Rex Stout - Too Many Cooks

“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 Maitres, 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 Mysteres du Gout , 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 Americaines a 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.

Vukcic growled, “They seem to think they have proof. About those seven mistakes on his list of the sauces. How the devil could that be?”

“I have no idea. Why, Marko, do you think Berin did it?”

“No. I don’t think.” Vukcic ran his fingers through his hair again. “It’s a hell of a thing. For awhile they suspected me; they thought because I had been dancing with Dina my blood was warm. It was warm!” He sounded defiant. “You wouldn’t understand that, Nero. With a woman like that. She has a fire in her that warmed me once, and it could again, no doubt of that, if it came near and I felt it and let my head go I could throw myself in it.” He shrugged, and suddenly got savage. “But to stab that dog in the back-I would not have done him that honor! Pull his nose well, is all one does with that sort of fellow!