no apparent reason

Too Many Cooks: Chapter 2

More of the same.

II. Some More Characters

The grief of Lady Stout and Artemis was profound; but after all, Sir Stout had not been around long enough to matter much, and the plot must be moved along. In fact, Lady Stout’s tears were as much for her daughter as for her husband. Artemis’s transformation from the proverbial gangly, awkward schoolgirl of eighteen to a mature, eligible young woman of eighteen and a half was now just a distant memory. With her twenty-second birthday a mere eleven months off, young girls were already beginning to brand Artemis as “past it” and an “old maid.” Sir Stout’s death meant no more parties of any significant size for some time, and Lady Stout felt that in their place and time, the matrimonial game was a game of numbers: the more tea cups a young woman filled, the sooner she would be married.

Artemis was as sorry as her self-absorbed worldview could allow her to be, but after all, Sir Stout was only her stepfather; and she really barely knew him, having spent nearly every livelong day since she got out of school at the houses of friends with unmarried brothers. Her own father had died long ago; her mother had told her that and little else, since Lady Stout was one who preferred to leave the past in the past. Troubled but scarcely grief-stricken, Artemis wandered through the house, finally landing up in the entry hall, where she gazed at portraits of bygone Stouts.

The doorbell rang. Though the details of etiquette bored her, Artemis knew that the daughter of the house could hardly be permitted to answer her own front door; so she dodged behind a piece of statuary and awaited the advent of the butler.

That correct personage arrived, eventually, and opened the door. From the time it took for the visitor to appear in the hall, Artemis guessed that he had already given up and gone a good way back down the front walk towards his car.

The butler uttered something unintelligible but very refined.

“Detective-Inspector Alec Noble,” said the visitor, his voice and gestures permeated with an intangible air of command. The butler mumbled something else and then strolled off like a man thoroughly pleased with his lot in life. Artemis allowed an interval to pass; and while the detective’s back was turned she slipped out from behind the statuary and delicately cleared her throat.

The detective wheeled around and gazed at her. “I am Detective-Inspector Noble,” he said, the aforementioned air of command now tinged with respect and admiration. The vision of English womanhood which had so suddenly risen upon his horizon greeted him with the appropriate combination of handshakes, curtseys, nods, and airs of one kind and another that was sanctioned by the etiquette of the day. Lady Stout then arrived and followed suit; and the three proceeded to some manner of library or study or drawing room or suchlike, where Lady Stout bade the Detective-Inspector sit.

“Lady Stout—and Miss Penhallow-Pengallon,” began the Detective-Inspector (for that was Artemis’s last name), “may I begin my investigation by inquiring of you regarding the composition of your household?”

“Oh, it is mostly Victorian, I am afraid; but one wing is Elizabethan. And it is mostly of stone, I should say,” responded Lady Stout.

“Besides my mother and I,” said Artemis with forbearance, “my stepfather had invited several friends for the weekend. There is the Major, an old friend of my stepfather’s from their days at public school. Then there is Winfield St. George-Fotheringale, a young man who was invited for…ah…other reasons.” Her mother smiled and patted her on the hand. “My cousin Smythe Peltingham-Smythe has been staying with us for some time, but we don’t see much of her. She’s, um, artistic. And there is Mr. and Mrs. Vanderhoeven, they are Americans, but they are distantly related to my stepfather’s family.”

“What about the servants?” asked the Detective-Inspector.

“The servants? I’m afraid I barely notice them. But we have quite a modest household. I do all my own pouring,” said Lady Stout modestly.

“I’m sorry, I wanted to know how long they have been with the family, that sort of thing.”

Artemis shrugged. “I really don’t know. Perhaps you should ask the butler. I’ll ring for him.”

Setting his teacup down in a masterful manner, the Detective-Inspector responded, “Thank you, miss. I’ll speak to the butler about the servants, meanwhile would you and Lady Stout inform your guests that I’d like to speak with each of them in turn?”

Artemis nodded, and catching the Detective-Inspector’s eye, blushed inconsequentially. She and her mother bustled out, and in a few minutes the immaculate butler arrived. The Detective-Inspector had never in his life given a single thought to the personal appearance of a butler; but in fact this butler was utterly conventional: scrupulously correct black and white clothing, impassive face, and hair so utterly nondescript that no member of the household could even have told the Detective-Inspector what color it was. He entered the room, and stood upright and motionless next to the door.

“Oh, hello. I need to ask you some questions about the composition of the late Sir Stout’s household. May I have your name?”

The butler said something that sounded like, “Mawtaw, saw.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Looking as though it gave him pain to enunciate in a less refined manner, the butler said, “Porter, sir.”

