Recipe for Homicide, page 17
“He knows. Remington reported,” said Quirk ominously. “And Mr. Evans still wants to see you.”
Mr. Evans was brief and, for a man of his usual circuitous mental processes, to the point. The bald little boss of Barzac sat behind his bare desk, giving off a faint but unmistakable odor of antiseptics. He said: “Sit down, Gilmore. Of course you know why I sent for you.”
“You’ve been reading this morning’s Tribune,” Gilmore said.
Mr. Evans nodded. “I’ve also been listening to the radio. Barzac shares opened four points lower in Wall Street this morning and dropped another two and one-half in the? first thirty minutes of trading. Now that Froley has turned up dead here at the plant, there’s bound to be another sharp break.”
“Today is Saturday, Mr. Evans. The New York Exchange will be closing in a few minutes. I’m sure we can hold up the new’s about Froley until after the Chicago closing.”
“We’ll have a breather over the weekend and we should no doubt be thankful for small favors.” Mr. Evans sighed. “But I shudder to think of Monday. I’ll certainly be hearing from our big stockholders over the weekend, and they’ll probably be unloading Monday, unless—”
“Unless you can report that you’ve accepted my resignation?”
Mr. Evans did not answer at once. He drew a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and thoughtfully patted his tiny gray mustache. “Is the Tribune story true?” he asked.
“Essentially, yes.”
The swivel chair squealed as Mr. Evans pivoted to stare out the window. Without looking at Gilmore he said: “I want to be fair. I don’t believe a man is necessarily a Russian agent just because he likes caviar, or reads Tolstoy, or enjoys listening to Prokofiev, or even because he was once married to a refugee from the Franco revolution. However—”
“I’ll repeat now what I said yesterday,” Gilmore interrupted. “I’m not going to resign, because resignation would be a tacit admission of guilt of some kind. I’m not guilty of a damned thing, except of trying to prevent a few thousand American soldiers from being poisoned, and, incidentally, the subsequent embarrassment to Barzac. If you consider that reprehensible, go ahead and fire me.”
“Now, now, Gilmore. Please keep your shirt on. I have no intention of dismissing you. At least not without a thorough investigation in which you would have ample opportunity to state your own case. But during the next few days I’m going to be subjected to pressures, Gilmore. The press is going to ask questions. The Army and the F.B.I. have already started to ask questions. When did you plan to take your vacation, Gilmore?”
“Next month.”
“Then advance the date. Consider yourself on vacation as of this moment.”
“And what happens after two weeks?”
“We can take further counsel at the end of the fortnight.” Mr. Evans still stared out the window as he talked. “Meanwhile, it would be advisable if you left town for a while. In any case, I should hope not to see you around the plant.”
“I see.” Gilmore lit a cigarette and blew out the match with an unnecessarily violent gust of smoke. “So when reporters ask more questions, they will be referred to Miss Wall. And Barbara will be able to say that Gilmore is no longer working here.”
“I don’t know how Miss Wall intends to handle the press. Whether or not she will find it necessary to disclose that you are still on our payroll—”
“I’m sure that Barbara’s relations with the press will continue to be excellent.” Gilmore got up and started for the door. “Good-bye, Mr. Evans. I’ll see you in two weeks.”
“Just a moment, Gilmore.” The swivel chair whined. Gilmore turned. For the first time in five minutes, Mr. Evans looked him in the eyes. “Do you know about that letter I wrote to the F.B.I. about Froley?”
“I heard about it,” Gilmore said.
“Then you know that it must have disappeared while I was ill and Quirk was sitting at my desk.”
“I know that Mr. Quirk swears he didn’t see the letter.”
“Nevertheless, you do recall the date on which I was first confined to my home?”
“Not off-hand,” Gilmore said. “There may be some notes on my calendar pad which would refresh my memory. I’ll look them up as soon as I get back from my vacation, two weeks from next Monday. Good-bye, Mr. Evans.”
XXI
Dr. Coffee had left the Barzac plant as soon as the police crews began arriving. He did not wait for the Coroner, who was certain to be late, and who would add nothing to the solution of the case anyhow. The vastness of the Coroner’s ignorance of forensic medicine was equaled only by the extent of his political connections. Max Ritter, the pathologist knew, could be depended upon to talk the Coroner into letting him, Dan Coffee, perform the Froley autopsy. So the doctor returned to his laboratory at Pasteur Hospital for an hour of routine before lunch.
