The Devil's Cook

The Devil's Cook Read Online Free PDF Page B

Book: The Devil's Cook Read Online Free PDF
Author: Ellery Queen
for me,” Jay said. “I’m not very hungry.”
    â€œNeither am I,” said Farley.
    â€œThe ragout looks wonderful,” Fanny said, “in spite of cooking so long. I must learn how to make it.”
    â€œWon’t you have some?” Jay said. “There’s more than enough.”
    â€œI couldn’t possibly. I’ll put some coffee on to perc.”
    â€œThanks, Fanny. As long as you’re being useful, would you mind fixing your own drink? The stuff’s there in the cabinet,”
    Fan put the coffee on and got a bottle of gin out of the cabinet. She couldn’t locate any vermouth for a martini, but she found a bottle of quinine water and made a minimum gin and tonic, not bothering with lemon or lime. She carried it into the living room, where Farley and Jay were eating the good ragout with less enthusiasm than it deserved. Sipping her gin and tonic, she looked at a Picasso print on the wall; she went over and stared for a moment at the record player; she examined carefully, one by one, all the items on the telephone table; finally she drifted into the bedroom. When she returned her glass was empty, and so was Farley’s plate. Jay’s plate, however, still held some of the ragout, pushed to one side as if it had been emphatically scorned and rejected.
    â€œShall I serve you some more ragout?” Fanny asked.
    â€œNo more for me,” said Farley.
    â€œNo, thank you,” said Jay.
    â€œHow was it?”
    â€œDelicious,” Farley said.
    â€œToo damn many onions,” Jay said. “Terry knows very well that I like her to use fewer onions than the recipe calls for. They don’t agree with me—a soupçon is plenty. She did it deliberately. We haven’t been exactly congenial lately.”
    â€œOh, nonsense!” Fanny’s derision was palpable. “If you ask me, Jay, you are simply being petty. There was nothing to compel her to fix your dinner at all.”
    Jay said something impolite. “See if the coffee’s ready, will you, Fanny?”
    Carrying the two plates, she went to see. The coffee was.
    â€œSugar or cream?” she called.
    â€œBlack,” they both said.
    She delivered the coffee and returned to the kitchen. She found a plastic refrigerator dish and put the leftover ragout in it. Then she washed and dried the two plates, the silverware, and the electric skillet. She considered another gin and tonic, decided against it, and went back into the living room. She sat down on a sofa, raising her knees and hugging them to her chest, thereby creating a perilous tautness over a choice section of her anatomy.
    â€œWhile you guys were eating,” she said, “I looked for clues.”
    â€œClues to what?” Jay said.
    â€œClues to wherever Terry might have gone.”
    â€œOf all the colossal nerve!” Farley said. “I wondered what the devil you thought you were doing, prowling around and prying into everything.”
    â€œLooking for clues is not prowling or prying. Obviously, Farley, you’re determined to put everything I do or say in the worst possible light. If Terry had an appointment, it’s reasonable to assume that she might have made a note of it somewhere.”
    â€œNow that you mention it, it is,” Farley conceded.
    â€œI couldn’t find it, however. Not on the table by the telephone or on her dressing table in the bedroom. Can you think of any place else likely to look?”
    Jay’s voice was quietly desperate. “Terry’s appointments are rarely the kind she’d make written notes of to leave lying about. I don’t want to appear ungrateful, but I’d appreciate your just cutting it out. I have a notion where Terry went, if you must know, but I have no intention of proving myself right by going after her. I’ve become weary of painful scenes.”
    â€œWell,” said Fanny, “I have no wish to intrude where I’m not
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