“Thanks.-Anything else, madam?”
She sat and looked at him. Her lids were so low that I couldn’t see what her eyes were like, and I doubted if he could. Then without saying anything she pulled a hot one. She got up, taking her time, leaving her cloak there on the back of the chair, and stepped over to Wolfe and put her hand on his shoulder and patted it. He moved and twisted his big neck to look up at her, but she stepped away again with a smile at the corners of her mouth, and reached for the cloak. I hopped across to hold it for her, thinking I might as well get a pat too, but apparently she didn’t believe in spoiling the help. She told Wolfe good-night, neither sweet nor sour, just good-night, and started off. I went to the foyer to let her out.
I returned and grinned down at Wolfe. “Well, how do you feel? Was she marking you for slaughter? Or putting a curse on you? Or is that how she starts the miasma going?” I peered at the shoulder she had patted. “About this Zelota business, I was going to tell you when she interrupted us. You noticed that Malfi said she told him to tell you about it. It seems that Malfi and Liggett were with her during the afternoon to offer consolation.”
Wolfe nodded. “But, as you see, she is inconsolable. Bring those men in.”
10
IT LOOKED HOPELESS TO ME. I would have made it at least ten to one that Wolfe’s unlimited conceit was going to cost us most of a night’s sleep with nothing to chalk up against it. It struck me as plain silly, and I might have gone so far as to say that his tackling that array of Africans in a body showed a dangerous maladjustment to the natural and healthy environment of a detective. Picture it: Lio Coyne had caught a glimpse of a greenjacket she couldn’t recognize standing by the end of the screen with his finger on his lips, and another servant’s face-chiefly his eyes, and she couldn’t recognize him either-peeking through a crack in the door that led to the pantry hall and on to the kitchen. That was our crop of facts. And the servants had already told the sheriff that they had seen and heard nothing. Fat chance. There might have been a slim one if they had been taken singly, but in a bunch like that, not for my money.
The chair problem was solved by letting them sit on the floor. Fourteen altogether. Wolfe, using his man-to-man tone, apologized for that. Then he wanted to know their names, and made sure that he got everyone; that used up ten minutes. I was curious to see how he would start the ball rolling, but there were other preliminaries to attend to; he asked what they would like to drink. They mumbled that they didn’t want anything, but he said nonsense, we would probably be there most of the night, which seemed to startle them and caused some murmuring. It ended by my being sent to the phone to order an assortment of beer, bourbon, ginger ale, charged water, glasses, lemons, mint and ice. An expenditure like that meant that Wolfe was in dead earnest. When I rejoined the gathering he was telling a plump little runt, not a greenjacket, with a ravine in his chin:
“I’m glad of this opportunity to express my admiration, Mr. Crabtree. Mr. Servan tells me that the shad roe mousse was handled entirely by you. Any chef would have been proud of it. I noticed that Mr. Mondor asked for more. In Europe they don’t have shad roe.”
The runt nodded solemnly, with reserve. They were all using plenty of reserve, not to mention constraint, suspicion and reticence. Most of them weren’t looking at Wolfe or at much of anything else. He sat facing them, running his eyes over them. Finally he sighed and began:
“You know, gentlemen, I have had very little experience in dealing with black men. That may strike you as a tactless remark, but it really isn’t. It is certainly true that you can’t deal with all men alike. It is popularly supposed that in this part of the country whites adopt a well-defined attitude in dealing with the blacks, and blacks do the same in dealing with whites. That is no doubt true up to a point, but it is subject to enormous variation, as your own experience will show you. For instance, say you wish to ask a favor here at Kanawha Spa, and you approach either Mr. Ashley, the manager, or Mr. Servan. Ashley is bourgeois, irritable, conventional, and rather pompous, Servan is gentle, generous, sentimental, and an artist-and also Latin. Your approach to Mr. Ashley would be quite different from your approach to Mr. Servan.
“But even more fundamental than the individual differences are the racial and national and tribal differences. That’s what I mean when I say I’ve had limited experience in dealing with black men. I mean black Americans. Many years ago I handled some affairs with dark-skinned people in Egypt and Arabia and Algiers, but of course that has nothing to do with you. You gentlemen are Americans, must more completely Americans than I am, for I wasn’t born here. This is your native country. It was you and your brothers, black and white, who let me come here to live, and I hope you’ll let me say, without getting maudlin, that I’m grateful to you for it.”
Somebody mumbled something. Wolfe disregarded it and went on: “I asked Mr. Servan to have you come over here tonight because I want to ask you some questions and find out something. That’s the only thing I’m interested in: the information I want to get. I’ll be frank with you; if I thought I could get it by bullying you and threatening you, I wouldn’t hesitate a moment. I wouldn’t use physical violence even if I could, because one of my romantic ideas is that physical violence is beneath the dignity of a man, and that whatever you get by physical aggression costs more than it is worth. But I confess that if I thought threats or tricks would serve my purpose with you, I wouldn’t hesitate to use them. I’m convinced they wouldn’t, having meditated on this situation, and that’s why I’m in a hole. I have been told by white Americans that the only way to get anything out of black Americans is by threats, tricks, or violence. In the first place, I doubt if it’s true; and even if it is true generally I’m sure it isn’t in this case. I know of no threats that would be effective, I can’t think up a trick that would work, and I can’t use violence.”
Wolfe put his hands at them palms up. “I need the information. What are we going to do?”
Someone snickered, and others glanced at him-a tall skinny one squatting against the wall, with high cheekbones, dark brown. The runt whom Wolfe had complimented on the shad roe mousse glared around like a sergeant at talking in the ranks. The one that sat stillest was the one with the flattest nose, a young one, big and muscular, a greenjacket that I had noticed at the pavilion because he never opened his mouth to reply to anything. The headwaiter with the chopped-off ear said in a low silky tone:
“You just ask us and we tell you. That’s what Mr. Servan said we was to do.”
Wolfe nodded at him. “I admit that seems the obvious way, Mr. Moulton. And the simplest. But I fear we would find ourselves confronted by difficulties.”
“Yes, sir. What is the nature of the difficulties?”
A gruff voice boomed: “You just ask us and we tell you anything.” Wolfe aimed his eyes at the source of it:
“I hope you will. Would you permit a personal remark? That is a surprising voice to come from a man named Hyacinth Brown. No one would expect it. As for the difficulties-Archie, there’s the refreshment. Perhaps some of you would help Mr. Goodwin?”
That took another ten minutes, or maybe more. Four or five of them came along, under the headwaiter’s direction, and we carried the supplies in and got them arranged on a table against the wall. Wolfe was provided with beer. I had forgot to include milk in the order, so I made out with a bourbon highball. The muscular kid with the flat nose, whose name was Paul Whipple, took plain ginger ale, but all the rest accepted stimulation. Getting the drinks around, and back to their places on the floor, they loosened up a little for a few observations, but fell dead silent when Wolfe put down his empty glass and started off again: