_ It began with Stella Flynn, but it ended with the Hon. Sour Milk and Madam Zenobia. Which is one reason why my job as private sec. to Mr. Robert Ellins is one I wouldn't swap for Tumulty's--unless they came insistin' that I had to go to the White House to save the country. And up to date I ain't had any such call. There's no tellin' though. Mr. Robert's liable to sic 'em onto me any day.
You see, just because I've happened to pull a few winnin' acts where I had the breaks with me he's fond of playin' me up as a wizard performer in almost any line. Course, a good deal of it is just his josh, but somehow it ain't a habit I'm anxious to cure him of. Yet when he bats this domestic crisis up to me--this case of Stella Flynn--I did think it was pushin' the comedy a bit strong.
"No," says I, "I'm no miracle worker."
"Pooh, Torchy!" says Vee. "Who's saying you are? But at least you might try to suggest something. You think you're so clever at so many things, you know."
Trust the folks at home for gettin' in these little jabs.
"Oh, very well," says I. "What are the facts about Stella?"
While the bill of particulars is more or less lengthy all it amounts to is the usual kitchen tragedy. Stella has given notice. After havin' been a good and faithful cook for 'steen years; first for Mrs. Ellins's mother, and then being handed on to Mrs. Ellins herself after she and Mr. Robert hooked up; now Stella announces that she's about to resign the portfolio.
No, it ain't a higher wage scale she's strikin' for. She's been boosted three times durin' the last six months, until she's probably the best paid lady cook on Long Island. And she ain't demandin' an eight-hour day, or recognition as chairman of the downstairs soviet. Stella is a middle-aged, full-chested, kind of old-fashioned female who probably thinks a Bolshevik is a limb of the Old Boy himself and ought to be met with holy water in one hand and a red-hot poker in the other. She's satisfied with her quarters, havin' a room and bath to herself; she's got no active grouch against any of the other help; and being sent to mass every Sunday mornin' in the limousine suits her well enough.
But she's quittin', all the same. Why? Well, maybe Mr. Robert remembers that brother Dan of hers he helped set up as a steam fitter out in Altoona some six or seven years ago? Sure it was a kind act. And Danny has done well. He has fitted steam into some big plants and some elegant houses. And now Danny has a fine home of his own. Yes, with a piano that plays itself, and gilt chairs in the parlor, and a sedan top on the flivver, and beveled glass in the front door. Also he has a stylish wife who has "an evenin' wrap trimmed with vermin and is learnin' to play that auctioneer's bridge game." So why should his sister Stella be cookin' for other folks when she might be livin' swell and independent with them? Ain't there the four nieces and three nephews that hardly knows their aunt by sight? It's Danny's wife herself that wrote the letter urgin' her to come.
"And do all the cooking for that big family, I suppose?" suggests Mrs. Ellins.
"She wasn't after sayin' as much, ma'am," says Stella, "but would I be sittin' in the parlor with my hands folded, and her so stylish? And Danny always did like my cookin'."
"Why should he not?" asks Mrs. Ellins. "But who would go on adding to your savings account? Don't be foolish, Stella."
All of which hadn't gotten 'em anywhere. Stella was bent flittin' to Altoona. Ten days more and she would be gone. And as Mr. Robert finishes a piece of Stella's blue ribbon mince pies and drops a lump of sugar into a cup of Stella's unsurpassed after-dinner coffee he lets out a sigh.
"That means, I presume," says he, "hunting up a suite in some apartment hotel, moving into town, and facing a near-French menu three times a day. All because our domestic affairs are not managed on a business basis."
"I suppose you would find some way of inducing Stella to stay--if you were not too busy?" asks Mrs. Robert sarcastic.
"I would," says he.
"What a pity," says she, "that such diplomatic genius must be confined to mere business. If we could only have the benefit of some of it here; even the help of one of your bright young men assistants. They would know exactly how to go about persuading Stella to stay, I suppose?"
"They would find a way," says Mr. Robert. "They would bring a trained and acute mentality to the problem."
"Humph!" says Mrs. Robert, tossing her head. "We saw that worked out in a play the other night, you remember. Mr. Wise Business Man solves the domestic problem by hiring two private detectives, one to act as cook, the other as butler, and a nice mess he made of it. No, thank you."
"See here, Geraldine," says Mr. Robert. "I'll bet you a hundred Torchy could go on that case and have it all straightened out inside of a week."
"Done!" says Mrs. Robert.
And in spite of my protests, that's the way I was let in. But I might not have started so prompt if it hadn't been for Vee eggin' me on.
