Rex Stout_Tecumseh Fox 02 (18 page)

But the feel of the steering wheel in his hands automatically created in Fox’s brain the appropriate concentration of attention, excluding all others, as it does with every good driver, and in spite of the eminently unsatisfactory state of his mind, he arrived at his destination on 23rd Street without scraping a fender. The building he stopped in front of was certainly not modern but had an appearance of clinging stubbornly to self-respect; the vestibule was clean, with the brass fronts of the mail boxes polished and shining, including the one which bore the name of
YATES
, where Fox pressed the button; and the halls and stairs inside were well-kept and well-lit. One flight up Fox pressed a button again just as the door was opened by Miss Yates herself.

“Oh,” she said.

Fox said he was sorry to disturb her and asked if he might come in, and was permitted, not graciously
perhaps but still not grumpily, to dispose of his coat and hat on a rack in the foyer and enter a large and comfortable room with a little too much furniture and an air of being thoroughly contented with the status quo. He accepted an invitation to a chair. Miss Yates sat on an upholstered divan, on its edge as if it had been a wooden bench, and said bluntly:

“In case you think you fooled somebody this afternoon, you’re wrong. Arthur Tingley told me he didn’t trust you. Neither do I.”

“Then we’re even.” Fox matched her bluntness. “My trust in you is nothing to brag about. And apparently Tingley’s trust in you was something less than absolute, since he arranged secretly with Carrie and Edna to check on you.”

Miss Yates made a noise. The muscles of her face tightened, but the expression that appeared in her eyes could not have been called fear. Finally she began, “So Carrie—” and stopped.

Fox merely nodded.

“Very well.” She wet her lips. “What about it?”

“Several things about it, Miss Yates. For one thing, your extraordinary conduct. Is it true that you spoke with Tingley on the telephone at eight o’clock Tuesday evening?”

“Yes.”

“Are you positive it was his voice?”

“Certainly I am. And what he said—it couldn’t have been anyone else.”

“Then why—I don’t ask why you didn’t tell me, since you weren’t obliged to tell me anything if you didn’t feel like it—but did you tell the police?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

She just looked at him.

“Why not?” Fox insisted. “You’re intelligent enough to know that in their investigation of the murder that information was essential, vital. Did you want to obstruct the inquiry into the murder?”

Miss Yates’s eyes were leveled at his. “You just said,” she declared evenly, “that I wasn’t obliged to tell you anything if I didn’t feel like it. I’m not obliged to tell you anything now, either. But if I refuse to, I’m not fool enough to suppose that that will be the end of it, now that Carrie—” Her lips tightened, and in a moment she went on, “You asked if I wanted to obstruct the inquiry into the murder. I didn’t care about that one way or another.”

“You don’t care whether the person who killed Tingley—knocked him on the head and cut his throat—is discovered or not?”

“Well—I care, yes. I don’t suppose any normal person wants a murderer to go free. But I knew if I told about that phone call I’d have to tell what it was about, and I’m entitled to my pride, everybody is. There has only been one pride in my life—I’ve only had one thing to be proud about—my work. The work and the business I’ve given my life to—and for the last twenty years I’ve been responsible for its success. My friends and the people who know me, they know that—and what’s more important, I know it. And when Carrie—when I learned that Tingley had actually suspected me, had actually had my subordinates spying on me—”

A flash gleamed in her eyes and vanished again. “I could have killed him myself. I could. I would have gone there if Cynthia Harley hadn’t come—”

“But you didn’t.”

“No,” she said bitterly, “I didn’t.”

“And you didn’t tell about the phone call because
you didn’t want it known that Tingley had you watched by your subordinates.”

“Yes. And then later, there was another reason, when it came out about Amy’s getting hit on the head and lying there unconscious for an hour. I didn’t understand it, and I don’t now, but I don’t believe she killed her uncle or was involved in it, and I saw that if it became known that he was alive at eight o’clock it would make it a lot harder for her. So that was another reason. But not the main reason.”

