. There is nothing we can do, and Ben wishes us to proceed. He will rejoin us when — when he can.”