Rex Stout_Tecumseh Fox 03 (5 page)

His fatigue after three strenuous days and nights, his pockets bulging with packages—gifts for the Trimbles and others at the Zoo, as his home in the country was popularly called—and the battered suitcase he was carrying, should naturally, he thought, have caused some degree of aloofness on the part of the impeccable butler who admitted him to a spacious reception hall after an elevator had lifted him to the twentieth floor. But the butler seemed utterly unimpressed, and Fox surmised that the household staff of Irene Dunham Pomfret was hardened to apparitions from other worlds. The butler was standing by courteously while a second man in uniform, also courteously, was disposing of Fox’s bag and outdoor coverings, when a woman appeared from within through a vaulted archway and approached, talking as she came.

“How do you do? I don’t have any maids. I don’t like them. I have only men. I had maids once, and they were always sick. You’re Fox? Tecumseh Fox? I’ve heard a great deal about you from Diego. You were very sweet to him at the time of his misfortune. Let’s go in here …”

Fox was valiantly concealing a series of shocks. The large and richly furnished reception hall had furnished one. He happened to know something about Chinese vases, through their involvement in a case he had worked on, and two rare and beautiful specimens were displayed there on a table; and on the wall back of them was an ordinary colored print of Greuze’s “The Broken Pitcher”! He did not know, of course, that that had been the favorite picture of James Garfield Dunham, Mrs. Pomfret’s rather sentimental first husband, nor that Mrs. Pomfret was capable of complete disregard of canons of convention and taste when her personal
feelings were involved—though after one look at her the latter would have been an easy surmise.

Her appearance was the second shock. It displayed none of the bloodless and brittle insolence her reputation as a female Maecenas had led him to expect. Her figure was generous, her eyes shrewd and merry, her mouth with full lips well-disposed and satisfied with life, and her surprisingly youthful skin—considering, in view of her son Perry, that she must have been at least halfway between forty and fifty—was a flesh covering that Rubens would have enjoyed looking at. Fox himself did.

The vast chamber into which she conducted him, in which two concert grands were merely minor incidents, was overpowering but not irritating. She stopped at the edge of a priceless Zendjan rug and called in a voice that succeeded in blending tender affection with a note of command which invited instant response:

“Henry!”

A man got out of a chair and approached.

“My husband,” said Mrs. Pomfret; and Fox was amazed that a woman could say that as she might have said “My airedale” or “My favorite symphony” without offending his masculine pride. She was proceeding: “This is Tecumseh Fox. I know one thing, if I were your wife and you went around with a stubble like that—”

Fox, bewildered, released Henry Pomfret’s hand and foolishly tried to defend himself. “I had to jump and run to catch a plane and didn’t have time to shave, and besides, I don’t like to shave, and I haven’t any wife.” He glanced around, and as far as he could see there was no one else there except a girl and a young man seated on a divan. “I understood—Diego
told me on the phone that you had invited everyone here who—”

“I did, but Adolph Koch sent word that he couldn’t come until four o’clock, and you were on an airplane and Diego couldn’t notify you—nor could my secretary reach Dora or Mr. Gill to let them know—do you know them? I suppose not.”

She led the way to the divan, and the two there stood up. As Mrs. Pomfret pronounced names, Fox saw Dora’s hand start up and then hesitate, and he reached for it, and found that it was shy but firm. Her cheeks were flatter than he remembered them, but, reflecting that she had just been through a severe flattening process, he was willing to concede Diego’s remark about loveliness. He shook hands with Ted Gill, who had the absent and faintly resentful air of a man who had been interrupted in an agreeable and important task.

“He looks,” said Mrs. Pomfret, “like a Norwegian tenor I met in Geneva in 1926 who sang with his Adam’s apple.”

“Not me,” Henry Pomfret laughed. “I probably look to her like a crocodile she met in Egypt in 1928. That was for you, Gill.”

“A cross-eyed baby crocodile,” his wife retorted with fond malice. “And that Norwegian tenor, his name was—yes, Wells, what is it?”

A middle-aged man with a worried brow and harassed eyes approached. “Telephone, Mrs. Pomfret. Mr. Barbinini.”

“Oh, my lord, fighting again,” exclaimed Mrs. Pomfret, and rushed off.

“Will you have a drink?” offered the husband. “Dora?”

“No, thanks.”

Gill declined too, but Fox admitted that he could get along with one. It appeared, however, that drinks were not available in that chamber at that hour; at any rate, Fox was conducted out of it, through another room only less large, along a corridor and around a corner, and finally into a comfortable little apartment with leather-covered chairs, a radio, books.…

Pomfret went to a combination tantalus and electric refrigerator and procured necessities. Fox, glancing around, saw a Lang Yao sang-de-boeuf perched on a cabinet in a corner, and a large deep peach bloom on a table against the wall. He crossed to the latter for a closer look. Behind him Pomfret’s voice inquired if he liked vases.

“I like this one,” Fox declared.

“No wonder,” said Pomfret with pride in his tone. “It’s a Hsuan Te.”

“Apparently you like them.”

“I love them.”

Fox glanced at him, and saw that his face, like his tone, displayed unassuming sincerity. It was even at that moment an appealing face, though he had at first sight found it not attractive, with broad mouth not harmonizing with the rather sharp nose, and the restless gray eyes too small for the brow that sloped above them.

“There’s no finer peach bloom than that anywhere.” Pomfret brought the drink over. “I have another one nearly as good that’s in my wife’s dressing room. I’ll show it to you before you go, if you’d care to see it, and some others.” He laughed, a bit awkwardly. “I suppose one reason I’m so proud of them is that they’re the only things in the world that belong to me. It was my wife’s money that bought them, of course, since I’ve never had any, but they’re mine.”

