Recipe for Homicide, page 16
When he reached his desk, his secretary had just finished opening the mail.
“Morning, Bright Eyes,” he said, as she put the stack of papers in front of him. “Any threatening notes today? Any demands for blackmail?”
“Just the usual,” his secretary said. “Not even a demand for ransom.”
Gilmore looked at his secretary curiously. He had scarcely thought of Frankie Froley that morning, except with a lingering resentment at having been stood up for an hour. It had never occurred to him until this moment that she might have been kidnaped, possibly by her own husband. It was a silly thought in broad daylight, of course, regardless of how reasonable it might have seemed last night. He would go down to the third floor in a little while and probably find Frankie at work on her carrots.
He was leafing listlessly through the mail when his phone rang.
“It’s Mr. Quirk,” his secretary said. “He can hardly wait to see you.”
Gilmore rose wearily. “From the tone of his voice,” he asked, “would you suggest that I change into asbestos underwear?”
“I think,” his secretary replied, “you had better wear rubber gloves, a gauze mask and a white gown. Maybe you’d better take forceps, too. Mr. Quir k seems on the point of giving birth to something or other.”
“Thank you,” said Gilmore, buttoning his jacket. “You might phone the vet to join me.”
Calvin Quirk was wrapped tightly in his usual lipless, cadaverous mien. Even more so, Gilmore thought. He seemed more than ever to cry for a mortician’s cosmetics. His usual tallow complexion was this morning a pale green, as though he had just been fished from the river after a week’s submersion. Only his hands gave restless evidence that he was still alive—his moving hands and his worried eyes.
“Sit down, Gilmore,” Quirk said. “Mr. Evans phoned that he wants to see you as soon as he comes in, but unfortunately he’s been delayed at his doctor’s. Meanwhile, there’s a matter you may be able to clear up for us. You know about Froley, of course.”
“Froley?” Gilmore crossed his legs with what he hoped was supreme nonchalance. “What about Froley?”
“He’s a Communist, it seems,” Quirk said. “As I told you, Mr. Evans had private information to that effect a fortnight ago, and immediately wrote to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, asking for confirmation and advice. There was an F.B.I. man in here this morning who says that Froley is indeed a Communist, but he swears the F.B.I. received no such letter. Yet Mr. Evans swears he wrote and signed it.”
“Which one do you think is mistaken—Mr. Evans or the F.B.I.?”
Quirk gave Gilmore a reproachful look. Had he been a man addicted to tobacco, Quirk would undoubtedly at this moment have lighted a pipe or cigar or at least a cigarette. As it was, he had trouble occupying his hands. He had twisted three paper clips into obscene outlines while talking.
“You must excuse me, Gilmore,” he said, “if I fail to join in your facetious view of this matter. It’s a very serious matter for me. Obviously, the word of neither Mr. Evans nor the F.B.I. can be questioned. However, they may both question my word!”
“Sorry, Mr. Quirk. I didn’t know you were mixed up in this. What happened?”
“You may remember that Mr. Evans was ill about a fortnight ago.” Quirk attacked still another paper clip. “He was at home for three days with an asthmatic attack. During that period, I spent several hours a day in Mr. Evans’s office, going through his mail, and answering the most urgent letters that did not require his personal decision. Mr. Evans says that the last thing he did before rushing home to his sick bed was to sign a batch of letters which were on his desk. The letter to the F.B.I. was among them. The letter must therefore have still been on the desk when I took over temporarily that day.” Quirk dropped the deformed paper clip into the wastebasket. He waited for the ping before he resumed. “Mr. Evans’s secretary agrees that this is probably the case. She remembers typing the letter and placing it, together with the carbon, as is her custom, on his desk the day he was taken ill. Yet there is no carbon in the file. I swear to God, Gilmore, that I didn’t see that letter! I didn’t! Did you?”
“I?” Gilmore straightened in his chair. “Why should I have seen it?”
“You were in Mr. Evans’s office that afternoon to speak to me,” Quirk said, leaning back majestically. "As I recall it, we were interrupted several times by telephone calls. I was somewhat distracted and may even have turned my back on you for a moment. Do you recall me turning my back to you while talking on the telephone?”
