Rex Stout - Too Many Cooks

“How many of them?”

“All but two. Numbers 8 and 9 were all right, but the rest had all been moved.”

“You can swear to that, Mr. Moulton?”

“I guess it looks like I’m going to have to swear to it.”

“And can you?”

“I can, yes, sir.”

“ How would it be if at the same time you were asked to swear that, having noticed that the dishes had been moved, you replaced them in their proper positions?”

“Yes, sir. That’s what I did. I suppose that’s what will get me fired. It was none of my business to be correcting things, I knew it wasn’t. But if Mr. Servan will listen to me, it was him I did it for. I didn’t want him to lose his bet. I knew he had bet with Mr. Keith that the tasters would be eighty percent correct, and when I saw the dishes had been shifted I thought someone was framing him, so I shifted them back. Then I got out of there in a hurry.”

“I don’t suppose you remember just how they had been changed-where, for instance, number 1 had been moved to?”

“No, sir. I couldn’t say that.”

“No matter.” Wolfe sighed. “I thank you, Mr. Moulton, and you, Mr. Whipple. It is late. I’m afraid we won’t get much sleep, for we’ll have to deal with Mr. Tolman and the sheriff as early as possible. I suppose you live on the grounds here?”

They told him yes.

“Good. I’ll be sending for you. I don’t think you’ll lose your job, Mr. Moulton. I remember my commitment regarding beforehand arrangements with the authorities and I’ll live up to it. I thank all of you gentlemen for your patience. I suppose your hats are in Mr. Goodwin’s room?”

They helped me get the bottles and glasses cleared out and stacked in the foyer, and with that expert assistance it didn’t take long. The college boy didn’t help us because he hung back for a word with Wolfe. The hats and caps finally got distributed, and I opened the foyer door and they filed out. Hyacinth Brown had Boney by the arm, and Boney was still muttering when I shut the door.

In Wolfe’s room the light of dawn was at the window, even through the thick shrubbery just outside. It was my second dawn in a row, and I was beginning to feel that I might as well join the Milkmen’s Union and be done with it. My eyes felt as if someone had painted household cement on my lids and let it dry. Wolfe had his open, and was still in his chair.

I said, “Congratulations. All you need is wings to be an owl. Shall I leave a call for twelve noon? That would leave you eight hours till dinnertime, and you’d still be ahead of schedule.”

He made a face. “Where have they got Mr. Berin in jail?”

“I suppose at Quinby, the county seat.”

“How far away is it?”

“Oh, around twenty miles.”

“Does Mr. Tolman live there?”

“I don’t know. His office must be there, since he’s the prosecuting attorney.”

“Please find out, and get him on the phone. We want him and the sheriff here at eight o’clock. Tell him-no. When you get him, let me talk to him.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

I spread out my hands. “It’s 4:30 a.m. Let the man-”

“Archie. Please. You tried to instruct me how to handle colored men. Will you try it with white men too?”

I went for the phone.

12

PETTIGREW, THE SQUINT-EYED sheriff, shook his head and drawled, “Thank you just the same. I got stuck in the mud and had to flounder around and I’d get that chair all dirty. I’m a pretty good stander anyhow.”

My friend Barry Tolman didn’t look any too neat himself, but he wasn’t muddy and so he hadn’t hesitated about taking a seat. It was 8:10 Thursday morning. I felt like the last nickel in a crap game, because like a darned fool I had undraped myself a little after five o’clock and got under the covers, leaving a call for 7:30, and hauling myself out again after only two hours had put me off key for good. Wolfe was having breakfast in the big chair, with a folding table pulled up to him, in a yellow dressing gown, with his face shaved and his hair combed. He possessed five yellow dressing gowns and we had brought along the light woolen one with brown lapels and a brown girdle. He had on a necktie, too.

Tolman said, “As I told you on the phone, I’m supposed to be in court at 9:30. If necessary my assistant can get a postponement, but I’d like to make it if possible. Can’t you rush it?”

Wolfe was sipping at his cocoa for erosion on the bite of roll he had taken. When that was disposed of he said, “It depends a good deal on you, sir. It was impossible for me to go to Quinby, as I said, for reasons that will appear. I’ll do all I can to hurry it. I haven’t been to bed-”

“You said you have information-”

“I have. But the circumstances require a preamble. I take it that you arrested Mr. Berin only because you were convinced he was guilty. You don’t especially fancy him as a victim. If strong doubt were cast on his guilt-”

“Certainly.” Tolman was impatient. “I told you-”

“So you did. Now let’s suppose something. Suppose that a lawyer has been retained to represent Mr. Berin, and I have been engaged to discover evidence in Berin’s defense. Suppose further that I have discovered such evidence, of a weight that would lead inevitably to his acquittal when you put him on trial, and it is felt that it would be imprudent to disclose that evidence to you, the enemy, for the present. Suppose you demand that I produce that evidence now. It’s true, isn’t it, that you couldn’t legally enforce that demand? That such evidence is our property until the time we see fit to make use of it-provided you don’t discover it independently for yourselves?”

Tolman was frowning. “That’s true, of course. But damn it, I’ve told you that if the evidence against Berin can be explained-”

“I know. I offer, here and now, an explanation that will clear him; but I offer it on conditions.”

“What are they?”

Wolfe sipped cocoa and wiped his lips. “They’re not onerous. First, that if the explanation casts strong doubt on Berin’s guilt, he is to be released immediately.”

“Who will decide how strong the doubt is?”

“You.”

“All right, I agree. The court is sitting and it can be done in five minutes.”

“Good. Second, you are to tell Mr. Berin that I discovered the evidence which set him free, I am solely responsible for it, and God only knows what would have happened to him if I hadn’t done it.”

Tolman, still frowning, opened his mouth, but the sheriff put in, “Now wait, Barry. Hold your horses.” He squinted down at Wolfe. “If you’ve really got this evidence it must be around somewhere. I suppose we’re pretty slow out here in West Virginia-”

“Mr. Pettigrew. Please. I’m not talking about the public credit, I’m not interested in it. Tell the newspaper men whatever you want to. But Mr. Berin is to know, unequivocally, that I did it, and Mr. Tolman is to tell him so.”