Too Many Cooks

“Yes, sir. That’s what I did. I suppose that’s what will get me fired. It was none of my business to be correcting things, I knew it wasn’t. But if Mr. Servan will listen to me, it was him I did it for. I didn’t want him to lose his bet. I knew he had bet with Mr. Keith that the tasters would be eighty percent correct, and when I saw the dishes had been shifted I thought someone was framing him, so I shifted them back. Then I got out of there in a hurry.”

“I don’t suppose you remember just how they had been changed—where, for instance, number 1 had been moved to?”

“No, sir. I couldn’t say that.”

“No matter.” Wolfe sighed. “I thank you, Mr. Moulton, and you, Mr. Whipple. It is late. I’m afraid we won’t get much sleep, for we’ll have to deal with Mr. Tolman and the sheriff as early as possible. I suppose you live on the grounds here?”

They told him yes.

“Good. I’ll be sending for you. I don’t think you’ll lose your job, Mr. Moulton. I remember my commitment regarding beforehand arrangements with the authorities and I’ll live up to it. I thank all of you gentlemen for your patience. I suppose your hats are in Mr. Goodwin’s room?”

They helped me get the bottles and glasses cleared out and stacked in the foyer, and with that expert assistance it didn’t take long. The college boy didn’t help us because he hung back for a word with Wolfe. The hats and caps finally got distributed, and I opened the foyer door and they filed out. Hyacinth Brown had Boney by the arm, and Boney was still muttering when I shut the door.

In Wolfe’s room the light of dawn was at the window, even through the thick shrubbery just outside. It was my second dawn in a row, and I was beginning to feel that I might as well join the Milkmen’s Union and be done with it. My eyes felt as if someone had painted household cement on my lids and let it dry. Wolfe had his open, and was still in his chair.

I said, “Congratulations. All you need is wings to be an owl. Shall I leave a call for twelve noon? That would leave you eight hours till dinnertime, and you’d still be ahead of schedule.”

He made a face. “Where have they got Mr. Berin in jail?”

“I suppose at Quinby, the county seat.”

“How far away is it?”

“Oh, around twenty miles.”

“Does Mr. Tolman live there?”

“I don’t know. His office must be there, since he’s the prosecuting attorney.”

“Please find out, and get him on the phone. We want him and the sheriff here at eight o’clock. Tell him—no. When you get him, let me talk to him.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

I spread out my hands. “It’s 4:30 a.m. Let the man—”

“Archie. Please. You tried to instruct me how to handle colored men. Will you try it with white men too?”

I went for the phone.

12

PETTIGREW, the squint-eyed sheriff, shook his head and drawled, “Thank you just the same. I got stuck in the mud and had to flounder around and I’d get that chair all dirty. I’m a pretty good stander anyhow.”

My friend Barry Tolman didn’t look any too neat himself, but he wasn’t muddy and so he hadn’t hesitated about taking a seat. It was 8:10 Thursday morning. I felt like the last nickel in a crap game, because like a darned fool I had undraped myself a little after five o’clock and got under the covers, leaving a call for 7:30, and hauling myself out again after only two hours had put me off key for good. Wolfe was having breakfast in the big chair, with a folding table pulled up to him, in a yellow dressing gown, with his face shaved and his hair combed. He possessed five yellow dressing gowns and we had brought along the light woolen one with brown lapels and a brown girdle. He had on a necktie, too.

Tolman said, “As I told you on the phone, I’m supposed to be in court at 9:30. If necessary my assistant can get a postponement, but I’d like to make it if possible. Can’t you rush it?”

Wolfe was sipping at his cocoa for erosion on the bite of roll he had taken. When that was disposed of he said, “It depends a good deal on you, sir. It was impossible for me to go to Quinby, as I said, for reasons that will appear. I’ll do all I can to hurry it. I haven’t been to bed—”

“You said you have information—”

“I have. But the circumstances require a preamble. I take it that you arrested Mr. Berin only because you were convinced he was guilty. You don’t especially fancy him as a victim. If strong doubt were cast on his guilt—”

“Certainly.” Tolman was impatient. “I told you—”