He was the first to arrive at Raoul’s, a pocket-size restaurant, one flight up, just a stone’s throw from the Barzac plant. He was always glad of an excuse to lunch at Raoul’s, because the red-faced Norman proprietor-chef lavished his skill on such inelegant delicacies as tripe, calves’-brain fritters, skewered kidneys, and rabbit–all of which were great favorites of Dan Coffee’s, perhaps because he never got them at home. He was particularly pleased to come to Raoul’s on Saturday, because Saturday was the day for rabbit fricasseed in white wine.
For twenty years Julia Coffee had stubbornly refused to cook rabbit for her pathologist husband because, she maintained, it looked too much like skinned cat. Even without prejudice, it is doubtful if she could have mustered the loving care that Raoul put into the preparation of the dish. He would brown the pieces of young rabbit in butter, and when the meat was richly golden, he would pour on a small glass of brandy and light it. After the blue flames had flickered out, he would dust in a little flour and seasoning, then add half a bottle of good white wine, a cup of chicken broth, a sprig of thyme, a bay leaf or two, a bouquet of parsley and a handful of pitted green olives, a dozen tiny white onions, a clove of garlic, some diced gammon, and, after the rabbit had been cooking for half an hour, a few mushrooms. The resulting symphony of lovely smells played chords and arpeggios on Dr. Coffee’s appetite as he walked up the narrow stairs.
Both small dining rooms were crowded, but Raoul reshuffled two tables of young chefs from Barzac to make room for Dr. Coffee and the guests he said he was expecting. The pathologist made a mental note to ask Papa Lenormand why his assistant cooks flocked to Raoul’s at lunchtime instead of eating in one of the many Barzac cafeterias.
Dr. Coffee had just begun to strew the red-and-white checkered tablecloth with shattered fragments of brittle French-bread crust when Max Ritter arrived, closely followed by Gilmore.
“Let me waste no time in telling you gents that I’m here under false pretenses,” Gilmore said. “Just say the word, and I’ll go quietly, and no hard feelings. Because I’m not going to be much use to either of you from here on in. I’ve been warned off the turf at Barzac for the next two weeks. So I’m out of the picture.”
“The hell you are,” Ritter said. “I’ve just started asking you questions. So tuck a napkin under your chin and order. What are we eating, Doc? Rabbit? You’ll want rabbit, Gilmore. It’s really the nuts, the way Raoul fixes it. And if you were still on a press agent’s expense account, I’d let you buy us a small bottle of white wine. What was that California wine we drank last time we had rabbit here, Doc?”
“Folle Blanche,” said Dr. Coffee.
“Folle Blanche, Raoul,” Gilmore ordered. “And it’s on me—to celebrate my vacation. Anything new on Froley?”
Ritter made eyebrows at Dr. Coffee.
The pathologist said: “The Coroner has magnanimously phoned his permission for me to do an autopsy this afternoon, knowing that I’ll let him take the newspaper credit, if any. So I haven’t anything new on that score.”
“Okay, then, Doc,” the detective said. “I got this to report. It ain’t all about Froley, but some of it is. First, I traced the dynamite. That camphor smell we noticed did the trick. Seems like dosing dynamite with camphor makes it less ticklish to bumps, and safer to handle. The Agriculture Department at Barzac has been blasting stumps to clear some new land for experimental farms. They use camphorized dynamite to reduce the danger of accidents. Most of the stuff is stored out of town, but there’s some still in No. 2 Warehouse here in Northbank.
“So I check at No. 2 Warehouse, and I find that ten days ago somebody draws a case of dynamite, a coil of fuse, a box of percussion caps. I see a copy of the requisition, but the signature is nothing but a scrawl. There’s also another item on the same requisition—a barrel of white arsenic.
“I locate the stores clerk that handled the requisition and he says he don’t question the signature, even if he can’t read it, because the printed requisition form is otherwise in order. He also don’t recognize the guy who drew the stores, because he’s been transferred from Warehouse No. 6 just a few weeks ago, and don’t know many of the birds in Agriculture. He remembers, though, that the guy loaded the stuff in a dark blue Chevvy. Froley has—had—a dark blue Chevvy. So from Froley to Bayliss—”
“Have you located Bayliss yet?” Gilmore interrupted.
“None of your damned business,” Ritter said in a tone that admitted defeat.
“It’s very much my business,” Gilmore said. “Didn’t you read the Tribune this morning?”
“You mean about that kooch dancer you used to shack-up with? What’s she got to do with Bayliss?”
“It was through Bayliss that I met the gal, and I have a crazy hunch that he knows where she is. This all may not have any-thing to do with poisoned rations and Peggy’s death, but if the F.B.I.—”
“Don’t worry about the F.B.I. When they get around to you they’ll have more questions than you got answers. So start saving up. It won’t be long now.”
“Hello, Chef,” Dr. Coffee said. “You’re just in time.”
White-haired Pierre Lenormand lumbered over from the stairway and took a chair. “I excuse myself,” he said. “I am late. Did you order me the gibelotte?”
“Rabbit,” said Ritter.
“The same thing,” said Lenormand.
“Pass your glass, Chef,” Ritter said. “Gilmore is buying wine.”
“Folle Blanche? Good. It recalls the Chablis.” Lenormand sipped, sniffed, then drank deeply. “I am late,” he continued, “because the big manitous wished me to sit with them in conference. I left after one hour. I am not made for conferences. I am a cook. I know what I am doing, therefore, I have confidence in my handiwork. These manitous, these have no confidence. They are mad. They are hysterical. They are like a hen who has lost her chicks. And why? Because some stockbrokers in New York are selling Barzac Soup Company shares at bargain prices? Ah, Raoul! Te voilà enfin avec ta gibelotte. Elle est bonne aujourd’hui, au moins?”
“Attention, messieurs,” Raoul interrupted, placing a steaming earthenware casserole on the table. “It is very hot. Shall I serve you, Doctor?”
“Please,” said Dr. Coffee, sniffing at the wisps of aromatic vapor curling around Raoul’s fork and spoon poised above the casserole.
“Would you like a thigh?” asked the restaurant proprietor. “Or perhaps Maître Lenormand would prefer the thigh?”
“Dr. Coffee and I,” said Lenormand, “are of an age when we no longer fight over a thigh.”
“Just give me some of the meat,” Max Ritter said. “More wine, Chef?”
“Gladly,” said Lenormand, passing his glass. “You know what I told the manitous at the meeting? I said, ‘You are crazy, all of you. But crazy. What do you care what happens in Wall Street? It is not disaster. It is perhaps even good luck for someone. If I had the money, it would be good luck for me. Maybe it should be good luck for me anyhow. Maybe I should take the little nest egg, maybe I should take the money under the mattress, the money I am keeping to retire to the little farm at Tourette-sur-Loup, and instead buy myself a piece of Barzac Soup Company at half price. What if we lose the Army contract? So what? All right, we lose a few thousand dollars. So what? We still make the best soup in the country. If we charged one dollar a can, we could not make better cream of tomato soup than we are making now. I could not make better cream of tomato soup in my own kitchen. We use ninety-two-score fresh butter, the finest heavy cream, the best ripe tomatoes that can be grown.’ Tomatoes that your wife will buy in her neighborhood market, Doctor, are tomatoes the Government graders will not even allow to reach our plant. For a few pennies any woman in the country can get not only the finest ingredients but the most skilled cooks in the—But I am keeping you gentlemen from eating.”
“Not me, you’re not,” said Max Ritter, pushing his rabbit bones to the side of his plate and breaking off another four inches of French bread to attack the savory wine sauce.
Papa Lenormand chewed vigorously on a mouthful of rabbit before he resumed.
‘“I do not usually boast,’ I told these manitous,” he said. “‘But do you know who taught me to make soup? Alexandre Gastaud. Perhaps you never heard of Alexandre Gastaud. But you have heard of the great Escoffier. And you have heard the name of Ritz. When D’Oyly-Carte stole a young Swiss named Ritz from the Grand Hotel at Monte Carlo to manage the Savoy in London, Ritz insisted on taking his chef, Escoffier, and Escoffier insisted on taking his assistant, Alexandre Gastaud. When Ritz and Escoffier became famous, when Escoffier took off his white bonnet and put on his tuxedo to mingle with the diners, when Escoffier began writing cookbooks, Gastaud was still in the kitchen, teaching the new generation of sauce cooks and fry cooks and maître-queues. For years, Gastaud was Escoffier. Gastaud was one of the world’s great chefs. And I, Lenormand, was his star pupil. Now, today, any wife in America for ten cents, or fifteen cents, can have Pierre Lenormand make soup for her husband, thanks to Barzac and the American canning industry. And you men are in a panic over the future of Barzac? Ridiculous! You are raving maniacs!’ I told the manitous. ‘Me, I am going to get myself a good lunch. It makes more logic.’ And I left them. Raoul, more potatoes. These gentlemen are starving.”
