Rex Stout - Too Many Cooks

Wolfe said sharply, “You know what you’re doing, madam. You’re helping to send a man to his death.”

“I know. I can’t help it! How can I go on lying for him? He killed my husband. When I met him out there and he told me what he had planned-”

“You tricky bastard!” Liggett broke training completely. He jerked from Tolman’s grasp, plunged across Mondor’s legs, knocked Blanc and his chair to the floor, trying to get at Wolfe. I was on my way, but by the time I got there Berin had stopped him, with both arms around him, and Liggett was kicking and yelling like a lunatic.

Dina Laszio, of course, had stopped trying to talk, with all the noise and confusion. She sat quietly looking on with her long sleepy eyes.

17

JEROME BERIN SAID POSITIVELY, “She’ll stick to it. She’ll do whatever will push danger farthest from her, and that will be it.”

The train was sailing like a gull across New Jersey on a sunny Friday morning, somewhere east of Philadelphia. In sixty minutes we would be tunneling under the Hudson. I was propped against the wall of the pullman bedroom again, Constanza was on the chair, and Wolfe and Berin were on the window seats with beer between them. Wolfe looked pretty seedy, since of course he wouldn’t have tried to shave on the train even if there had been no bandage, but he knew that in an hour the thing would stop moving and the dawn of hope was on his face.

Berin asked, “Don’t you think so?”

Wolfe shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t care. The point was to nail Liggett down by establishing his presence at Kanawha Spa on Tuesday evening, and Mrs. Laszio was the only one who could do that for us. As you say, she is undoubtedly just as guilty as Liggett, maybe more, depending on your standard. I rather think Mr. Tolman will try her for murder. He took her last night as a material witness, and he may keep her that way to clinch his case against Liggett-or he may charge her as an accomplice. I doubt if it matters much. Whatever he does, he won’t convict her. She’s a special kind of woman, she told me so herself. Even if Liggett is bitter enough against her to confess everything in order to involve her in his doom, to persuade any dozen men that the best thing to do with that woman is to kill her would be quite a feat. I question whether Mr. Tolman is up to it.”

Berin, filling his pipe, frowned at it. Wolfe upped his beer glass with one hand as he clung to the arm of the seat with the other.

Constanza smiled at me. “I try not to hear them. Talking about killing people.” She shivered delicately.

I grunted. “You seem to be doing a lot of smiling. Under the circumstances.”

She lifted brows above the dark purple eyes. “What circumstances?”

I just waved a hand. Berin had got his pipe lit and was talking again. “Well, it turned my stomach. Poor Rossi, did you notice him? Poor devil. When Dina Rossi was a little girl and I had her many times on this knee, and she was quiet and very sly but a nice girl. Of course, all murderers were once little children, which seems astonishing.” He puffed until the little room was nicely filled with smoke. “By the way, did you know that Vukcic made this train?”

“No.”

Berin nodded. “He came leaping on at the last minute, I saw him, like a lion with fleas after him. I haven’t seen him around this morning, though I’ve been back and forth. No doubt your man told you that I stopped here at your room around eight o’clock.”

Wolfe grimaced. “I wasn’t dressed.”

“So he told me. So I came back. I wasn’t comfortable. I never am comfortable when I’m in debt, and I’ve got to find out what I owe you and pay it. There at Kanawha Spa you were a guest and didn’t want to talk about it, but now you can. You got me out of a bad hole and maybe you even saved my life, and you did it at the request of my daughter for your professional help. That makes it a debt and I want to pay it, only I understand your fees are pretty steep. How much do you charge for a day’s work?”

“How much do you?”

“What?” Berin stared. “God above. I don’t work by the day. I am an artist, not a potato peeler.”

“Neither am I.” Wolfe wiggled a finger. “Look here, sir. Let’s admit it as a postulate that I saved your life. If I did, I am willing to let it go as a gesture of amity and goodwill and take no payment for it. Will you accept that gesture?”

“No. I’m in debt to you. My daughter appealed to you. It is not to be expected that I, Jerome Berin, would accept such a favor.”

“Well…” Wolfe sighed. “If you won’t take it in friendship, you won’t. In that case, the only thing I can do is render you a bill. That’s simple. If any valuation at all is to be placed on the professional services I rendered it must be a high one, for the services were exceptional. So… since you insist on paying… you owe me the recipe for saucisse minuit.”

“What!” Berin glared at him. “Pah! Ridiculous!”

“How ridiculous? You ask what you owe. I tell you.”

Berin sputtered. “Outrageous, damn it!” He waved his pipe until sparks and ashes flew. “That recipe is priceless! And you ask it… God above, I’ve refused half a million francs! And you have the impudence, the insolence-”

“If you please.” Wolfe snapped. “Let’s don’t row about it. You put a price on your recipe. That’s your privilege. I put a price on my services. That’s mine. You have refused half a million francs. If you were to send me a check for half a million dollars I would tear it up-or for any sum whatever. I saved your life or I rescued you from a minor annoyance, call it what you please. You ask me what you owe me, and I tell you, you owe me that recipe, and I will accept nothing else. You pay it or you don’t, suit yourself. It would be an indescribable pleasure to be able to eat saucisse minuit at my own table-at least twice a month, I should think-but it would be quite a satisfaction, of another sort, to be able to remind myself-much oftener than twice a month-that Jerome Berin owes me a debt which he refuses to pay.”

“Bah!” Berin snorted. “Trickery!”

“Not at all. I attempt no coercion. I won’t sue you. I’ll merely regret that I employed my talents, lost a lot of sleep, and allowed myself to get shot at, without either acquiring credit for a friendly and generous act, or receiving the payment due me. I suppose I should remind you that I offered a guarantee to disclose the recipe to no one. The sausage will be prepared only in my house and served only at my table. I would like to reserve the right to serve it to guests-and of course to Mr. Goodwin, who lives with me and eats what I eat.”

Berin, staring at him, muttered, “Your cook.”

“He won’t know it. I spend quite a little time in the kitchen myself.”

Berin continued to stare, in silence. Finally he growled, “It can’t be written down. It never has been.”

“I won’t write it down. I have a facility for memorizing.”

Berin got his pipe to his mouth without looking at it, and puffed. Then he stared some more. At length he heaved a shuddering sigh and looked around at Constanza and me. He said gruffly, “I can’t tell it with these people in here.”