Rex Stout (3 page)

Her caramel-colored eyes glanced under the black lashes. Foltz didn’t smile. He said nervously, “Yes, I could. I could if I walked in my sleep. It’s a nightmare.” His shoulders jerked a little, and Sylvia reached over and patted one.

Dol Bonner was at Silky Pratt again: “That was six weeks ago, and this firm had opened this office. Miss Raffray persuaded Foltz to call us in. I spent a lot of time on it and got nowhere. Finally I took Delk and hired another man and put them on watch. It’s difficult, because some of the yards and runs are portable and cover several acres. It was expensive, and when nothing happened at the end of a month we took the men off. Still nothing happened, until a week ago Thursday night. Friday morning they found two pheasants strangled. They put new locks on; the old ones had been discarded as useless. Last night four more pheasants were killed. The wire had been cut to make an opening in the netting big enough to let a man through. De Roode found them; he’ll show them to you tonight if you want to see something.”

Silky Pratt’s eyes had a glint in them. “I’d like to hear more about that Zimmerman,” he said complainingly.

“Forget Zimmerman and all that. I tell you I spent time on it. This is the only failure this firm has had. You will be there at the firm’s expense, because Foltz has spent a lot of money and got nothing for it—no, Martin, there’s no use
arguing, we’ve got to catch him—or her maybe—and you’ve paid enough.—There’s a train leaves Grand Central at 8:48 and arrives at Ogowoc at 9:40 daylight saving. De Roode will meet you at the Ogowoc station. There’s an attic window in the cottage de Roode lives in with a good view of the runs and yards. In case of pitch dark you couldn’t see much, but on a clear night, or partly clear, you could detect a man moving. No one but de Roode is to know you are there; you will leave before the men are up. Get plenty of sleep in the daytime, and stick on that job for good. It will be regular eight hour pay, and a hundred dollars extra when you catch him.”

Pratt, frowning at her, licked his lips. “But boss. From an attic window. Say I do see him, what’s the tactics? How far off will he be?”

Sylvia exploded: “Shoot him!”

He turned up his palms. “In the dark, miss? I’m not that good.”

Foltz offered, “Sneak down and rouse de Roode.”

Pratt looked doubtful. “Monkeying around in the dark …”

Dol Bonner said, “Don’t lose sight of him. You will probably see him on his way in, so you will have a little time. Have a rope ready to go out through the window. Have a flashlight and a gun. Get as close as you can quietly. If he runs it will be legal to shoot, but aim low.”

“If I aim low I’ll hit him in the stomach.”

“Don’t you dare hit him in the stomach.” Dol Bonner’s eyes flashed. “Or anywhere else. Just scare him. Then run and catch him. He must be an awful coward to be sneaking around in the night strangling …” She shivered. “You can catch him, can’t you?”

“I’ll try.” Silky sighed and was on his feet. “I don’t like this on a perch all night. Never have.” He moved, and stopped. “This Foltz place, ain’t it near that Birchhaven, the Storrs place, where I went for that trunk that time?”

“It adjoins Birchhaven, yes. Now don’t start deducing from that.” Dol Bonner had left her chair and was beside him. She put a hand on his shoulder. “Get him. Okay, Pratt?”

“Okay, boss. So-long.”

“Wait a minute.” Dol turned. “How about it, Sylvia? This will cost us money. You’re the treasurer.”

“Oh, my God.” Sylvia looked startled, and helpless. “Oh, Dol—that’s what I have to tell you … Dol dear. But then—have we got the money in the bank?”

“Of course we have. That thousand you put in Wednesday.”

“Good. Go ahead. Unless … no, go ahead.”

Dol looked at her partner, hesitated, and turned to Silky Pratt and nodded him on his way. When the door had clicked behind him, she walked around the desk again to her chair. Moving, she gave the impression that she was proceeding with the air rather than through it. Unconsciously, seeing her move, or hearing her speak, people settled into their chairs more easily, it was so pleasant to see energy flowing like that, naturally, with no strain and no interruption of grace. She sat down with her back straight, touched the black spot on her cheek with the tip of her finger, lightly, and let her hand fall to the desk.

“Well? The three points didn’t work?”

“They did not.” Sylvia suddenly grabbed her gloves and hurled them to the floor, then her ostrich-skin bag, harder, to the other side. Foltz reached for the gloves, and got up to retrieve the bag, and sat holding them. Sylvia said bitterly, “I could chew him up.”

“But …” Dol looked puzzled. “Could he cut you off for six months? Your own money? Is that it?”

“Of course not. I don’t know, he wouldn’t. That’s not it.”