Lenormand helped himself to more rabbit and devoted himself further to the business of making logic.
“Apparently, Chef,” Gilmore said, “you don’t regard two murders at Barzac kitchens within a week as very important.”
“Important, yes.” Lenormand gestured with his fork. “And deeply regrettable. But important for the police. Instead of acting like hysterical old women, the big manitous should leave the matter completely in the proper hands, like yours, Doctor, and yours, Lieutenant. By the way, are you making progress?”
“Some,” Dr. Coffee said. “At least we’ve found answers to two questions that were puzzling me in regard to the poisoned rations which killed Peggy Bayliss.”
The problems, the pathologist went on to explain, were these: How could the rations have been poisoned in spite of the thorough and efficient system of checks and inspection prevailing at the Barzac plant? Why did only nine batches of the rations contain arsenic?
“The most obvious answer to the first question,” Dr. Coffee said, “was that the arsenic had been substituted for some other ingredient normally used in the cooking of the rations. In fact, the monosodium glutamate you folks use to season the rations is a small white crystal closely resembling, to the naked eye, the crystals of arsenious oxide, which is white arsenic. I thought the substitution might have been accidental until today, when Max discovered that a barrel of white arsenic had been taken from No. 2 Warehouse, ostensibly for the Agriculture Department, by a man who may have been Christopher Froley. And Froley’s record, his actions during the past few days, and finally his death, of course dispel any idea of accident.
“After watching your preparations this morning, Chef, and checking with my own figures, I’m convinced that the arsenic was put into the rations by your own cooks who thought they were using monosodium glutamate. I saw your men putting twenty-two pounds of the glutamate into an eighty-gallon kettle. It comes in two-hundred-pound barrels, I noted. So one barrel would serve to season nine batches of rations. Samples from exactly nine batches showed traces of arsenic. Therefore we can assume that only one barrel of arsenic was involved—the one we have traced.”
“Nine batches,” Gilmore interrupted, “make about sixty-five hundred cans. How much arsenic would that put into each can?”
“About half an ounce in each can,” the pathologist said. “Half an ounce is more than two hundred grains—which is about sixty times the lethal dose, if absorbed.”
“Good Lord!” Gilmore said. “And I took a bite of that stuff, too, to please Peggy.”
“It must have been a very small bite,” Dr. Coffee said, “or your system wasn’t absorbing very well that morning. Because you’ve been in pretty good health since—except for that eye.”
Lenormand half-masted the huge checkered napkin around his neck as a signal for Raoul to bring coffee.
“You have not yet explained how your arsenic got from No. 2 Warehouse to the glutamate barrel on the third floor of the Main Building,” the chef said.
“A cinch, Chef,” Ritter declared. “The same way that Froley’s body got to the third floor in a dried-egg barrel. It took me ten minutes to unwind that one. Don’t tell me you haven’t figured it, Chef.”
“I would like to hear your theory,” Lenormand noisily stirred his coffee. “I will tell you if it is feasible.”
“Simple,” Ritter said. “Practically childish. The switch takes place on the loading platform at the back of the Main Building, outside, near the freight elevators. When the second shift knocks off at eleven, and the maintenance and cleaning crews come on, the clean-up guys bring down the empty barrels and crates and stuff and stack ’em at one end of this platform. During the hour before the day shift comes on at six-thirty, the trucks come in to unload new supplies for the day’s cooking. The new stuff goes on the other end of the platform, all tagged with different colored tickets to show what floor it goes to and for what kind of soup operation. Between two a.m. and five a.m. there’s usually nobody around the platform at all, except the watchman who punches his time clock there every hour. So about ten days ago, some guy drives up between the watchman’s rounds and dumps two hundred pounds of white arsenic into an empty glutamate barrel, puts the top back on, rolls it to the other end of the platform, and slaps a purple tag on it, meaning ‘Third Floor, blending kettles.’ And that does it.
