Mondor protested, “Mr. Wolfe hasn’t tried it yet. He goes last.”
Berin growled, “I don’t remember the numbers. Louis has my slip. God above, it was an effort I tell you, with that dog of a Laszio standing there smirking at me.” He shook himself. “I ignored him. I didn’t speak to him.”
They talked. I listened with only one ear, because of a play I was enjoying out front. Servan had highballed Vukcic twice more to remind him it was his turn to taste, without any result. I could see Dina smile into Vukcic’s face, and I noticed that Mamma Mondor was also seeing it and was losing interest in her knitting. Finally Servan parted from Constanza, bowed to her, and approached the other couple. He was too polite and dignified to grab, so he just got in their way and they had to stop. They untwined.
Servan said, “Please. It is best to keep the order of the list. If you don’t mind.”
Apparently Vukcic was no longer lit, and anyway he wouldn’t have been rude to Servan. With a toss of his head he shook his hair-tangle back, and laughed. “But I think I won’t do it. I think I shall join the revolt of Leon Blanc.” He had to speak loud on account of the radio.
“My dear Vukcic!” Servan was mild. “We are civilized people, are we not? We are not children.”
Vukcic shrugged. Then he turned to his dancing partner. “Shall I do it, Dina?” Her eyes were up to him, and her lips moved, but in too low a voice for me to catch it. He shrugged again, and turned and headed for the dining room door and opened it and went in, with her watching his back. She went back to the stool by the radio, and Servan resumed with Constanza. Pretty soon, at eleven-thirty, there was a program change and the radio began telling about chewing gum, and Dina switched it off.
She asked, “Shall I try another station?”
Apparently they had had enough, so she left it dead. In our corner, Wolfe was leaning back with his eyes shut and Coyne was telling Berin about San Francisco Bay, when his Chinese wife entered from the hall, looked around and saw us and trotted over, and stuck her right forefinger into Coyne’s face and told him to kiss it because she had got it caught in a door and it hurt.
He kissed it. “But I thought you were outside looking at the night.”
“I was. But the door caught me. Look! It hurts.”
He kissed the finger again. “My poor little blossom!” More kisses. “My flower of Asia! Now we’re talking, run away and let us alone.”
She went off pouting.
Vukcic entered from the dining room, and came straight across to Dina Laszio. Servan told Vallenko he was next. Vukcic turned to him:
“Here’s my slip. I tasted each dish once. That’s the rule, eh? Laszio isn’t there.”
Servan’s brows went up. “Not there? Where is he?”
Vukcic shrugged. “I didn’t look for him. Perhaps in the kitchen.”
Servan called to Keith: “Ramsey! Phillip has left his post! Only Vallenko and Rossi and Mr. Wolfe are left. What about it?”
Keith said he would trust them if Servan would, and Vallenko went in. In due time he was back, and it was Rossi’s turn. Rossi hadn’t been in a scrap for over three hours, and I pricked my ears in expectation of hearing through the closed door some hot remarks about sons-in-law, in case Laszio had got back on the job, but there was so much jabber in the parlor that I wouldn’t have heard it anyway. When Rossi returned he announced to the gathering that no one but a fool would put as much salt as that in Sauce Printemps, but no one paid any attention to him. Nero Wolfe, last but not least, pried himself loose from his chair and, as the guest of honor, was conducted to the door by Louis Servan. I was darned glad that at last I could see bedtime peeping over the horizon.
In ten minutes the door opened and Wolfe reappeared. He stood on the threshold and spoke:
“Mr. Servan! Since I am the last, would you mind if I try an experiment with Mr. Goodwin?”
Servan said no, and Wolfe beckoned to me. I was already on my feet, because I knew something was up. There are various kinds of experiments that Wolfe might try with me as the subject, but none of them would be gastronomical. I crossed the parlor and followed him into the dining room, and he shut the door. I looked at the table. There were the nine dishes, with numbered cards in front of them, and a big electric server, covered, and a pitcher of water and glasses, and plates and forks and miscellany.
I grinned at Wolfe. “Glad to help you out. Which one did you get stuck on?”
He moved around the table. “Come here.” He went on, to the right, to the edge of the big Pocahontas screen standing there, and I followed him. Behind the screen he stopped, and pointed at the floor. “Look at that confounded mess.”
I stepped back a step, absolutely surprised. I had discounted all the loose talk about killing on account of its being dagoes, and whatever I might have thought about the swamp-woman’s little story, at least it hadn’t prepared me for blood. But there was the blood, though there wasn’t much of it, because the knife was still sticking in the left middle of Phillip Laszio’s back, with only the hilt showing. He was on his face, with his legs straight out, so that you might have thought he was asleep if it hadn’t been for the knife. I moved across and bent over and twisted the head enough to get a good look at one eye. Then I got up and looked at Wolfe.
He said bitterly, “A pleasant holiday! I tell you, Archie-but no matter. Is he dead?”
“Dead as a sausage.”
“I see. Archie. We have never been guilty of obstructing justice. That’s the legal term, let them have it. But this is not our affair. And at least for the present-what do you remember about our trip down here?”
“I think I remember we came on a train. That’s about as far as I could go.”
He nodded. “Call Mr. Servan.”
4
AT THREE O’CLOCK in the morning I sat in the small parlor of Pocahontas Pavilion. Across a table from me sat my friend Barry Tolman, and standing back of him was a big-jawed squint-eyed ruffian in a blue serge suit, with a stiff white collar, red tie and pink shirt. His name and occupation had not been kept a secret: Sam Pettigrew, sheriff of Marlin County. There were a couple of nondescripts, one with a stenographer’s notebook at the end of the table, and a West Virginia state cop was on a chair tilted against the wall. The door to the dining room stood open and there was still a faint smell of photographers’ flashlight bombs, and a murmur of voices came through from sleuths doing fingerprints and similar chores.
The blue-eyed athlete was trying not to sound irritated: “I know all that, Ashley. You may be the manager of Kanawha Spa, but I’m the prosecuting attorney of this county, and what do you want me to do, pretend he fell on the damn knife by accident? I resent your insinuation that I’m making a grab for the limelight-”
“All right, Barry. Forget it.” Clay Ashley, standing beside me, slowly shook his head. “Of all the rotten breaks! I know you can’t suppress it, of course. But for God’s sake get it over with and get ’em out of here-all right, I know you will as soon as you can. Excuse me if I said things… I’m going to try to get some sleep. Have them call me if I can do anything.”
He beat it. Someone came from the dining room to ask Pettigrew a question, and Tolman shook himself and rubbed his bloodshot eyes with his fingers. Then he looked at me: