Too Many Cooks

“Mr. Servan, Ladies, Masters, Fellow Guests. I feel a little silly. Under different circumstances it might be both instructive and amusing for you, at least some of you, to listen to a discussion of American contributions to la haute cuisine, and it might be desirable to use what persuasiveness I can command to convince you that those contributions are neither negligible nor meager. But when I accepted an invitation to offer you such a discussion, which greatly pleased and flattered me, I didn’t realize how unnecessary it would be at the moment scheduled for its delivery. It is delightful to talk about food, but infinitely more delightful to eat it; and we have eaten. A man once declared to me that one of the keenest pleasures in life was to close his eyes and dream of beautiful women, and when I suggested that it would be still more agreeable to open his eyes and look at them, he said not at all, for the ones he dreamed about were all beautiful, far more beautiful than any his eye ever encountered. Similarly it might be argued that if I am eloquent the food I talk to you about may be better than the food you have eaten; but even that specious excuse is denied me. I can describe, and pay tribute to, some superlative American dishes, but I can’t surpass the oysters and terrapin and turkey which were so recently there”—he indicated the table—“and are now here.” With a gentle palm he delicately patted the appropriate spot.

They applauded. Mondor cried, “Bien dit!” Servan beamed.

Properly speaking, he hadn’t started the speech yet, for that wasn’t in it. Now he started. For the first ten minutes or so I was uneasy. There was nothing in the world I would enjoy more than watching Nero Wolfe wallowing in discomfiture, but not in the presence of outsiders. When that happy time came, which it never had yet, I wanted it to be a special command performance for Archie Goodwin and no one else around. And I was uneasy because it seemed quite possible that the hardships on the train and loss of sleep and getting shot at might have upset him so that he would forget the darned speech, but after the first ten minutes I saw there was nothing to worry about. He was sailing along. I took another sip of brandy and relaxed.

By the time he was half through I began to worry about something else. I glanced at my wrist. It was getting late. Charleston was only sixty miles away, and Tolman had said it was a good road and could easily be made in an hour and a half. Knowing how complicated the program was, it was my opinion that there wasn’t much chance of getting away that night anyhow, but it would have ruined the setup entirely if anything had happened to Saul. So my second big relief came when the greenjacket from the hall entered softly from the parlor, as he had been instructed, and gave me the high sign. I sidled out of my chair with as little disturbance as possible and tiptoed out.

There in the small parlor sat a little guy with a big nose, in need of a shave, with an old brown cap hanging on his knee. He stood up and stuck out his hand and I took it with a grin.

“Hello, darling, I never would have thought that the time would come when you would look handsome to me. Turn around, how do you look behind?”

Saul Panzer demanded, “How’s Mr. Wolfe?”

“Swell. He’s in there making a speech I taught him.”

“You sure he’s all right?”

“Why not? Oh, you mean his casualty” I waved a hand. “A mere nothing. He thinks he’s a hero. I wish to God they’d shoot me next time so he’d stop bragging. Have you got anything?”

Saul nodded. “I’ve got everything.”

“Is there anything you heed to explain to Wolfe before he springs it?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve got everything he asked for. The whole Charleston police force jumped into it.”

“Yeah, I know. My friend Mr. Tolman arranged that. I’ve got another friend named Odell that throws stones at people—remind me to tell you about it sometime. This is a jolly place. Then you wait here till you’re called. I’d better go back in. Have you had anything to eat?”

He said his inside was attended to, and I left him. Back in the dining room again, I resumed my seat beside Constanza, and when Wolfe paused at the end of a paragraph, I took my handkerchief from my breast pocket, passed it across my lips, and put it back again. He gave me a fleeting glance to acknowledge the signal. he had reached the part about the introduction of file powder to the New Orleans market by the Choctaw Indians on Bayou Lacombe, so I knew he had got to page 14. It looked as though he was putting it over in good style. Even Domenico Rossi looked absorbed, in spite of the fact that in one place Wolfe specifically stated that in the three most important centers of American contributions to fine cooking—Louisiana, South Carolina, and New England—there had been no Italian influence whatever.