Rex Stout_Tecumseh Fox 02 (19 page)

“No no. Climb down. You deserved more than you got. You were a lady detective and you were working on him. If I were in his place I wouldn’t completely trust you until after the honeymoon.”

“What—what I said—” Cliff, still hoarse, was stammering. “There is no—what I said—I don’t believe—”

“You will,” said Fox shortly. “If there was nothing worse than this to worry about, but there is. You spoke of Miss Duncan’s being suspected of murder. She was, vaguely. But if two people tell the police what they’ve just told me, it won’t be vague anymore. She’ll probably be charged, locked up, and held without bail.”

They stared at him.

Amy sat down on a corner of the sofa. “But—what could anyone—”

Cliff demanded, in an entirely new tone of voice, “What’s this, a gag?”

“No. I don’t make gags about charges of murder. I’ve seen a man electrocuted. Nor am I trying to make smoke without a fire, just to see if someone will
choke—Miss Duncan, look at me, please, you can look at him later. I want to know what’s wrong with your recital of what happened while you were in that building Tuesday evening.”

Amy met his gaze. “There’s nothing wrong with it,” she said stoutly.

Fox grunted. “You said that you entered the building, went straight upstairs, turning on lights on the way, found the door of Tingley’s office open, heard no voices or other sounds and saw no one, got to the edge of the screen and knew no more until you came to on the floor, got out as soon as you could navigate, and came straight here. Do you maintain that that’s the truth and the whole truth?”

“I do.”

“You’re not going to change any of that this side of death?”

“I am not.”

“All right. You, Mr. Cliff. I won’t repeat your story, as you’ll probably prefer to tell Miss Duncan about it yourself—”

“I doubt if she’ll be interested—”

“Okay. You handle that part of it. What I want to know is, how much of it was true and how much wasn’t.”

“It was all true.”

“You’re sticking to that?”

“I certainly am.”

“In spite of the statement I made a minute ago?”

“In spite of everything.” Cliff was frowning uneasily. “But if Miss Duncan—I mean, I thought that was helping her—”

“So did I. And if you want to be gallant and lie to the police or a judge and jury to protect a lady detective, that’s your affair, I have no objection. But understand
this, you’re an idiot if you lie to me. I want the truth.”

“You have it. I resent—”

“Go ahead and resent.” Fox arose and went for his hat and coat, returned, and included them both in a glance. “If you ask Nat Collins in the morning, he may tell you what happened today that puts Miss Duncan in real and imminent danger of being arrested for murder. I have stopped telling anyone anything. I still do not believe that either of you was involved in Tingley’s death, but someone is lying for a world’s record, and until I find out who it is I won’t feel like talking. Good night.”

Fox turned and strode out.

On the street in front, he sat in his car for twenty minutes with his arms folded, his head hanging, and his eyes closed. At the end of that time he jerked himself straight, muttered, “It’s either that or let the cops do it,” and started the engine.

But he didn’t find Philip Tingley at the Womon office on Sixth Avenue. The result of his visit there was in fact entirely negative, for the man who ate too much was so unfriendly and uncommunicative that it needed no great perspicuity to guess that he and Miss Adams had been spoken to about divulging the identity of the ten-thousand-dollar contributor. But Phil wasn’t there, so Fox left, sought a phone booth, called the Tingley residence and got another negative result, and drove to 914 East 29th Street.

The door in the vestibule of that dismal tenement was not unlatched as it had been before. Fox considered a moment, punched the first button in a row on the righthand side, and put his hand against the door, ready to push at the first click. When the click came he was inside like a flash and on his way up the dimly
lighted stairs. Just short of the first landing he halted, waited till he heard a door open below, called down, “Thanks very much, forgot my key!” and resumed the ascent. Four flights up, he knocked on the door in the rear, stood hoping for the favor of one little break, and got it. Steps sounded from within and he got his weight ready to oppose reluctance, but that wasn’t necessary. The door swung wide and Philip Tingley was there. He scowled when he saw who it was, and without a word started the door on a return journey, but it was obstructed by Fox’s hundred and seventy pounds after only ten degrees of its arc.

“Get out!” Phil demanded sullenly. “You can’t pull any rough stuff with me!”

Fox, resolved not to commit another costly blunder in his relations with this six-foot bony eel, refrained from pushing past him for fear he might make a dash for the stairs and the street. Instead, he pushed against him, crowding him back to make room for closing the door; and got a surprise when Phil suddenly and astonishingly displayed capabilities as a man of action. Long arms shot out and long bony fingers gripped Fox’s throat, and the grip was anything but puny. Fox went for the wrists and got them, but to his amazement they were immovable; he was gagging and choking and the muscles of his neck were helpless; a terrific stifling pain was in his constricted gullet and his eyes were going to pop out. He abandoned the wrists, hooked his right elbow, and crashed his fist against Phil’s jaw, but the blow was glancing and lost most of its force through the interference of Phil’s biceps. Fox hooked again, this time cutting up from beneath between the two arms, straight for the button, and that did it. Phil’s head snapped up with a
noise like a spasmodic snore, his grip loosened, and he staggered back.

Fox moved his own head slowly from side to side and tried swallowing. In a moment, when he was sure the road was open for words, he would instruct Phil not to be foolish. But that didn’t get done, for before he could speak Phil came at him again, not trying for his throat this time, but apparently intending to break through the open door. He came fast, but Fox was faster. He stopped him with his left, clipped him with his right, and Phil toppled to the floor. As he went down Fox whirled and swung the door shut all but two inches, applied his ear to the crack, and listened. No sound of steps or voices came, so he softly closed the door till the lock snapped to, and turned just as Phil was lifting himself to his elbow.

