Rex Stout - Too Many Cooks

I went back to Wolfe, and whenever I want to treat myself to a laugh all I have to do is remember how he looked on that occasion. With one hand he was keeping the towel from unwinding from his neck, and with the other he was holding up the mirror, into which he was glaring with unutterable indignation and disgust. I saw he was holding his lips tight so blood wouldn’t get in his mouth, and went and got some of his handkerchiefs and did some more sopping.

He moved his left shoulder up and down a little. “Some blood ran down my neck.” He moved his jaw up and down, and from side to side. “I don’t feel anything when I do that.” He put the mirror down on the bed. “Can’t you stop the confounded bleeding? Look out, don’t press so hard! What’s that there on the floor?”

“It’s your speech. I think there’s a bullet hole through it, but it’s all right. You’ve got to get stretched out and turned over on your side.-Now damn it, don’t argue-here, wait till I get rid of these cushions…”

I got him horizontal, with his head raised on a couple of pillows, and went to the bathroom for a towel soaked in cold water and came back and poulticed him. He had his eyes shut. I had just got back to him with another cold towel when there was a loud knock on the door.

The doctor, a bald-headed little squirt with spectacles, had a bag in his hand and a nurse with him. As I was ushering them in somebody else came trotting down the hall, and I let him in too when I saw it was Clay Ashley, the Kanawha Spa manager. He was sputtering at me, “Who did it how did it happen where is he who is it…” I told him to save it up and followed the doctor and nurse inside.

The bald-headed doc was no slouch, at that. The nurse pulled up a chair for the bag and opened it, and I shoved a table over by the bed, while the doc bent over Wolfe without asking me anything. Wolfe started to turn over but was commanded to lie still.

Wolfe protested, “Confound it, I have to see your face!”

“What for? To see if I’m compos mentis? I’m all right. Hold still.”

Clay Ashley’s voice sounded at my elbow. “What the devil is it? You say he was shot? What happened?”

The doctor spoke without turning, with authority: “Quiet in here, until I see what we’ve got.”

There was another loud knock on the door. I went out to it, and Ashley followed me. It was my friend Odell and a pair of state cops, and behind them the greenjacket from the main hall. Ashley told the greenjacket:

“Get out of here, and keep your mouth shut.”

“I just wanted to tell you, sir, I heard a shot, and two of the guests want to know-”

“Tell them you know nothing about it. Tell them it was a backfire. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

I took the quartette to my room. I ignored Ashley, because I had heard Wolfe say he was bourgeois, and spoke to the cops:

“Nero Wolfe was sitting up in bed, rehearsing a speech he is to deliver tonight, and I was standing four yards from the open window looking at the script to prompt him. Something outside caught my attention, I don’t know whether a sound or a movement, and I looked at the window and all I consciously saw was a branch of the shrubbery moving, and I threw the script at the window. At the same time a gun went off, outside, and Wolfe called to me, and I saw his cheek was bleeding and went to him and took a look. Then I phoned the hotel, and got busy mopping blood until the doctor came, which was just before you did.”

One of the cops had a notebook out. “What’s your name?”

“Archie Goodwin.”

He wrote it down. “Did you see anyone in the shrubbery?”

“No. If you’ll permit a suggestion, it’s been less than ten minutes since the shot was fired. I’ve told you all I know. If you let the questions wait and get busy out there, you might pick up a hot trail.”

“I want to see Wolfe.”

“To ask him if I shot him? Well, I didn’t. I even know who did, it was the man that stabbed Laszio in Pocahontas Pavilion Tuesday night. I don’t know his name, but it was that guy. Would you like to grab that murderer, you two? Get out there on the trail before it cools off.”

“How do you know it was the one that killed Laszio?”

“Because Wolfe started digging too close to his hole and he didn’t like it. There’s plenty of people that would like to see Nero Wolfe dead, but not in this neighborhood.”

“Is Wolfe conscious?”

“Certainly. That way, through the foyer.”

“Come on, Bill.”

They tramped ahead, and Ashley and I followed, with Odell behind us. In Wolfe’s room the nurse had the table half covered with bandages and things, and an electric sterilizer had been plugged into an outlet. Wolfe, on his right side, had his back to us, and the doctor was bending over him with busy fingers.

“What about it, Doc?”

“Who-” The doctor’s head twisted at us. “Oh, it’s you fellows. Only a flesh wound in the upper cheek. I’ll have to sew it.”

Wolfe’s voice demanded, “Who is that?”

“Quit talking. State police.”

“Archie? Where are you, Archie?”

“Right here, boss.” I stepped up. “The cops want to know if I shot you.”

“They would. Idiots. Get them out of here. Get everybody out but you and the doctor. I’m in no condition for company.”

The cop spoke up. “We want to ask you, Mr. Wolfe-”

“I have nothing to tell you, except that somebody shot at me through the window. Hasn’t Mr. Goodwin told you that? Do you think you can catch him? Try it.”

Clay Ashley said indignantly, “That’s no attitude to take, Wolfe. All this damned mess comes from my permitting a gathering of people who are not of my clientele. Far from it. It seems to me-”

“I know who that is.” Wolfe’s head started to move, and the doctor held it firm. “That’s Mr. Ashley. His clientele! Pfui! Put him out too. Put them all out. Do you hear me, Archie?”

The doctor said decisively, “That’s enough. When he talks it starts bleeding.”

I told the cops, “Come on, shove off. He’s far enough away now so that you’re in no danger.” To Ashley: “You too. Give your clientele my love. Scat.”

Odell had stayed over by the door and so was the first one out. Ashley and the cops were close behind. I followed them, on through the foyer, and into the public hall. There I stopped one of the cops and kept him by fastening onto a corner of his tunic, and his brother, seeing him stay, stayed with him while Ashley and Odell went on ahead. Ashley was tramping along in a fury and Odell was trotting in the rear.

“Listen,” I told the cop. “You didn’t like my first suggestion to get jumping, I’ll try another. This individual that stabbed Laszio and took a shot at Wolfe seems to be pretty active. He might even take it into his head to try some more target practice on the same range. It’s a nice April day and Wolfe wouldn’t want the windows closed and the curtains drawn, and damned if I’m going to sit in there all day and watch the shrubbery. We came into your state alive, and we’d like to go out the same way at 12:40 to-night. How would it be if you stationed a guard where he could keep an eye on those windows and the shrubbery from behind? There’s a nice seat not far away, by the brook.”