Too Many Cooks

“Yes. Of course they may have abandoned the idea of that dinner, but I should think not, since only once in five years … well. The first step—”

“Excuse me.” I had dropped the paper to the floor and straightened up, with a warm feeling that here was going to be a chance to get my circulation started. “Why not get in touch with Liggett and accept his offer? Since we’re going to do it anyway, we might as well annex a fee along with it.”

“No. If I engage with him and am not finished by to-morrow evening—no. Freedom is too precious collateral for any fee. We shall proceed. The first step is obvious. Bring Mr. Tolman here at once.”

That was like him. Some day he would tell me to go get the Senate and the House of Representatives. I said, “Tolman’s sore at you because you wouldn’t come to the phone this morning. Also he thinks he has his man and is no longer interested. Also I don’t believe—”

“Archie! You said you will do the planning. Please go for Mr. Tolman, and plan how to persuade him on the way.”

I went for my hat.

6

I JOGGED smartly back along the path to Pocahontas, thinking I might catch Tolman before he got away, with my brain going faster than my feet trying to invent a swift one for him, but I was too late. The greenjacket at the door so advised me, saying that Tolman had got in his car on the driveway and headed west. I about-faced and broke into a gallop. If there had been a stop at the hotel, as seemed probable, I might head him off there. I was panting a little by the time I entered the lobby and began darting glances around through the palms and pillars and greenjackets, and customers in everything from riding togs to what resembled the last safeguard of Gypsy Rose Lee. I was about to advance to the desk to make an inquiry when I heard a grim voice at my elbow:

“Hello, cockroach.”

I wheeled and narrowed my eyes at it. “Hello, rat. Not even rat. Something I don’t know the name of, because it lives underground and eats the roots of weeds.”

Gershom Odell shook his head. “Not me. Wrong number. What you said about Laszio getting croaked, I had already told the night clerk just as conversation, and of course they faced me with it after it happened, and what could I do? But your shooting off your face about throwing stones—didn’t you have brains enough to know you would make the damn sheriff suspicious?”

“I haven’t got any brains, I’m a detective. The sheriff’s busy elsewhere anyhow.” I waved a hand. “Forget it. I want to see Tolman. Is he around here?”

Odell nodded. “He’s in the manager’s office with Ashley. Also a few other people, including a man from New York named Liggett. Which reminds me I want to see you. You think you’re so damn smart I’d like to lay you flat and sit on you, but I’ll have to let that go because I want you to do me a favor.”

“Let it go anyway. Sit not lest you be sat on.”

“Okay. What I wanted to ask you about, I’m fed up with the sticks. It’s a good job here in a way, but in other ways it’s pretty crummy. To-day when Raymond Liggett landed here in a plane, the first person he asked for was Nero Wolfe, and he hoofed it right over to Upshur without going to his room or even stopping to say hello to Ashley. So I figured Wolfe must stand pretty high with him, and it occurred to me that about the best berth in this country for a house detective is the Hotel Churchill.” Odell’s eyes gleamed. “Boy, would that be a spot for a good honest man like me! So while Liggett’s here, if you could tell Wolfe about me and he could tell Liggett and arrange for me to meet him without the bunch here getting wise in case I don’t land it. …”

I was thinking, sure as the devil we’re turning into an employment agency. I hate to disappoint people, and therefore I kidded Odell along, without actually misrepresenting the condition of Wolfe’s intimacy with Raymond Liggett, and keeping one eye on the closed door which was the entrance to the manager’s office. I told him that I was glad to see that he wasn’t satisfied to stay in a rut and had real ambition and so forth, and it was a very nice chat, but I knocked off abruptly when I saw the closed door open and my friend Barry Tolman emerge alone. Giving Odell a friendly clap on the shoulder with enough muscle in it to give him an idea how easy I would be to sit on, I left him and followed my prey among the pillars and palms, and at a likely spot near the main entrance pounced on him.

His blue eyes looked worried and his whole face untidy. He recognized me: “Oh. What do you want? I’m in a hurry.”