Gilmore opened his mouth, then bit down hard on the expletive that rose to his lips. So the poison was working! The Tribunes venomous seeds of suspicion were sprouting like mad.
“Is that an accusation, Mr. Quirk?”
Quirk’s hard eyes left no doubt about the matter. His lipless mouth, however, framed an amiable denial.
“Not at all, Gilmore. I was merely asking if you recalled anything untoward that happened that afternoon in Mr. Evans’s office.”
Then the phone rang, and Gilmore offered up a silent prayer of thanks to Alexander Graham Bell.
“That was Mr. Remington,” said Mr. Quirk, replacing the instrument with the ends of his fingers, as though he were disposing of a very dead fish. “It seems we are going to resumq production of the Army rations today. Mr. Remington is on the third floor with Dr. Coffee and that police lieutenant. He has asked that you join them there now.”
“I wonder if it’s wise for me to visit the third floor while I’m under suspicion of having filched F.B.I. correspondence from the boss’s files,” said Gilmore. As the literal-minded Quirk seemed not quite sure if he was joking or not, he added, “I might not be a good security risk.”
“Dr. Coffee and that police lieutenant apparently want you present for some reason of their own,” said Mr. Quirk. “You’ll check back here when you’re through, won’t you, Gilmore?”
Entering the all-pervading din and clatter of the third floor was a little like diving into an icy pool. The noise was breathtaking at first, but after a few vigorous strokes through the crest of the sound waves, the decibels were no longer noticeable. Gilmore moved through the orderly confusion of the kitchens toward the battery of nickel blending kettles, standing in an imposing row on their low platforms, gleaming through the fragrant vapors and clouds of live steam from the nozzles of a clean-up crew at work in the foreground. He saw Remington at the foot of the platform, as dapper as usual in a suit of beige tussah silk. He was talking to Dr. Coffee, while Papa Lenormand was explaining something to Max Ritter with broad gestures.
As he walked toward the group, Gilmore automatically glanced toward the carrot tables. He was startled to see that Frankie Froley was at her accustomed place in white cap and blue blouse, bending over the heap of red-gold vegetables, her eyes lowered as though to avoid Gilmore’s searching gaze.
Gilmore slowed his step, hesitated, pondered the advisability of going over to the carrot table to upbraid Frankie for standing him up the night before. Frankie continued to avoid his eyes. A knife flashed as her nimble fingers moved expertly through their routine.
Gilmore thought he heard his name called above the hiss of steam and the chumming of machinery. He turned his head to see Remington shaking a mocking finger at him. Unsmiling, he continued his way to join the group near the blending kettles.
“Run into any trouble with Froley after you left me last night?” Remington asked.
Gilmore shook his head.
“Lucky,” said Remington. “I don’t know what the guy’s up to. He didn’t come to work yesterday or today, and the lieutenant here says he didn’t come home last night.”
“I guess Gilmore knows all about that,” Max Ritter said. “He does his own snooping.”
“You don’t mind sitting in with us on this session, do you, Gilmore?” Dr. Coffee asked. “This has been your party from the beginning, so to speak, so I thought—”
“What about the chain of command?” Gilmore spoke directly to Remington. “Why isn’t my immediate superior here? The Army rations have been Miss Wall’s concern right along.”
If Remington noted anv bitterness in Gilmore’s words, he ignored it. “Barbara phoned she’ll be late this morning,” he said. “She’s not feeling very well.”
“Look, Chef,” Dr. Coffee was dipping his hand into an open barrel of monosodium glutamate, letting the fine, snow-white crystals run through his fingers. “How much of this stuff goes into a batch of rations?”
Pierre Lenormand shook his head. He was toying with the long yellow tail of his briquet, nervously snapping the ratchet wheel, snuffing out the glow that appeared at the end of the tinder-rope; smoking was prohibited on the floor of Barzac kitchens, “I am sorry, Doctor,” he said, “but I have still not received special dispensation from our beloved chief, Mr. Evans, to reveal to you our secret recipes. Do you have such authority, Mr. Remington?”