“But there was also,” Fox suggested, “a pretty cogent reason why you should have told about the phone call. Wasn’t there?”

“I don’t know what.”

“Your own position. As a murder suspect. You’re aware, of course, that with the police you’re still under suspicion. You have no alibi during the period that they now regard as the important one. It isn’t very pleasant to be suspected of murder, and by telling about the phone call—”

Miss Yates snorted. “Let them suspect. Anyway, if they seriously suspect me of murder, what good would it do to tell them about the phone call? No one but me heard Arthur Tingley’s voice, and couldn’t they say I was lying?”

“I suppose they could.” Fox eyed her gloomily. “I wish to inform you that at present it is not my intention to tell the police about this, and I don’t think Carrie Murphy is going to, at least not right away. How about you?”

“Why should I tell them now if I haven’t already? If they find out about it and come and ask me—and I don’t trust Carrie or you either—”

“I don’t blame you.” Fox arose. “I don’t trust myself after today. My heart’s in the right place, but my
brain’s withering. Thank you very much. Don’t get up.”

But Miss Yates, adhering to the common courtesies even for a man she didn’t trust, went to the foyer with him and let him out.

He got in his car and drove to Seventh Avenue and turned downtown. Near 18th Street he stopped in front of a restaurant, went in, and told the waitress to bring him something good to eat provided it wasn’t codfish or cauliflower. He was not by any means indifferent to food, and even in his present deplorable condition would have become aware of it if he had been served with something inedible, but when he left half an hour later he could not possibly have told whether the contented feeling in his stomach should be credited to breast of guinea hen or baked beans.

The dashboard clock, which he kept set within a minute or two, said five minutes to eight as he rolled to the curb in front of 320 Grove Street, got out and crossed the sidewalk to the vestibule. A figure emerged from a shadowy corner and was revealed as Mr. Olson with a toothpick in his mouth. He announced that Miss Duncan’s bell was still being ignored upstairs, let Fox in, and stood listening in the hall until voices from above assured him that this caller was still a friend.

Fox, however, saw plainly from the expression on Amy’s face that though he might be regarded as a friend he certainly wasn’t the right one. When the door opened he was confronted by a vision of youthful loveliness in a becoming green frock, eyes shining and cheeks a little flushed with warm though restrained expectancy; and the passage of the cloud of disappointment across her features was not swift enough to escape his glance.

“Only me,” he said. “Sorry.”

She tried to compensate. “Oh, I’m glad! How nice—I mean I was hoping you—here, let me have your coat—”

He let her put it on a hanger. A rapid swoop of his eyes showed that the room had recently received attention; the cushions on the sofa had been patted into shape and neatly arranged; the magazines and other objects on the table had been tidily disposed; the rugs showed no careless speck and the ashtrays were chaste.

“You going out?” he asked politely.

“Oh, no. Sit down. No, I’m not going out. I—will you have a cigarette?”

“Thanks. I suppose I should have phoned—”

He stopped, and she whirled, as a bell rang. “Excuse me,” she said, and stepped to the door to the hall and opened it. Fox surmised, of course, who it was, and was inclined to look the other way not to constrain any display of sentiment that might be contemplated, but the sound of Amy’s modestly effusive greeting tapering off on a note of bewildered surprise demanded his attention and got it. Whereupon his own brows were raised in surprise, for Leonard Cliff entered the room like a thundercloud, somber, grim and menacing.

F
ox, standing, said, “Hello there.”

Cliff looked square at him and said nothing. Amy, having closed the door, came around Cliff and looked at him, with no shine in her eyes or flush on her cheeks.

“What,” she faltered, “what has happened?”

“Nothing.” Cliff bit the word off savagely. “Nothing much. If you two are talking business, I won’t—”

“But Leonard—what’s the matter?”

“I just came to ask if it’s true that you’re a detective working for Dol Bonner. That she assigned you to work on me. That your—my car hitting you was a fake. That the whole thing was a fake!” His voice pitched into harshness. “Well? Answer me!”