“Look,” Fox said, “I don’t want to bust any more knuckles—”

Phil opened his mouth and started a bellow that promised to send waves all the way to Centre Street.

Fox leaped for him. Before the bellow swelled into full volume, he got a hold on his throat, with his thumbs in position to choke off utterance without doing serious damage, but it was immediately evident that that would not do. Phil struggled, writhed, clawed, banged the floor with his heels. Fox, tightening the grip on the throat with his left hand, doubled his right fist and planted it accurately and scientifically on the mandible hinge. The clawing and banging stopped.

Fox frowned at his right hand, opening and shutting the fingers, looked at the motionless figure on the floor and muttered, “The stubborn son-of-a-gun,” and resumed activity. Rapidly he made a survey of the
place, and found nothing in the nondescript furnishings of the two small rooms and smaller kitchen that was sturdy enough to withstand any violent effort at displacement, except the water pipes. Luckily, the kitchen cupboard yielded a length of clothesline, and the bathroom cabinet a roll of adhesive tape. A glance without showed him that Phil was stirring, so he lost no time. The tape, properly and plentifully applied to the mouth, precluded another bellow, and two pieces of clothesline secured the wrists and the ankles. Another piece of line lashed a wooden chair firmly to the water pipe in the kitchen, and still others, after Phil had been dragged in there and seated in the chair, fastened down his shoulders and thighs and all but immobilized him.

Fox looked the job over, nodded with satisfaction, got a drink of water from the faucet, brought another chair from the bedroom and sat on it, lit a cigarette, and regarded his captive.

“Well, here we are.” He took another puff. “I did you up like that because there’s no telling how long this will last and I’ll probably want to go out for meals and exercise. At intervals I’ll remove enough tape for you to articulate, and when I do so I hope you won’t compel me to any more violence, because I only enjoy it when it’s tough going. My minimum demands are these: Tell me where you got that ten thousand dollars and what for, and tell me what you did and what and whom you saw in the Tingley building Tuesday evening. After I get that we’ll understand each other better and we’ll see.”

He took another puff, went and put out the cigarette in a saucer on the table, and returned to his chair. “I’ll try to be patient and placid, but I’m apt to
get impetuous when things go wrong, and they’ve never gone any wronger. To be forced to resort to this sort of thing hurts me worse than it does you, and that’s not a joke. And I know it won’t get me anywhere if you murdered Tingley, because you have a certain amount of guts, but if you didn’t murder him this will get results and don’t think it won’t. You won’t be the same man in seven or eight hours that you are now. I have in mind a little mechanical arrangement that will keep you awake while I take a nap. By the time I come back from breakfast—”

A bell was ringing, there in the kitchen. Fox jerked around, and was on his feet. Since there was no bell from the hall door, it must be from the vestibule downstairs. He found the button, above the sink, and punched it, observing as he did so that the muscles of Phil’s arms and legs were swelling and twisting and his eyes were glaring in helpless fury. Fox took a swift look at the knots, stepped outside, closed the kitchen door, and opened the door to the public hall. He listened. The footsteps coming up the stairs were faint, light, lagging; there was a long pause, presumably for the collection of breath; then they were resumed. Before a head appeared at the rim of the landing Fox had decided definitely that it was a woman and quickly considered his line for a Murphy or Yates or Adams or Duncan. But it was none of those, though it was a female. Achieving the landing, panting, and glancing uncertainly toward the front before she caught sight of Fox standing in the doorway at the rear, he had a chance to appraise her. She was over fifty, was slim and well-preserved and stiffly handsome, and looked furtive and frightened; and the mink coat she was wearing had cost enough to pay the
rent for all the apartments in that tenement for a year.

Fox took a step into the hall. “How do you do.”

“Oh!” It was a little gasp from her. She moved toward him and stopped again. “Oh!” She came two more short steps. “You—are you Philip Tingley?”

Fox nodded and smiled at her. “This is me at the entrance of my castle.”

“I’m late,” she said inconsequently. She came closer and he got, faintly, her perfume. “I’m always late.” She looked nervously around. “Let’s go inside.”

He stepped aside, entered behind her, and closed the door. As he motioned her to the farther room, her head jerked around at a sound from the kitchen, but he reassured her: “Just my dog. I shut him in there because he jumps on people.” He followed her within. “Let me take your coat. This isn’t the sort of chair you’re used to, but it’ll have to do.”

She glanced around and he saw a shudder of repugnance run over her; and she permitted just enough of her person to touch the shabby soiled upholstery to call it sitting. Then he saw, by the intentness of her eyes as they fastened on him, that there was something about him sufficiently interesting or compelling to make her ignore the surroundings after that first involuntary spasm of fastidious distaste. He sat. She did not, apparently, intend to speak, and the fixity of her gaze made him wary; it seemed likely he was supposed to say something cogent and to some purpose, and therefore it was risky to say anything. But if she was determined merely to sit and stare at him….

He smiled at her and asked pleasantly, “Do I fall short of expectations? I mean, the way you look….”

She stiffened. “Nothing like that is in my mind,”
she said coldly. “Understand that. I had no—expectations. I came here only because your impossible conduct, your impossible demands, compelled me to come to appeal to you to have some regard for decency. I expect and desire no filial sentiments from you.”

F
ox permitted himself three seconds for a rapid movement and reorganization of his cerebral forces, covering the operation by wiping his face with his handkerchief.

“Wrestling with the dog made me sweat,” he observed.

The lady in mink had nothing to say to that.

“Naturally,” he went on, “I disagree with your characterization of my conduct and demands.” Smiling pleasantly at her had of course been wrong, and he was meeting her intent regard with a rude stare. “And I certainly have no intention of making any display of filial sentiment, even if I felt any, which I don’t. If you’re going to appeal to me …” He left it hanging.