“I’m afraid not,” the production manager said. “However—”
“Let’s skip the double talk,” said Dr. Coffee. “I’ve been watching your assistant weigh twenty-odd pounds of monosodium glutamate into that kettle. Is it true that each kettle makes seven hundred cans of rations?”
“Approxatively,” said the Frenchman.
Dr. Coffee was jotting down figures in a notebook. “Part of this puzzle,” he said, “is a matter of simple mathematics. I ought to have the answer very soon, now. Would you folks like to join me for lunch at Raoul’s about twelve-thirty?”
“At Raoul’s,” said Pierre Lenormand eagerly, “it would be a double pleasure.”
“I’m afraid I have an executive luncheon today,” Remington said. “The big chief has things on his mind. Perhaps I could join you later.”
“I don’t have to ask Max. He’d walk a mile for a rabbit in white wine. What about you, Gilmore?”
“Gladly.”
“Good. Now, Chef, about the eggs.” Dr. Coffee’s pencil was poised about his notebook. “I understand you put dehydrated eggs into your beef mixture. How much goes into each batch?”
Again the chef shook his head. He wound the yellow tinderrope of his lighter around a stubby forefinger, then unwound it. “I am sorry,” he said, “but the secret proportions of our recipes I cannot reveal. However, if you watch—”
“I’ve been watching,” Dr. Coffee said. “I’ve had my eye on that barrel of dried eggs ever since we came in. But nobody’s touched it.”
“Nobody—? Nom d’un nom!” Lenormand seized the arm of a passing assistant, whirled him around so abruptly that centrifugal force flattened his tall white bonnet, and pushed him toward the barrel. “Petit paresseux!” he shouted. “Veux tu m’ouvrir ce tonneau d oeufs en poudre? Et plus vite que ça!”
The assistant silently readjusted his white bonnet. He took a hammer from the platform and applied the claw to the cleat across the barrel head, muttering to himself. The barrel head creaked, came away easily and fell to the floor. Then the hammer dropped.
The assistant chef stared into the barrel and the color drained from his face like wine from an overturned flask. His shoulders sagged. His lips moved spasmodically. Then he sat down abruptly on the edge of the platform and uttered a small, dry, croaking sound.
Lenormand, Ritter, and Dr. Coffee reached the barrel simultaneously, with Remington and Gilmore one step behind. Gilmore’s elbows overcame the one-step handicap. He was cold all over, his scalp tingled, and he could feel the icy perspiration oozing into beads of dread on his forehead.
There were no powdered eggs in the barrel. Instead, there was the body of a man, his knees under his chin, doubled up like a foetus. Gilmore gazed in horror at the purple, tumid face and the glazed, bulging eyes. The grotesque mask had no link with reality. It was all sheer macabre fantasy, particularly the greenish cloud that seemed to float above the dark lips like a sprig of parsley in the mouth of a roast suckling pig.
Gilmore fought hard to keep down the surge of nausea that rose in him when he finally recognized the face of the dead man as that of Christopher Froley.
XX
The brusque intrusion of death did not halt the Gargantuan cookery in progress on Barzac’s third floor. Except for the group about the barrel and the badly shaken assistant chef sitting on the blending platform, nobody was aware that anything was amiss. Across the vast kitchens men were pitchforking chickens by the dozen into great simmering broth kettles. The blue-and-white acre of girls still peeled and sorted and sliced choice vegetables. Cooks’ helpers trundled up more spices by the hundredweight for a nation’s palate. Steam still shrieked from opened retorts, savory soups still poured down into the moving ranks of inviting cans. Machines thumped and whirred and clanked.
Max Ritter, suddenly very much the policeman, replaced the barrel head and said to Remington: “Get your Captain Kavlik up here with a few of his guards to keep off the gawkers.”
When Remington went for a phone, Ritter continued: “This has to be a Coroner’s case, Doc, but I wish you’d look the stiff over before the old man gets here and starts messing up evidence. We got a right to move the body a little, because it’s already been moved from Lord knows where. Can’t we get a little semi-privacy around here, Gilmore?”