“My lord,” Amy said in a very small voice.

He barked at her, “Answer me!”

“Really, Cliff,” Fox intervened, “that’s no way—”

It was a mistake in judgment, for Cliff had a more precarious grip on his self-control than his appearance indicated. With his teeth clenched in sudden ungovernable rage, he hauled off and started his fist for Fox’s jaw. It met nothing but air. Fox ducked, sidestepped, collapsed like a folding stool, and was sitting
on the floor with his legs crossed. Cliff recovered his balance and his stance and glared down at him:

“Get up! I didn’t hit you! Get up!”

Fox shook his head. “Oh, no. That’s the trick. You can’t hit me while I’m sitting on the floor, and if you try kicking me, I warn you that my next trick won’t be so comical. If you’ll take my advice—”

“I don’t want your advice! I don’t want—”

“Leonard!” Amy implored him. “This is so—so foolish—”

“Is it?” He faced her grimly. “You’re wrong. This is where it stops being foolish! There’s been a lot of talk about making a monkey out of me. By that damn clown. You didn’t talk about it, you just did it! I ask you! Didn’t you? I ask you!”

“No, I didn’t. I wouldn’t ever—want to make a monkey out of you—”

“No? I’ve asked you a question! Will you answer it? Did you deliberately fake that meeting with me because you were assigned to work on me? Inspector Damon has told me you did. I’ve asked Dol Bonner and she admits it. Now I—” His face worked and he tried to arrange it. “Now I ask you! Did you?”

“Yes,” Amy said. She was meeting his blazing eyes. “That was a fake. But it stopped being a fake—soon—even that very first time—”

“You’re a liar!”

“I am not a liar, Leonard.”

His jaw opened and he clamped it shut again. For a fraction of a second the flame of anger and resentment in his eyes gave way to a weaker and more desperate gleam, a gleam of credulous hope; then that was in turn replaced by dull despair and disbelief. “By God, look at you,” he said bitterly. “You’re good. No
wonder you took me in! Right now you look as sweet and true and lovely—if I didn’t know—”

It seemed that it was all over and that he could no further trust his strength to resist such blandishments even knowing they were false, for he turned abruptly and headed for the door. But after only three steps, just as Amy began a movement, he wheeled and faced her again.

“You expect me to believe it stopped being a fake,” he said hoarsely. “God knows I’d like to. There’s nothing in the world I’d like to believe as much as that! For hours I’ve been thinking about it, going over every minute, every little thing that happened. A week ago tonight, here in this room—do you remember—that was the most beautiful—”

“Yes, it was, Leonard.”

“It was to me. What was it to you? A fake? I’ve gone back over every minute. That evening dancing at the Churchill—do you remember that? Or even the very first time, when we were driving around after dinner—that first time you let me touch your hand—the way you looked and the way I felt—right then you were suspecting me of being a crook and a damned scoundrel and working on me! You admit that was a fake! Then it all was! It is right now! What do you want out of me now? You’re not getting paid to work me anymore. Why did you say I could come here tonight? Why don’t you lay off and tell me to go to hell?”

“I don’t want anything out of you—”

“Oh, yes, you do! You bungled your job and got suspected of murder, you lady detective, and you need my help—”

“No!” Amy’s eyes snapped. “If you can think that—”

“Miss Duncan!” Fox, who had quietly transshipped
from the floor to a comfortable chair, spoke sharply. “Don’t make a brawl of it! The man’s in pain, and you gave it to him. It may take a couple of sessions to remove all traces of doubt, but the least you can do now, in common decency, is to look him in the eye and tell him you are madly and hopelessly in love with him. Don’t you realize the condition he’s in? When he came and saw me here, he was so jealous he tried to sock me.”

There were spots of color on Amy’s cheeks. “After what he just accused me of,” she declared with spirit, “I’m more apt to say I’m madly and hopelessly in love with you.”