Rex Stout - Too Many Cooks

“Have you eaten a planked porterhouse steak, two inches thick, surrendering hot red juice under the knife, garnished with American parsley and slices of fresh limes, encompassed with mashed potatoes which melt on the tongue, and escorted by thick slices of fresh mushrooms faintly underdone?”

“No.”

“Or the Creole Tripe of New Orleans? Or Missouri Boone County ham, baked with vinegar, molasses, Worcestershire, sweet cider and herbs? Or Chicken Marengo? Or chicken in curdled egg sauce, with raisins, onions, almonds, sherry and Mexican sausage? Or Tennessee Opossum? Or Lobster Newburgh? Or Philadelphia Snapper Soup? But I see you haven’t.” Wolfe pointed a finger at him. “The gastronome’s heaven is France, granted. But he would do well, on his way there, to make a detour hereabouts. I have eaten Tripe a la mode de Caen at Pharamond’s in Paris. It is superb, but no more so than Creole Tripe, which is less apt to stop the gullet without an excess of wine. I have eaten bouillabaisse at Marseilles, its cradle and its temple, in my youth, when I was easier to move, and it is mere belly-fodder, ballast for a stevedore, compared with its namesake at New Orleans! If no red snapper is available-”

I thought for a second Berin was spitting at him, but saw it was only a vocal traffic jam caused by indignation. I left it to them and leaned to Constanza again:

“I understand your father is a good cook.”

The purple eyes came to me, the brows faintly up. She gurgled. “He is chef de cuisine at the Corridona at San Remo. Didn’t you know that?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’ve seen a list of the fifteen. Yesterday, in the magazine section of the Times . I was just opening up. Do you do any cooking yourself?”

“No. I hate it. Except I make good coffee.” She looked down as far as my tie-I had on a dark brown polkadot four-in-hand with a pin-stripe tan shirt-and up again. “I didn’t hear your name when Mr. Vukcic said it. Are you a detective too?”

“The name is Archie Goodwin. Archibald means sacred and good, but in spite of that my name is not Archibald. I’ve never heard a French girl say Archie. Try it once.”

“I’m not French.” She frowned. Her skin was so smooth that the frown was like a ripple on a new tennis ball. “I’m Catalana. I’m sure I could say Archie. Archiearchiearchie. Good?”

“Wonderful.”

“Are you a detective?”

“Certainly.” I got out my wallet and fingered in it and pulled out a fishing license I had got in Maine the summer before. “Look. See my name on that?”

She read at it. “Ang… ling?” She looked doubtful, and handed it back. “And that Maine? I suppose that is your arrondissement?”

“No. I haven’t got any. We have two kinds of detectives in America, might and main. I’m the main kind. That means that I do very little of the hard work, like watering the horses and shooting prisoners and greasing the chutes. Mostly all I do is think, as for instance when they want someone to think what to do next. Mr. Wolfe there is the might kind. You see how big and strong he is. He can run like a deer.”

“But… what are the horses for?”

I explained patiently. “There is a law in this country against killing a man unless you have a horse on him. When two or more men are throwing dice for the drinks, you will often hear one of them say, ‘horse on you’ or ‘horse on me.’ You can’t kill a man unless you say that before he does. Another thing you’ll hear a man say, if he finds out something is only a hoax, he’ll call it a mare’s nest, because it’s full of mares and no horses. Still another trouble is a horse’s feathers. In case it has feathers-”

“What is a mare?”

I cleared my throat. “The opposite of a horse. As you know, everything must have its opposite. There can’t be a right without a left, or a top without a bottom, or a best without a worst. In the same way there can’t be a mare without a horse or a horse without a mare. If you were to take, say, ten million horses-”

I was stopped, indirectly, by Wolfe. I had been too interested in my chat with the Catalana girl to hear the others’ talk; what interrupted me was Vukcic rearing himself up and inviting Miss Berin to accompany him to the club car. It appeared that Wolfe had expressed a desire for a confidential session with her father, and I put the eye on him, wondering what kind of a charade he was arranging. One of his fingers was tapping gently on his knee, so I knew it was a serious project. When Constanza got up I did too.

I bowed. “If I may?” To Wolfe: “You can send the porter to the club car if you need me. I haven’t finished explaining to Miss Berin about mares.”

“Mares?” Wolfe looked at me suspiciously. “There is no information she can possibly need about mares which Marko can’t supply. We shall-I am hoping-we shall need your notebook. Sit down.”

So Vukcic carried her off. I took the undersized chair again, feeling like issuing an ultimatum for an eight-hour day, but knowing that a moving train was the last place in the world for it. Vukcic was sure to disillusion her about the horse lesson, and might even put a crimp in my style for good.

Berin had filled his pipe again. Wolfe was saying, in his casual tone that meant look out for an attack in force, “I wanted, for one thing, to tell you of an experience I had twenty-five years ago. I trust it won’t bore you.”

Berin grunted. Wolfe went on, “It was before the war, in Figueras.”

Berin removed his pipe. “Ha! So?”

“Yes. I was only a youngster, but even so, I was in Spain on a confidential mission for the Austrian government. The track of a man led me to Figueras, and at ten o’clock one evening, having missed my dinner, I entered a little inn at a corner of the plaza and requested food. The woman said there was not much, and brought me wine of the house, bread, and a dish of sausages.”

Wolfe leaned forward. “Sir, Lucullus never tasted sausage like that. Nor Brillat-Savarin. Nor did Vatel or Escoffier ever make any. I asked the woman where she got it. She said her son made it. I begged for the privilege of meeting him. She said he was not at home. I asked for the recipe. She said no one knew it but her son. I asked his name. She said Jerome Berin. I ate three more dishes of it, and made an appointment to meet the son at the inn the next morning. An hour later my quarry made a dash for Port-Vendres, where he took a boat for Algiers, and I had to follow him. The chase took me eventually to Cairo, and other duties prevented me from visiting Spain again before the war started.” Wolfe leaned back and sighed. “I can still close my eyes and taste that sausage.”

Berin nodded, but he was frowning. “A pretty story, Mr. Wolfe. A real tribute, and thank you. But of course saucisse minuit-”

“It was not called saucisse minuit then; it was merely sausage of the house in a little inn in a little Spanish town. That is my point, my effort to impress you: in my youth, without a veteran palate, under trying circumstances, in an obscure setting, I recognized that sausage as high art. I remember well: the first one I ate, I suspected, and feared that it was only an accidental blending of ingredients carelessly mixed; but the others were the same, and all those in the subsequent three dishes. It was genius. My palate hailed it in that place. I am not one of those who drive from Nice or Monte Carlo to the Corridona at San Remo for lunch because Jerome Berin is famous and saucisse minuit is his masterpiece; I did not have to wait for fame to perceive greatness; if I took that drive it would be not to smirk, but to eat.”