"If they do move into town, you know," she suggests, "it will be rather lonesome out here for the rest of the winter. We'll miss going there for an occasional Sunday dinner, too. Besides, Stella ought to be saved from that foolishness. She--she's too good a cook to be wasted on such a place as Altoona."
"I'll say she is," I agrees. "I wish I knew where to begin blockin' her off."
I expect some people would call it just some of my luck that I picks up a clue less'n ten minutes later. Maybe so. But I had to have my ear stretched to get it and even then I might have missed the connection if I'd been doin' a sleep walkin' act. As it is I'm pikin' past the servants' wing out toward the garage to bring around the little car for a start home, and Stella happens to be telephonin' from the butler's pantry with the window part open. And when Stella 'phones she does it like she was callin' home the cows.
About all I caught was "Sure Maggie, dear--Madame Zenobia--two flights up over the agency--Thursday afternoon." But for me and Sherlock that's as good as a two-page description. And when I'd had my rapid-fire deducer workin' for a few minutes I'd doped out my big idea.
"Vee," says I, when we gets back to our own fireside, "what friend has Stella got that she calls Maggie, dear?"
"Why, that must be the Farlows' upstairs maid," says she. "Why, Torchy?"
"Oh, for instance," says I "And didn't you have a snapshot of Stella you took once last summer?"
Vee says she's sure she has one somewhere.
"Dig it out, will you?" says I.
It's a fairly good likeness, too, and I pockets it mysterious. And next day I spends most of my lunch hour prowlin' around on the Sixth Ave. hiring line rubberin' at the signs over the employment agencies. Must have been about the tenth hallway I'd scouted into before I ran across the right one. Sure enough, there's the blue lettered card announcin' that Madame Zenobia can be found in Room 19, third floor, ring bell. I rang.
I don't know when I've seen a more battered old battle-axe face, or a colder, more suspicious pair of lamps than belongs to this old dame with the henna-kissed hair and the gold hoops in her ears.
"Well, young feller," says she, "if you've come pussyfootin' up here from the District Attorney's office you can just sneak back and report nothing doing. Madame Zenobia has gone out of business. Besides, I ain't done any fortune tellin' in a month; only high grade trance work, and mighty little of that. So good day."
"Oh, come, lady," says I, slippin' her the confidential smile, "do I look like I did fourth-rate gumshoein' for a livin'? Honest, now? Besides, the trance stuff is just what I'm lookin' for. And I'm not expectin' any complimentary session, either. Here! There's a ten-spot on account. Now can we do business?"
You bet we could.
"If it's in the realm of Eros, young man," she begins, "I think----"
"But it ain't," says I. "No heart complications at all. This ain't even a matter of a missin' relative, a lost wrist watch, or gettin' advice on buyin' oil stocks. It's a case of a cook with a wilful disposition. Get me? I want her to hear the right kind of dope from the spirit world."
"Ah!" says she, her eyes brightenin'. "I think I follow you, child of the sun. Rather a clever idea, too. Your cook, is she?"
"No such luck," says I. "The boss's, or I wouldn't be so free with the expense money. And listen, Madame; there's another ten in it if the spirits do their job well."
"Grateful words, my son," says she. "But these high-class servants are hard to handle these days. They are no longer content to see the cards laid out and hear their past and future read. Even a simple trance sitting doesn't satisfy. They must hear bells rung, see ghostly hands waved, and some of them demand a materialized control. But they are so few! And my faithful Al Nekkir has left me."
"Eh?" says I, gawpin'.
"One of the best side-kicks I ever worked with, Al Nekkir," says Madame Zenobia, sighin'. "He always slid out from behind the draperies at just the right time, and he had the patter down fine. But how could I keep a real artist like that with a movie firm offering him five times the money? I hear those whiskers of his screen lovely. Ah, such whiskers! Any cook, no matter how high born, would fall for a prophet's beard like that. And where can I find another?"
Well, I couldn't say. Whiskers are scarce in New York. And it seems Madame Zenobia wouldn't feel sure of tacklin' an A1 cook unless she had an assistant with luxurious face lamberquins. She might try to put it over alone, but she couldn't guarantee anything. Yes, she'd keep the snapshot of Stella, and remember what I said about the brother in Altoona. Also it might be that she could find a substitute for Al Nekkir between now and Thursday afternoon. But there wasn't much chance. I had to let it ride at that.
So Monday was crossed off, Tuesday slipped past into eternity with nothing much done, and half of Wednesday had gone the same way. Mr. Robert was gettin' anxious. He reports that Stella has set Saturday as her last day with them and that she's begun packin' her trunk. What was I doing about it?
"If you need more time off," says he, "take it."
"I always need some time off," says I, grabbin my hat.
