Rex Stout - Too Many Cooks

Wolfe sighed again, and surveyed the faces. “Now, whoever you are, let’s say that you abandon your denial and tell me the truth, what will happen? Similarly, you will sooner or later have to deal with the local authorities, but under quite different circumstances. I am talking now to one of you-you know which one, I don’t. It doesn’t seem to me that any harm will be done if I tell Mr. Tolman and the sheriff that you and your colleagues came to see me at my request, and that you volunteered the information about what you saw in the dining room. There will be no reason why the person who first gave me the information should enter into it at all, if you tell the truth-though you may be sure that I am prepared to produce that person if necessary. Of course, they won’t like it that you withheld so important a fact Tuesday night, but I think I can arrange beforehand that they’ll be lenient about that. I shall make it a point to do so. None of the rest of you need be concerned in it at all.

“Now…” Wolfe looked around at them again “…here comes the hard part. Whoever you are, I can understand your denial and sympathize with it. You looked through the door-doubtless on account of a noise you had heard-and saw a man of your race standing by the screen, and some forty minutes later, when you learned what had happened, you knew that man had murdered Laszio. Or at the least, strongly suspected it. You not only knew that the murderer was a black man, you probably recognized him, since he wore the Kanawha Spa livery and was therefore a fellow employee, and he directly faced you as you looked through the door. And that presents another complication. If he is a man who is close to you and has a place in your heart, I presume you’ll hold to your denial in spite of anything I may say and the sheriff may do. In that event your colleagues here will share a lot of discomfort with you, but that can’t be helped.

“But if he is not personally close to you, if you have refused to expose him only because he is a fellow man-or more particularly because he is of your color-I’d like to make some remarks. First the fellow man. That’s nonsense. It was realized centuries ago that it is impossible for a man to protect himself against murder, because it’s extremely easy to kill a man, so it was agreed that men should protect each other. But if I help protect you, you must help protect me, whether you like me or not. If you don’t do your part you’re out of the agreement; you’re an outlaw.

“But this murderer was a black man, and you’re black too. I confess that makes it ticklish. The agreements of human society embrace not only protection against murder, but thousands of other things, and it is certainly true that in America-not to mention other continents-the whites have excluded the blacks from some of the benefits of those agreements. It is said that the exclusion has sometimes even extended to murder-that in parts of this country a white man may kill a black one, if not with impunity, at least with a good chance of escaping the penalty which the agreement imposes. That’s bad. It’s deplorable, and I don’t blame black men for resenting it. But you are confronted with a fact, not a theory, and how do you propose to change it?

“I am talking to you who saw that man by the screen. If you shield him because he is dear to you, or for any valid personal reason, I have nothing to say, because I don’t like futile talk, and you’ll have to fight it out with the sheriff. But if you shield him because he is your color, there is a great deal to say. You are rendering your race a serious disservice. You are helping to perpetuate and aggravate the very exclusions which you justly resent. The ideal human agreement is one in which distinctions of race and color and religion are totally disregarded; anyone helping to preserve those distinctions is postponing that ideal; and you are certainly helping to preserve them. If in a question of murder you permit your action to be influenced by the complexion of the man who committed it, no matter whether you yourself are white or pink or black-”

“You’re wrong!”

It was a sharp explosion from the mouth of the muscular kid with the flat nose, the college boy. Some of them jumped, I was startled, and everybody looked at him.

Wolfe said, “I think I can justify my position, Mr. Whipple. If you’ll let me complete-”

“I don’t mean your position. You can have your logic. I mean your facts. One of them.”

Wolfe lifted his brows. “Which one?”

“The complexion of the murderer.” The college boy was looking him straight in the eye. “He wasn’t a black man. I saw him. He was a white man.”

11

RIGHT AWAY I GOT another shock. It was another explosion-this time something crashing to the floor. It took our attention away from the college boy, until we saw it was Boney, the tall skinny one by the wall, who had been lulled to sleep by Wolfe’s oration, and, partly awakened by the electricity of Whipple’s announcement, had jerked himself off balance and toppled over. He started to grumble and Crabtree glared him out of it. There was a general stir.

Wolfe asked softly, “You saw the man by the screen, Mr. Whipple?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“When he was standing by the screen. It was I who opened the door and looked through.”

“Indeed. And you say he was white?”

“No.” Whipple’s gaze was steadfast at Wolfe; he hadn’t turned at the sound of Boney’s crash. “I didn’t say he was white, I said he was a white man. When I saw him he was black, because he had blacked himself up.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I saw him. Do you think I can’t tell burnt cork from the real thing? I’m a black man myself. But that wasn’t all. As you said, he was holding his finger against his lips, and his hand was different. It wouldn’t have taken a black man to see that. He had on tight black gloves.”

“Why did you go to the pantry hall and look through the door?”

“I heard a noise in the dining room. Grant wanted some paprika for the oeufs au cheval, and the can was empty, and I went to the cupboard in the hall for a fresh can. That was how I happened to hear the noise. They were making a lot of racket in the kitchen and didn’t hear it in there. I was up on the ladder steps looking for the paprika, and after I found it and got down I opened the door a crack to see what the noise had been.”

“Did you enter the dining room?”

“No.”

Wolfe slowly wiggled a finger. “May I suggest, Mr. Whipple, that the truth is usually good, and lies are sometimes excellent, but a mixture of the two is an abomination?”

“I’m telling the truth and nothing else.”

“You didn’t before. Since the murderer wasn’t a colored man, why not?”

“Because I’ve learned not to mix up in the affairs of the superior race. If it had been a colored man I would have told. Colored men have got to stop disgracing their color and leave that to white men. You see how good your logic was.”

“But my dear sir. That doesn’t impugn my logic, it merely shows that you agree with me. We must discuss it some time. Then you withheld this fact because you considered it white men’s business and none of yours, and you knew if you divulged it you’d be making trouble for yourself.”