Gilmore indicated the tall stainless-steel screen that stood out from the opposite wall to shield the cannery girls from chill blasts when the huge refrigerator doors were opened. “You won’t be bothered back there,” he said.
He helped Ritter lift the barrel to the low three-wheeled hand truck that Papa Lenormand had commandeered. Chris Froley was much heavier than he would have thought.
By the time they had rolled the truck behind the steel wind screen, Remington was back with two uniformed guards.
Ritter took the top off the barrel again and peered inside. “This party don’t look like that photo of Bayliss,” he said.
“It’s Chris Froley,” Gilmore said. He saw Remington watching him curiously across the barrel.
“No wonder he didn’t come home last night,” Ritter said. “Or did he? How long has he been in there, Doc?”
Dr. Coffee had been bending over the barrel, exploring its macabre contents with long, capable fingers. “The man’s been dead at least eight to ten hours,” he said. “Maybe longer. In this weather it takes longer than usual for rigor mortis to be complete, and it is now. To be doubled up like that, he was either killed inside the barrel or dumped in within a few hours of his death.”
“What killed him, Doc?”
“You know me better than that, Max, to expect a diagnosis before an autopsy. If you want a guess, I’d say asphyxia in some form. Of course the cyanosis of the face could be produced by some poisons, too, like—Hello, what’s this?”
The pathologist had grasped the little tuft of greenery poised between Chris Froley’s lips and tugged gently. As he slowly withdrew his hand, a long, slender carrot emerged from the dead man’s throat.
Gilmore clamped his jaws shut and swallowed.
“I’ll be damned! A carrot!” Ritter exclaimed redundantly. “Hey, now, maybe we’re getting places. Don’t this guy’s wife have something to do with carrots in this shop?”
Remington looked at Gilmore as he replied: “Frances Froley is the fastest, most skillful peeler of carrots that ever worked for Barzac. But that carrot in the doctor’s hand is proof positive, as far as I’m concerned, that Mrs. Froley had nothing whatever to do with her husband’s death.”
A puzzled frown united Ritter’s eyebrows. “I don’t get it,” he said.
“That carrot is a red herring, if a carrot can be called a herring,” Remington insisted.
“It’s quite likely,” Dr. Coffee said, “that Froley was choked to death with the carrot.”
“I won’t argue with you there,” Remington continued. “But whoever killed Froley expected the carrot to throw suspicion on his wife. Actually, it clears her of suspicion. Because this particular carrot establishes pretty definitely that Froley was killed by someone who doesn’t work for Barzac. Or at least by someone who hasn’t worked here long enough to be familiar with our operations.”
It was Dr. Coffee’s turn to frown. “It’s an interesting theory,” he said, “but I’m like Max. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
“You explain it, Gilmore,” Remington said. “I’m sure you’ve done it before to every delegation of visitors you’ve taken through the plant.”
So Gilmore explained. He pointed out that the carrot found in Froley’s throat was of the long Danvers variety, the kind usually bought by housewives. The Danvers carrot was not used by Barzac for making soups for two reasons: First, it tapered to a long, narrow, pointed tail which would completely confuse the mechanical dicers into turning out cubes of varied shape and size. Second, it had a yellow core, which would cause the dicer to turn out vari-colored cubes. Therefore Barzac used exclusively a French variety of carrot called the Chantenay. The Chantenay tapered only slightly and had a blunt tip with which the mechanical dicer could cope with ease. Moreover, it had no yellow core and was of a uniform reddish orange color throughout. So it produced cubes of uniform size and color.
“I think it’s reasonably certain, Doctor,” Gilmore concluded, “that the carrot you’re holding there is the first and only Danvers that’s been inside this plant in years.”
“I get it,” Ritter said. “It could be a frame by some guy who don’t know about carrots—some guy, maybe, who’s been working around here just a few days and only knows about tomatoes.”
Gilmore nodded, thinking of Bayliss.
Remington said, “Exactly.”
At that moment Calvin Quirk poked his head around the end of the screen and said: “Oh, there you are, Gilmore. Mr. Evans has come in. He wants to see you at once.”
“Does he know about—about this?” Gilmore nodded at the barrel.
