Too Many Cooks/Champagne for One (21 page)

“Certainly. Mr. Berin is cleared. We are no longer interested. We leave here to-night.”

“Okay. Then for God’s sake let’s go to bed.”

He closed his eyes and sighed again. It appeared that he wanted to sit and worry about Vukcic a while, and I couldn’t help him any with that, so I turned and started out, intending not only to display the DO NOT DISTURB but also to leave positive instructions with the greenjacket, in the main hall. But just as I had my hand on the knob his voice stopped me.

“Archie. You’ve had more sleep than I have. I was about to say, we haven’t gone over that speech since we got here. I intended to rehearse it at least twice. Do you know which bag it’s in? Get it, please.”

If we had been in New York I would have quit the job.

At ten o’clock I sat on a chair by the open window and yawned, with my eyes on the typescript, my own handiwork. We had worked through it to page 9.

Wolfe, facing me, was sitting up in bed with four cushions at his back, displaying half an acre of yellow silk pajamas. On the bedstand beside him were two empty beer bottles and an empty glass. He appeared to be frowning intently at my socks as he went on:

“… but the indescribable flavor of the finest of Georgia hams, the quality which places them, in my opinion, definitely above the best to be found in Europe, is not due to the post mortem treatment of the flesh at all. Expert knowledge and tender care in the curing are indeed essential, but they are to be found in Czestochowa and Westphalia more frequently even than in Georgia. Poles and Westphalians have the pigs, the scholarship and the skill; what they do not have is peanuts.”

He stopped to blow his nose. I shifted position. He resumed: “A pig whose diet is fifty to seventy percent peanuts grows a ham of incredibly sweet and delicate succulence which, well-cured, well-kept and well-cooked, will take precedence over any other ham the world affords. I offer this as an
illustration of one of the sources of the American contributions I am discussing, and as another proof that American offerings to the roll of honor of fine food are by no means confined to those items which were found here already ripe on the tree, with nothing required but the plucking. Red Indians were eating turkeys and potatoes before white men came, but they were not eating peanut-fed pigs. Those unforgettable hams are not gifts of nature; they are the product of the inventor’s enterprise, the experimenter’s persistence, and the connoisseur’s discrimination. Similar results have been achieved by the feeding of blueberries to young chickens, beginning usually—”

“Hold it. Not chickens, poultry.”

“Chickens are poultry.”

“You told me to stop you.”

“But not to argue with me.”

“You started the argument, I didn’t.”

He showed me a palm. “Let’s go on … beginning usually at the age of one week. The flavor of a four months old cockerel, trained to eat large quantities of blueberries from infancy, and cooked with mushrooms, tarragon and white wine—or, if you would add another American touch, made into a chicken and corn pudding, with onion, parsley and eggs—is not only distinctive, it is unique; and it is assuredly haute cuisine. This is even a better illustration of my thesis than the ham, for Europeans could not have fed peanuts to pigs, since they had no peanuts. But they did have chickens—chickens, Archie?”

“Poultry.”

“No matter. They did have chickens and blueberries, and for centuries no one thought of having the one assimilate the other and bless us with the result. Another demonstration of the inventiveness—”

“Hey, wait! You left out a whole paragraph. ‘You will say perhaps—’ ”

“Very well. Do you think you might sit still? You keep that chair creaking. You will say, perhaps, that all this does not belong in a discussion of cookery, but on consideration I believe you will agree that it does. Vatel had his own farm, and gave his personal attention to its husbandry. Escoffier refused fowl from a certain district, however plump and well-grown, on account of minerals in the drinking water available for them there. Brillat-Savarin paid many tributes …”

I was on my feet. Seated, I had twitches in my arms and legs and I couldn’t sit still. With my eye on the script, I moved across to the table and got hold of the carafe and poured myself a glass of water and drank it. Wolfe went on, droning it out. I decided not to sit down again, and stood in the middle of the floor, flexing and unflexing the muscles of my legs to make the twitching stop.

I don’t know what it was that alarmed me. I couldn’t have seen anything, because my eyes were on the script, and the open window was at my left, at least a dozen feet away, at right angles to my line of vision. I don’t think I heard anything. But something made me jerk my head around, and even then all I saw was a movement in the shrubbery outside the window, and I have no idea what made me throw the script. But I threw it, straight at the window. At the same moment a gun went off, good and loud. Simultaneously smoke and the smell of powder came in at the window, the script fluttered and dropped to the floor, and I heard Wolfe’s voice behind me:

“Look here, Archie.”

I looked and saw the blood running down the side of his face. For a second I stood dead in my tracks. I wanted to jump through the window and catch the son of a—the sharp-shooter, and give him personal treatment. And Wolfe wasn’t dead, he was still sitting up. But the blood looked plenteous. I jumped to the side of the bed.

He had his lips compressed tight, but he opened them to demand, “Where is it? Is it my skull?” He shuddered. “Brains?”

“Hell no.” I was looking, and was so relieved my voice cracked. “Where would brains come from? Take your hand away and hold still. Wait till I get a towel.” I raced to the bathroom and back, and wrapped one towel around his neck and sopped with the other one. “I don’t think it touched the cheekbone at all, it just went through skin and meat. Do you feel faint?”

“No. Bring me my shaving mirror.”

“You wait till I—”

“Bring the mirror!”

“For God’s sake. Hold that towel there.” I hopped to the bathroom again for the mirror and handed it to him, and then went to the phone. A girl’s voice said good morning sweetly.

“Yeah. Swell morning. Has this joint got a doctor?…  No,
wait, I don’t want to speak to him, send him over here right away, a man’s been shot in Suite 60, Upshur Pavilion.… I said shot, and step on it, and send the doctor, and that Odell the house detective, and a state cop if there’s one around loose, and a bottle of brandy. Got it?… Good for you, you’re a wonder.”

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.”

“Much obliged.” He sounded sarcastic. “Maybe you’d like to have the colonel come down from Charleston so you can give him instructions.”

I waved a hand. “I’m upset. I’ve had no sleep and my boss got shot and darned near had his brains spilled. I’m surprised I’ve been as polite as I have. It
would
be nice to know that those windows are being watched. Will you do it?”

“Yes. I’ll phone in a report and get a couple of men.” He eyed me. “You didn’t see any more than you told me. Huh?”