Too Many Cooks

Returning, I sat and watched Wolfe consider. He was leaning back in his favorite position, though by no means as comfortably as in his own chair at home, with his eyes closed. He might have been asleep but for the faint movement of his lips. I did a little considering on my own hook, but I admit mine was limited. It looked to me like Berin, but I was willing to let in either Vukcic or Blanc in case they insisted. As far as I could see, everyone else was absolutely out. Of course there was still the possibility that Laszio had been absent from the dining room only temporarily, during Vukcic’s session with the dishes, and had later returned and Vallenko or Rossi had mistaken him for a pincushion before or after tasting, but I couldn’t see any juice in that. I had been in the large parlor the entire evening, and I tried to remember whether I had at any time noticed anyone enter the small parlor—or rather, whether I would have been able to swear that no one had. I thought I would. After over half an hour of overworking my brain, it still looked to me like Berin, and I thought it just as well Wolfe had turned down two offers of a fee, since it didn’t seem very probable he was going to earn one.

I saw Wolfe stir. He opened his mouth but not his eyes.

“Archie. Those two colored men on duty in the main foyer of Pocahontas Pavilion last evening. Find out where they are.”

I went to the phone in my room, deciding that the quickest way was to get hold of my friend Odell and let him do it. In less than ten minutes I was back again with the report.

“They went on at Pocahontas again at six o’clock. The same two. It is now 6:07. Their names—”

“No, thanks. I don’t need the names.” Wolfe pulled himself up and looked at me. “We have an enemy who has sealed himself in. He fancies himself impregnable, and he well may be—no door, no gate, no window in his walls—or hers. Possibly hers. But there is one little crack, and we’ll have to see if we can pry it open.” He sighed. “Amazing what a wall that is; that one crack is all I see. If that fails us …” He shrugged. Then he said bitterly, “As you know, we are dressing for dinner this evening. I would like to get to the pavilion as quickly as possible. What the tongue has promised the body must submit to.”

He began operations for leaving his chair.

7

IT WAS STILL twenty minutes short of seven o’clock when we got to Pocahontas. Wolfe had done pretty well with the black and white, considering that Fritz Brenner was nearly a thousand miles away, and I could have hired out as a window dummy.

Naturally I had some curiosity about Wolfe’s interest in the greenjackets, but it didn’t get satisfied. In the main hall, after we had been relieved of our hats, he motioned me on in to the parlor, and he stayed behind. I noted that Odell’s information was correct; the two colored men were the same that had been on duty the evening before.

It was more than an hour until dinnertime, and there was no one in the large parlor except Mamma Mondor, knitting and sipping sherry, and Vallenko and Keith, with Lisette Putti between them, chewing the rag on a divan. I said hello and strolled over and tried to ask Mamma Mondor what was the French word for knitting, but she seemed dumb at signs and began to get excited, and it looked as it it might end in a fight, so I shoved off.

Wolfe entered from the hall, and I saw by the look in his eye that he hadn’t lost the crack he had mentioned. He offered greetings around, made a couple of inquiries, and was informed that Louis Servan was in the kitchen overlooking the preparations for dinner. Then he came up to me and in a low tone outlined briefly an urgent errand. I thought he had a nerve to wait until I got my glad rags on to ask me to work up a sweat, particularly since no fee was involved, but I went for my hat without stopping to grumble.

I cut across the lawn to get to the main path and headed for the hotel. On the way I decided to use Odell again instead of trying to develop new contacts, and luckily I ran across him in the corridor by the elevators and without having to make inquiries. He looked at me pleased and expectant.

“Did you tell Wolfe? Has he seen Liggett?”

“Nope, not yet. Give us time, can’t you? Don’t you worry, old boy. Right now I need some things in a hurry. I need a good ink pad, preferably a new one, and fifty or sixty sheets of smooth white paper, preferably glazed, and a magnifying glass.”

“Jumping Jesus.” He stared at me. “Who you working for, J. Edgar Hoover?”

“No. It’s all right, we’re having a party. Maybe Liggett will be there. Step on it, huh?”

He told me to wait there and disappeared around the corner. In five minutes he was back, with all three items. As I took them he told me:

“I’ll have to put the pad and paper on the bill. The glass is a personal loan, don’t forget and skip with it.”