the pavilion and served there, with five different ones contributing a dish, and I admit it hadn’t been hard to get down-which, since Fritz Brenner’s cooking under Nero Wolfe’s supervision had been my steady diet for ten years, would be a tribute for anyone.
I let a greenjacket open the door for me and trusted my hat to another one in the hall, and began the search for my lost hummingbird. In the parlor on the right, which had dark wooden things with colored rugs and stuff around everywhere-Pocahontas was all Indian as to furnishings-three couples were dancing to a radio. A medium brunette about my age, medium also as to size, with a high white brow and long sleepy eyes, was fastened onto Sergei Vallenko, a blond Russian ox around fifty with a scar under one ear. She was Dina Laszio, daughter of Domenico Rossi, onetime wife of Marko Vukcic, and stolen from him, according to Jerome Berin, by Phillip Laszio. A short middle-aged woman built like a duck, with little black eyes and fuzz on her upper lip, was Marie Mondor, and the pop-eyed chap with a round face, maybe her age and as plump as her, was her husband, Pierre Mondor. She couldn’t speak English, and I saw no reason why she should. The third couple consisted of Ramsey Keith, a little sawed-off Scotchman at least sixty with a face like a sunset preserved in alcohol, and a short and slender black-eyed affair who might have been anything under 35 to my limited experience, because she was Chinese. To my surprise, when I had met her at lunch, she had looked dainty and mysterious, just like the geisha propaganda pictures. I believe geishas are Japs, but it’s all the same. Anyway, she was Lio Coyne, the fourth wife of Lawrence Coyne; and hurrah for Lawrence, since he was all of three score and ten and as white as a snowbank.
I tried the parlor on the left, a smaller one. The pickings there were scanty. Lawrence Coyne was on a divan at the far end, fast asleep, and Leon Blanc, dear old Leon, was standing in front of a mirror, apparently trying to decide if he needed a shave. I ambled on through to the dining room. It was big and somewhat cluttered. Besides the long table and a slew of chairs, there were two serving tables and a cabinet full of paraphernalia, and a couple of huge screens with pictures of Pocahontas saving John Smith’s life and other things. There were four doors: the one I had come in by, a double one to the large parlor, a double glass one to a side terrace, and one out to the pantry and the kitchen.
There were also, as I entered, people. Marko Vukcic was on a chair by the long table, with a cigar in his mouth, shaking his head at a telegram he was reading. Jerome Berin was standing with a wineglass in his hand, talking with a dignified old bird with a gray mustache and a wrinkled face-that being Louis Servan, dean of the fifteen masters and their host at Kanawha Spa. Nero Wolfe was on a chair too small for him over by the glass door to the terrace, which stood open, leaning back uncomfortably so that his half-open eyes could take in the face of the man standing looking down at him. It was Phillip Laszio-chunky, not much gray in his hair, with clever eyes and a smooth skin and slick all over. Alongside Wolfe’s chair was a little stand with a glass and a couple of beer bottles, and at his other elbow, almost sitting on his knee, with a plate of something in her hand, was Lisette Putti. Lisette was as cute as they come, and had already made friends, in spite of a question of irregularity regarding her status. She was the guest of Ramsey Keith, who, coming all the way from Calcutta, had introduced her as his niece. Vukcic had told me that Marie Mondor’s sputterings after lunch had been to the effect that Lisette was a coquine and Keith had picked her up in Marseilles, but after all, Vukcic said, it was physically possible for a man named Keith to have a niece named Putti, and even if it was a case of mistaken identity, it was Keith who was paying the bills. Which sounded like a loose statement, but it was none of my affair.
As I approached, Laszio finished some remark to Wolfe and Lisette began spouting to him in French, something about the stuff she had on the plate, which looked like fat brown crackers; but just then there was a yell from the direction of the kitchen, and we all turned to see the swinging door open and Domenico Rossi come leaping through with a steaming dish in one hand and a long-handled spoon in the other.
“It curdled!” he shrieked. He rushed across to us and thrust the dish at Laszio. “Look at that dirty mud! What did I tell you? By God, look! You owe me a hundred francs! A devil of a son-in-law you are, and twice as old as I am anyhow, and ignorant of the very first essentials!”
Laszio quietly shrugged. “Did you warm the milk?”
“Me? Do I look like an egg-freezer?”
“Then perhaps the eggs were old.”
“Louis!” Rossi whirled and pointed the spoon at Servan. “Do you hear that? He says you have old eggs!”
Servan chuckled. “But if you did it the way he said to, and it curdled, you have won a hundred francs. Where, is the objection to that?”
“But everything wasted! Look: mud!” Rossi puffed. “These damn modern ideas! Vinegar is vinegar!”
Laszio said quietly, “I’ll pay. To-morrow I’ll show you how.” He turned abruptly and went to the door to the large parlor and opened it, and the sound of the radio came through. Rossi trotted around the table with the dish of mud to show it to Servan and Berin. Vukcic stuffed his telegram in his pocket and went over to look at it. Lisette became aware of my presence and poked the plate at me and said something. I grinned at her and replied, “Jack Spratt could eat no fat, his wife could-”
“Archie!” Wolfe opened his eyes. “Miss Putti says that those wafers were made by the two hands of Mr. Keith, who brought the ingredients from India.”
“Did you try them?”
“Yes.”
“Are they any good?”
“No.”
“Then will you kindly tell her that I never eat between meals?”
I wandered over to the parlor door and stood beside Phillip Laszio, looking at the three couples dancing-only it was apparent that he was only seeing one. Mamma and papa Mondor were panting but game, Ramsey Keith and the geisha were funny to look at but obviously not concerned with that aspect of the matter, and Dina Laszio and Vallenko apparently hadn’t changed holds since my previous view. However, they soon did. Something was happening beside me. Laszio said nothing, and made no gesture that I saw, but he must have achieved some sort of communication, for the two stopped abruptly, and Dina murmured something to her partner and then alone crossed the floor to her husband. I sidestepped a couple of paces to give them room, but they weren’t paying any attention to me.
She asked him, “Would you like to dance, dear?”
“You know I wouldn’t. You weren’t dancing.”