Anyway, it was too fine an afternoon to miss a walk up Fifth Avenue. Besides, I can often think clearer when my rubber heels are busy. Did you ever try walkin' down an idea? It's a good hunch. The one I was tryin' to surround was how I could sub in for this Al Nekkir party myself without gettin' Stella suspicious. If I had to say the lines would she spot me by my voice? If she did it would be all up with the game.
Honest, I wasn't thinkin' of whiskers at all. In fact, I hadn't considered the proposition, but was workin' on an entirely different line, when all of a sudden, just as I'm passin' the stone lions in front of the public library, this freak looms up out of the crowd. Course you can see 'most anything on Fifth Avenue, if you trail up and down often enough--about anything or anybody you can see anywhere in the world, they say. And this sure was an odd specimen.
He was all of six feet high and most of him was draped in a brown raincoat effect that buttoned from his ankles to his chin. Besides that, he wore a green leather cap such as I've never seen the mate to, and he had a long, solemn face that was mostly obscured by the richest and rankest growth of bright chestnut whiskers ever in captivity.
I expect I must have grinned. I'm apt to. Probably it was a friendly grin. With hair as red as mine I can't be too critical. Besides, he was gazin' sort of folksy at people as he passed. Still, I didn't think he noticed me among so many and I hadn't thought of stoppin' him. I'd gone on, wonderin' where he had blown in from, and chucklin' over that fancy tinted beard, when the first thing I knew here he was at my elbow lookin' down on me.
"Forgive, sahib, but you have the face of a kindly one," says he.
"Well, I'm no consistent grouch, if that's what you mean," says I. "What'll it be?"
"Could you tell to a stranger in a strange land what one does who has great hunger and no rupees left in his purse?" says he.
"Just what you've done," says I. "He picks out an easy mark. I don't pass out the coin reckless, though. Generally I tow 'em to a hash house and watch 'em eat. Are you hungry enough for that?"
"Truly, I have great hunger," says he.
So, five minutes later I've led him into a side street and parked him opposite me at a chop house table. "How about a slice of roast beef rare, with mashed potatoes and turnips and a cup of coffee?" says I.
"Pardon," says he, "but it is forbidden me to eat the flesh of animals."
So we compromised on a double order of boiled rice and milk with a hunk of pumpkin pie on the side. And in spite of the beard he went to it business-like and graceful.
"Excuse my askin'," says I, "but are you going or coming?"
He looks a bit blank at that. "I am Burmese gentleman," says he. "I am named Sarrou Mollik kuhn Balla Ben."
"That's enough, such as it is," says I. "Suppose I use only the last of it, the Balla Ben part?"
"No," says he, "that is only my title, as you say Honorable Sir."
"Oh, very well," says I, "Sour Milk it is. And maybe you're willin' to tell how you get this way--great hunger and no rupees?"
He was willin'. It seems he'd first gone wanderin' from home a year or so back with a sporty young Englishman who'd hired him as guide and interpreter on a trip into the middle of Burmah. Then they'd gone on into India and the Hon. Sour Milk had qualified so well as all round valet that the young Englishman signed him up for a two-year jaunt around the world. His boss was some hot sport, though, I take it, and after a big spree coming over on a Pacific steamer from Japan he'd been taken sick with some kind of fever, typhoid probably, and was makin' a mad dash for home when he had to quit in New York and be carted to some hospital. Just what hospital Sour Milk didn't know, and as the Hon. Sahib was too sick to think about payin' his board in advance his valet had been turned loose by an unsympathizing hotel manager. And here he was.
"That sure is a hard luck tale," says I. "But it ought to be easy for a man of your size to land some kind of a job these days. What did you work at back in Burmah?"
"I was one of the attendants at the Temple," says he.
"Huh!" says I. "That does make it complicated. I'm afraid there ain't much call for temple hands in this burg. Now if you could run a button-holin' machine, or was a paper hanger, or could handle a delivery truck, or could make good as a floor walker in the men's furnishin' department, or had ever done any barberin'--Say! I've got it!" and I gazes fascinated at that crop of facial herbage.
"I ask pardon?" says he, starin' puzzled.
"They're genuine, ain't they?" I goes on. "Don't hook over the ears with a wire? The whiskers, I mean."
He assures me they grow on him.
"And you're game to tackle any light work with good pay?" I asks.
"I must not cause the death of dumb animals," says he, "or touch their dead bodies. And I may not serve at the altars of your people. But beyond that----"
"You're on, then," says I. "Come along while I stack you up against Madame Zenobia, the Mystic Queen."
We finds the old girl sittin' at a little table, her chin propped up in one hand and a cigarette danglin' despondent from her rouged lips. She's a picture of gloomy days.
"Look what I picked up on Fifth Ave.," says I.
