Son of Holmes

He looked at me quizzically, the touch of a smile lifting the corners of his mouth.

“What goals are those?” he asked.

“Oh, the usual for a young chef. Apprenticeship in a large hotel, assistantship to a master-”

But he cut me off. “A man who follows the usual routes obtains the usual results. Like so many other endeavors, cuisine is both an art and a skill. Of course, the French scoff at such an idea-meaning no offense to you, sir. Too often the path to excellence at a skill is a limiting experience, until the mind, finally, is trained to abhor i

When he finished his little speech, he had none of the habits one would expect from one so young, neither the slight embarrassment nor the brash defiance that often punctuates the speech of the insecure. Rather, he reached for his beer and drank.

“It’s clear,” said Marcel, “that you wish to stand alone.”

“Only a dullard would not.”

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence.

Finally, Marcel spoke. “But surely you don’t mean that.”

Lupa nodded. “If I hadn’t meant it, I wouldn’t have said it.”

“What of our men at the front, then? They don’t stand alone. In fact, all our hope resides in their fighting together, in the assumption that there are goals that must take precedence over individuality. Are all our soldiers dullards?” “Probably most. It’s always rather meaningless to generalize. Joffre certainly is.”

“Then you wouldn’t fight?” Marcel was getting angry.

Lupa took a breath. “Fortunately, I’m a citizen of the United States, and we are presently neutral. I’m afforded the luxury of not fighting.”

“But would you?”

“I wouldn’t like to be mere ca

“Because you wish to stand alone.”

“Exactly.” He drank some beer. “But I see you’re getting upset with me. I don’t mean to say that I don’t believe in causes, or that everyone should have individuality. I applaud our troops at the front. I only refer to men of adequate intelligence, and they are not so commonplace as is generally believed, who attain eminence in a field and then prove themselves incompetent because they lack imagination, individuality, call it what you will. Joffre can execute all the textbook moves. What he ca

“The key then…” said Marcel.

“Is i

“I quite agree,” I put in.

“Perhaps I misunderstood,” said Marcel. “Then you are here as a head chef to learn to i

Lupa smiled. “One doesn’t learn how to i

It seemed that Marcel was on the verge of questioning him directly about his real work. He leaned toward the younger man with a gleam in his eyes. A slight breeze came into the arbor, though, and Lupa, rubbing his hands together, stood.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I have very much enjoyed the day, but I must now attend to other matters. I’m becoming more and more a creature of habit, and my habits won’t brook much flexibility. I’m afraid I must go.”

“Well, if you must, you must,” I said, “but would you consider coming back this evening? Once a week, I host a gathering of the men I had earlier mentioned to you, and I’m always happy to find another discerning beer lover.”

He bowed slightly. “I’d be delighted, though it would have to be after the di

“Around ten, then.”

We remained seated and watched him until he entered the house. He walked very lightly for a man of his size.

“Well?” asked my friend.

I shrugged. “What do you think of him?”

“He’s very polite.”

We laughed, and I rose to get some more beer. When I had come back and sat down, Marcel was still smiling.

“He doesn’t seem to be in as much a hurry to enlist our aid as we are to enlist his, does he?”

“Hardly. And I must admit that after all this time, I’m starting to wonder if I’ve been put out to pasture, that there’s nothing happening in Valence, and I’ve been sent here to sit out the war with my cook and my beer. Have you heard of anything at all?”

“I heard from Paris late last week; it must have been after last Wednesday’s gathering, and they told us to sit tight, that whatever would happen here obviously was in the pla

“Is it possible,” I asked, “that this time it won’t be an assassination? Suppose, for example, it’s sabotage, or kidnapping, or…”

“No, I doubt it,” he said. “Our man directs killers, and if we could just think of… my God!” He’d put down the glass and was staring so intently into the trees behind us that I turned around.

“What is it?”

“He is here to assassinate.”

“Impossible,” I said. “There’s not a man in this region of any strategic importance, and no one will be…”

“There’s one,” he said, his eyes shining.

“Who’s that?”

“Auguste Lupa.”

We sat for a moment or two in silence, while I thought of objections to what he’d said. In the first place, Lupa had arrived on the trail of our man, but that of course could be a way to have Lupa where he wanted him. Come to Valence so that Lupa would come here, so that he could kill him here? That was far-fetched, and I said so. Why Valence?

“Possibly because Lupa has an embarrassing co

“But there would be no propaganda, since the public has never heard of Lupa, since Lupa wasn’t even his name a few months ago. Finally, Marcel, he would never have waited so long to move. If he had known who Lupa was and where he would find him, he would have acted and cleared out months ago.”

“You’re probably right,” he conceded, “but he’s here for something, and we don’t have any idea of who he is, what he wants, or why he’s here. We must ask Lupa what he has on him, and tonight.”

“It will be difficult at the gathering,” I said.

“Then later.”

“We’ll see, but I can’t shake the feeling that the man is here for sabotage.”

“To sabotage what? There’s nothing here in Valence.”

“No, not in Valence itself. But there is the arms factory in St. Etie

He looked down at the ground and picked up his beer. “It’s guarded, of course.”

“It’s impregnable.”

“Well, there you are.”

“No. What bothers me is its seeming invulnerability. There are enough troops guarding the place, all right, but in a sense that is really not the point. It can’t be directly assaulted, which is of course why they’d have to send a man here-to break it, to find a way in.”

“How is security?”

“I tell you, Marcel, that’s what puzzles me so much about it. Everything is as it should be. It is completely impossible. It can’t be entered by anyone who hasn’t been thoroughly checked out. Everyone who works inside has been cleared and cleared again. There are troops all over St. Etie