“Thank you, Porter. May I have your first name? I must have it for the record.”

“Very good, sir.” There was a pause.

“Would you tell me what it is?”

“Of course, sir. It is John, sir.”

“Thank you. Now, would you tell me about the servants? Their names and how long they have been with the family?”

“Certainly, sir. They have all been with the family for, ah, some time. There is Joan, the kitchen maid; Jane, the cook, and Molly, the scullery maid. Then of course there is Susan, the parlourmaid, Mary, the upstairs maid, Jean, the downstairs maid, and Ellen, the in-between maid. Hannah and Lucy are Lady Stout and Miss Penhallow-Pengallon’s ladies-maids. Then there are the women from the village who come in to wait on table at parties; and outside there is the gardener and his boys, the footmen, the valet, and the…”

“Porter, could you sum all this up for me?”

The butler coughed in an unbelievably genteel fashion. “For the sake of brevity, sir, I should focus upon Joan and Mary.”

“And why is that, Porter?”

“I once had to reprimand Joan for smiling while waiting on table; and Mary’s real name is…ah…” Porter lowered his voice so that it was once again nearly inaudible, “Violet.”

The Detective-Inspector nodded. “I see. Very well, send them in please. Joan first, I think.”

Joan and Mary were unhelpful, however. It seemed to the Detective-Inspector that though they may well have known all there was to know about the Stout family and their guests, they would tell him nothing. Though they consistently dropped their h’s and made every appearance of being apprehensive about being involved with the police, neither of them paused and said anything like, “But there was the business of the vicar’s son’s parsnip collection. I didn’t like that, sir, I wouldn’t stand for it and I told them so,” even upon leaving the room. After interviewing them, the Detective-Inspector requested that Mr. Vanderhoeven be sent in.

A few minutes later both Mr. and Mrs. Vanderhoeven appeared. “I’m sorry, I’d prefer to talk to Mr. Vanderhoeven alone first, if you don’t mind,” said the Detective-Inspector.

“That’s just what that butler fellow said,” said Mrs. Vanderhoeven, “but I just says to him, I says, I’m not letting poor Julius go in there alone. Why, I guess he’d just say something that would make us both look bad. I made up my mind I’d come in with him, Mr. Detective-Inspector, so you can just go right ahead with your questions.”

“I always tell Sadie she gets too het up about things,” said Julius Vanderhoeven, smiling indulgently at his wife, “but I guess she looks out for me. Behind every great man, you know, and I guess I’d of never of made my pile if it wasn’t for her.”

The Detective-Inspector blinked a few times, then said, “Very well, Mr. and Mrs. Vanderhoeven. Please have a seat.”

The two sat. “Now, Mr. Vanderhoeven, how did you know Sir Stout?”

“Why, it was Sadie here that was friends with Jim. They had quite a romance, that was before she and I ever met, of course.”

Sadie blushed. “Now, Julius. Yes, Sir Stout…that was before he was Sir Stout, I mean, had come to America to seek his fortune. That was after his days at public school, of course. It was so romantic, a young British man like that, right out of my social circle of course but so refined. I was just swept off my feet. But then when I met Julius I just knew I couldn’t marry Jim. He was broken up about it but was he was always so gentlemanlike. He never married for years until he met Lady Stout…a widow as was then, Mrs. Penhallow-Pengallon. But we’ve been good friends ever since then, all three of us, no hard feelings.”

“I see. And what was the reason for your visit this weekend?”

Julius answered, “Well, Sadie and I were just about ready for a vacation, and then Sir Stout invited us. We’ve visited back and forth for years, of course, but it seemed Sir Stout especially wanted us this weekend. Said he had some news for us and wanted to let us know in person.”

“Did he tell you what the news was?”

“No, he didn’t, and since I see you were going to ask, I don’t have any idea what it might have been. As far as I know Stout didn’t have anything unusual going, he was reaching a kind of settled stage of life just like us. I guess we’ll never know now.”

The Detective-Inspector nodded. Things were beginning to fall into place. Where there once had been only amorphous Unknowing, now dim outlines were to be seen, a pattern was emerging, the pieces were beginning to fall into place, like the pieces of a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, which when you first opened the box didn’t even appear to belong to the same puzzle, but which when you got the border done and a few of the smaller elements of the overall picture you began to think that you might be able to get the thing done eventually after all. But the question remained; were some of the pieces irretrievably lost, accidentally thrown out or eaten by a household pet? The Detective-Inspector didn’t know, but he intended to find out.

“Well, I think that is all I need to ask right now. Would you let Miss Peltingham-Smythe know that I would like to talk to her next?”

Posted by michele at October 10, 2003 10:22 AM