“Then …” Dol waved a hand. “All right. What does it amount to?”

“Plenty.”

“For instance?”

“I am to have no connection whatever, financial or personal, with this damned detective business.”

“I see. Just like that.” Dol sat a moment, pursed her lips and was so still she seemed to be not breathing. “Well. Then you’re not a detective any more. It must be nice to have a man to tell you just what to do. You know I can’t return your capital … not now.”

“Oh, Dol!” Syliva looked miserable.

Foltz was on his feet. “If I’m in the way—”

Sylvia told him to stay. Dol said, “Not at all, Martin. It will be your turn next to tell her what to do. Stay and admire the virtue of submissiveness.”

“Dol Bonner!” Sylvia showed color. “You have no right to say that! I’m not submissive to any man!”

“I don’t like men.”

“Neither do I! At least—I don’t like all of them. But that has nothing to do with it. P. L. didn’t tell me what to do. He said specifically that if I stuck here in spite of his disapproval he would do nothing at all, and he would … he wouldn’t like me any less. That’s the devil of it.” She sounded bitter. “That’s how clever he is. He knows darned well I wouldn’t stand for dictation, even from him. He also said I don’t owe him any gratitude, because he knows I’m naturally ungrateful and he wouldn’t get it even if I did owe it.
But
.” She became savage. “He also knows that he has been perfectly swell to me for over fifteen years, and that I have sense enough to know it, and that I’m fair-minded and tender-hearted. After all, that picture of him … that piece in the Gazette was appalling.”

Dol Bonner asked drily, “Fair-minded? Fair to me?” But at once she added: “No. I take that back. Fair enough. If I had any complaint, which I haven’t, it would be against myself, for letting you persuade me … as you know, my idea was to go into the detective business alone, in a little room in a cheap building.…”

Foltz ventured with diffidence, “If I may—it’s none of my affair—but I’ve often wondered—why did you pick the detective business? A girl of your ability—and all the people you know—you could have done anything—”

“I know, Martin.” Dol sounded patient. “I could have got a job as a stylist, or an executive secretary, or started a hat shop or a shopping service. May I just say I didn’t want to? I could add that I wouldn’t accept any man as a boss, and preferably no woman either, and I made a long list of all the activities I might undertake on my own. They all seemed monotonous or distasteful except two or three, and I flipped a coin to decide between detective and landscape design. I had to swallow my pride to take a favor from one man, to get a license. I had no family, and my father died owing money, and instead of taking a thousand dollars from
Sylvia to keep me going a while, I was weak enough to let her come in for all this.” She waved a hand at the handsome room, with its yellow and blue and chrome, then shrugged her shoulders and looked at her erstwhile partner. “It’s all washed up, Sylvia dear? Final?”

Sylvia looked miserable again. “Oh, Dol …”

“Okay.” Dol got brisk. “I’m four years older than you, I should have known better.” She opened a drawer and took out a sheet of paper with typewriting on it. “I’m not surprised, and I’m as clever as P. L. Storrs—I like you no less. I got these figures together this morning. You’ve advanced nine thousand dollars of the fifteen thousand contemplated as your capital contribution. It has gone for my salary, office furnishings, payroll, rent—it’s all itemized and I’ll give you a copy. We have—”

“Dol, stop that!” Sylvia’s face was flushed. “You don’t have to rub it in!”

“I’m not rubbing it in. I’m reporting as president of the corporation. We have taken in $712.83. We have accounts receivable $949.10, all good, they’ve been slow only because they knew you didn’t need the money. Our bank balance is $1164.35. Our net worth is $7219.88, but the furnishings are in at cost, and of course when we sell them—”

“Sell them!” Sylvia gasped. “Dol! Sell these lovely—”

“Certainly sell them. Sylvia dear, you haven’t the faintest idea where money comes from. You still think a stork brings it and drops it down the chimney—only in your case it would take quite a flock of storks. Do you suppose I could support this kind of a shebang? The rent alone is eighteen hundred. I don’t know what will happen about the lease, but when the corporation is dissolved—and there’ll be a lawyer to pay for that—
well!
Get out of here!”

Foltz and Sylvia looked startled, but saw at once that the dismissal was not for them, but for a newcomer. The door had been flung violently open, and an Olympic champion, not of the dark variety, had crossed the threshold. He was tall, built for use, blue-eyed, and as tanned as a nudist on the exposed surfaces. Ignoring the others, he strode across to Dol Bonner’s chair, stood there, and said with feeling:

He reached down and clutched Dol by her upper arms, lifted her clear of her chair, high above the desk, held her there an instant, and put her back again.

She had offered no struggle. She said calmly but with some intensity: “You darned sadist. I loathe being touched by anyone whatever, and you know it.”

The young man looked down at her and shook his head. “Me a sadist? I know where you got the idea, Foltz’s strangled pheasants. By gum, I could strangle you, don’t think I couldn’t. And if you loathe being touched you should conceal it, because it only increases the temptation, which is already irresistible. Anyway, it’s the only technique I know, and some day the woman in you will blossom forth and you’ll eat it up.” He decided to acknowledge the audience. “Hello, Foltz. Hello, Sylvia. Would it interest you to know that when I start strangling in earnest my first customer will be your darling guardian P. L. Storrs? Don’t think I don’t mean it. The dirty reptile has got me fired.” He turned again to Dol: “I want a job. I want to join up here.” He spied the chair Silky Pratt had left, went and sat down in it and observed, “I might as well be a detective as a murderer.”

“Get out, Len.” Dol sounded firm. “We’re talking.”

“About me?”

“No. Also egotist. Get out.”

“And go where? The CCC? The WPA? The Salvation Army? Did you hear me say I got fired?”

“Fired from where?”

“My job on the Gazette. On account of that publicity I gave you, thinking only—”

“Of the money, you’d get for it. I know. You mean Mr. Storrs complained?”

“I mean he raised hell. He threatened to sue for libel and they made me the goat.” He pounded his chest with his fist. “Leonard Chisholm, goat. I’m nearly broke and I’m a lot madder than you would think to look at me.”

“Yes. You mustn’t conceal your emotions like that. They
erupt.” Dol brushed her hair back. “Mr. Storrs is a nice old duffer, isn’t he? No more vindictive than Al Smith.”

“He isn’t!” Sylvia’s voice entered. “P. L. is not vindictive, really, Dol. He got mad, I can understand that, and anyway you yourself said that Len ought to have a job on the subway. And he likes Len”—she frowned—“anyhow, he did once.” She considered. “Look, Len. We’re going to play tennis at Martin’s this afternoon, and eat there, and then go to Birchhaven for bridge. You come with us—that is, if Martin—”

Foltz nodded positively. “By all means. Come ahead, Len.”

Sylvia went on, “And you come along to Birchhaven, and we’ll see. If you can disguise yourself as a member of the human race, it will be all right. P. L. is not vindictive.”

Chisholm regarded her doubtfully. At length he shook his head. “Aw, it’s going to rain.”

“Now, Len! That Gazette piece
was
terrible.”

“I’m broke. I’ve pawned my uniform.”

“You have not. You couldn’t get anything on it. Anyway, none of us will dress.” Sylvia got up and skipped to him, and put her hand on his sleeve. “Do it for me, Len. I feel bad about it.”

“You look out. Get away.” Chisholm turned indignantly to Dol Bonner: “My God, can
nothing
make you jealous? Don’t you see how she’s working on me, and her betrothed?” To Sylvia: “All right, go and sit down. I’ll come. But little you know what for. Did you hear me say I’ll strangle that old bucko? This will be my opportunity. I’ll roll him under the bridge table and use him for a hassock.”

“You’d much better be nice to him.” Sylvia, back in her chair, frowned a little. “And you’d better watch yourself or he may strangle you. I know he would just as soon murder somebody, for he told me so this morning.”

“Not me.” Chisholm was positive. “He already has me in a state worse than death—I’m broke. On the level, was darling P. L. out for blood? Who, the office boy? Doesn’t sound like him. Say, I’ll bet he’s after Dol. I’ll protect her.”

“I don’t know who it was.” Sylvia still frowned. “Unless it was Steve Zimmerman.”

Foltz looked astonished. “Steve! Why Steve?”

“Oh, I just said that. But you know P. L. doesn’t like Steve; he won’t like him even for your sake, Martin. Then this morning I met Steve in the corridor outside P. L.’s office, and he acted—”

“Steve? You met Steve there?” Foltz was incredulous.

“Yes, why shouldn’t I? I mean, if he arrived at a certain given spot at the precise moment that I arrived at it, I was bound to meet him, no way out of it. Though I admit I was as surprised as you are. He talked very funny—I know he often does, and what can you expect, a scientist like him with his mind on his genius. But he seemed to me to be raving—for instance, he mentioned mortal injury, and sacrifice and devotion, and all at once he scuttled—left me standing with my mouth open. Then when I got into P. L.’s room I found him in a trance, absolutely, he didn’t even invite me to have a drink of water. Later he doubled up his fists and said he would like to kill a man with his two hands.”