And the minute she spots him and takes in the chestnut whiskers, them weary old eyes of hers lights up. "By the kind stars and the jack of spades!" says she. "A wise one from the East! Who is he?"
"Allow me, Madame Zenobia, to present the Hon. Sour Milk," says I.
"Pardon, Memsahib," he corrects. "I am Sarrou Mellik kuhn Balla Ben, from the Temple of Aj Wadda, in Burmah. I am far from home and without rupees."
"Allah be praised!" says Madame Zenobia.
"Ah!" echoes Sour Milk, in a deep boomin' voice that sounds like it came from the sub-cellar. "Allah il Allah!"
"Enough!" says Madame Zenobia. "The Sage of India is my favorite control and this one has the speech and bearing of him to the life. You may leave us, child of the sun, knowing that your wish shall come true. That is, provided the cook person appears."
"Oh, she'll be here, all right," says I. "They never miss a date like that. There'll be two of 'em, understand. The thin one will be Maggie, that I ain't got any dope on. You can stall her off with anything. The fat, waddly one with the two gold front teeth will be Stella. She's the party with the wilful disposition and the late case of wanderlust. You'll know her by the snapshot, and be sure and throw it into her strong if you want to collect that other ten."
"Trust Zenobia," says she, wavin' me away.
Say, I'd like to have been behind the curtains that Thursday afternoon when Stella Flynn squandered four dollars to get a message from the spirit world direct. I'd like to know just how it was done. Oh, she got it, all right. And it must have been mighty convincin', for when Vee and I drives up to the Ellinses that night after dinner to see if they'd noticed any difference in the cook, or if she'd dropped any encouragin' hints, I nearly got hugged by Mrs. Robert.
"Oh, you wonderful young person!" says she. "You did manage it, didn't you?"
"Eh?" says I.
"Stella is going to stay with us," says Mrs. Robert. "She is unpacking her trunk! However did you do it? What is this marvelous recipe of yours?"
"Why," says I, "I took Madame Zenobia and added Sour Milk."
Yes, I had more or less fun kiddin' 'em along all the evenin'. But I couldn't tell 'em the whole story because I didn't have the details myself. As for Mr. Robert, he's just as pleased as anybody, only he lets on how he was dead sure all along that I'd put it over. And before I left he tows me one side and tucks a check into my pocket.
"Geraldine paid up," says he, "and I rather think the stakes belong to you. But sometime, Torchy, I'd like to have you outline your process to me. It should be worth copyrighting."
That bright little idea seemed to have hit Madame Zenobia, too, for when I drops around there next day to hand her the final instalment, she and the Hon. Sour Milk are just finishing a he-sized meal that had been sent in on a tray from a nearby restaurant. She's actin' gay and mirthful.
"Ah, I've always known there was luck in red hair," says she. "And when it comes don't think Zenobia doesn't know it by sight. Look!" and she hands me a mornin' paper unfolded to the "Help Wanted" page. The marked ad reads:
The domestic problem solved. If you would keep your servants consult Madame Zenobia, the Mystic Queen. Try her and your cook will never leave.
"Uh-huh!" says I. "That ought to bring in business these times. I expect that inside of a week you'll have the street lined with limousines and customers waitin' in line all up and down the stairs here."
"True words," says Madame Zenobia. "Already I have made four appointments for this afternoon and I've raised my fee to $50."
"If you can cinch 'em all the way you did Stella," says I, "it'll be as good as ownin' a Texas gusher. But, by the way, just how did you feed it to her?"
"She wasn't a bit interested," says Madame Zenobia, "until I materialized Sarrou Mellik as the wise man of India. Give us that patter I worked up for you, Sarrou."
And in that boomin' voice of his the Hon. Sour Milk remarks: "Beware of change. Remain, woman, where thou art, for there and there only will some great good fortune come to you. The spirit of Ahmed the Wise hath spoken."
"Great stuff!" says I. "I don't blame Stella for changin' her mind. That's enough to make anybody a fixture anywhere. She may be the only one in the country, but I'll say she's a permanent cook."
And I sure did get a chuckle out of Mr. Robert when I sketches out how we anchored Stella to his happy home.
"Then that's why she looks at me in that peculiarly expectant way every time I see her," says he. "Some great good fortune, eh? Evidently she has decided that it will come through me."
"Well," says I, "unless she enters a prize beauty contest or something like that, you should worry. Even if she does get the idea that you're holdin' out on her, she won't dare quit. And you couldn't do better than that with an Act of Congress. Could you, now?"
At which Mr. Robert folds his hands over his vest and indulges in a cat-and-canary grin. I expect he was thinkin' of them mince pies. _