Fox sipped his highball. “What do you do, have agents on the lookout, or pick them up yourself?”

“Neither one. Not any more. I’ve quit. My wife doesn’t like things shut up in cabinets, she likes them scattered around. For that matter, I agree with her, but about a year ago some lout knocked over a Ming five-color, the finest one I ever saw, and busted it into twenty pieces. If you’ll believe it, I wept. I don’t mean I sobbed, but I wept tears. That finished me. I quit. It was such a beautiful thing, and I felt responsible …”

Pomfret drank, frowned at his glass, and resumed, “Then I had another loss last fall. A Wan Li black rectangular—here, I’ll show you.” He put his glass down, got a portfolio from a shelf, and found a page. “Here’s a color picture of it. It was absolutely unique, the gem of any collection. See that golden yellow enamel? And the green and white? But that doesn’t half do it justice.”

Fox scrutinized the picture. “Did it get broken too?”

“No. It was stolen. It disappeared one day when—oh well, I don’t want to bore you about it.”

Fox was assuring him politely that he was not at all bored when there was a knock at the door, and in response to Pomfret’s invitation Perry Dunham entered.

“Orders,” he stated crisply. “Checking up. Everyone’s here but Koch, and Mum wanted you located.” He approached Fox and extended a hand. “Hullo. I’m Perry Dunham, as you may remember from the other evening.” He eyed Fox’s half-empty glass. “That’s an idea.”

“Have one?” Pomfret offered, not, Fox thought, with excessive cordiality.

“I will if you’ve got bourbon.”

“No bourbon, I’m sorry. Scotch, Irish, rye—”

“I’ll find some bourbon.” The arrogant young ape—according to Diego—departing, turned after opening the door. “Showing Mr. Fox Mum’s vases? And her florins and ducats?” The door closed after him.

A patch of color appeared on the cheek of Mr. Pomfret which was visible to Fox. Apparently the emotion which caused it was for the moment too acute to be covered by conversation, and Fox, embarrassed, tried to help out.

“Picturesque,” he observed lightly. “Florins and ducats?” He waved his drink. “And dinars and guineas?”

“He was referring,” said Pomfret stiffly, “to a little collection of coins I have made. I took it up as a sort of consolation when I abandoned the vases. If you drop them they don’t break, and even if they did it wouldn’t be anything to cry about.”

“Old coins? I would enjoy looking at them.”

“I doubt it.” Pomfret seemed considerably less enthusiastic about coins than vases as objects of prideful display. “Are you a numismatist? You mentioned dinars.”

Fox said no, that “dinar” was to him only an exotic word, and that it would really be interesting to see one if there were any in the little collection. Pomfret said that he supposed they should be joining the others, but he did happen to possess a dinar of the Fatimids; and, taking a key fold from his pocket and selecting one, he opened the door of a cabinet, disclosing a tier of shelves holding rows of shallow trays. The tray he removed was partitioned into small velvet-lined compartments, in each of which reposed a coin. Pomfret pointed to one.

“That’s it. Not in very good condition. This is much rarer and finer, a denier of Louis the First. That’s a
bonnet piece of James Fifth of Scotland. That? An old British stater—Come in!”

It was Diego Zorilla. He entered, flashed his black eyes at them, shook hands perfunctorily with Pomfret and warmly with Fox, and announced that he had been sent to fetch them. Pomfret replaced the tray and locked the cabinet. Fox swallowed the last of his drink.

“In the cathedral?” Pomfret inquired.

“No, they’re in the library.”

It seemed to Fox, when they got there, that the room had less right to the old-fashioned and dignified title of “library” than any he had ever seen. Some books were present, but they were lost in the indiscriminate jumble. There were racks of antique-looking musical instruments, an enormous harp, bronze and marble busts of composers, a map of the world ten feet square on which someone had painted black lines in all directions … without even starting the inventory. There were also people, seated along the sides of a large rectangular table, which gave that territory the aspect of a directors’ board room, and at one end was Irene Dunham Pomfret. On her right was the harassed-looking secretary, Wells. She interrupted a conversation with Adolph Koch, on her left, long enough to call “Sit down!” to the three men arriving, without looking at them.

“They only made one of her,” Diego murmured to Fox. “Once at a meeting here of the Metropolitan Symphony Board she threw the minute book at Daniel Cullen and ordered him to leave.”

“There’s no reason—I don’t really belong—” Pomfret was saying to the length of the table.

“Sit down,” said Mrs. Pomfret.

He did so, finding a place between his stepson Perry and Hebe Heath. Beyond Miss Heath was Felix
Beck. Across the table, besides Fox and Diego, were Dora Mowbray, Ted Gill, and Garda Tusar, and Adolph Koch at the corner. There was talk in subdued tones. Mrs. Pomfret finished with Koch, rapped with her knuckles on the table, and the talk stopped.

She spoke with the easy and informal authority of an experienced chairwoman. “I invited you here today for two purposes. First, I think you are entitled to read the note which Jan left when—Monday evening. Or hear it read. At my suggestion the police kept it from publication, and it has been turned over to me. Let me have it, Wells.”

From a portfolio on the table before him, the secretary extracted a slip of paper and handed it to her.

“It is written,” she went on, “on a sheet torn from the telephone memo pad there in the dressing room, and this is what it says:

“ ‘To my friends who believed in me. I have failed you, and I have no courage to try again. I used up all my courage during that terrible hour. That terrible sound—I tried with all my heart to make it sing and I couldn’t. Dora, I don’t want to say you could have made it sing if you would, but you will understand—anyway, forgive me. All of you forgive me. Really I am not going to kill myself, for I am already dead. I leave my violin to those to whom it really belongs—those who gave it to me—I had no right to it. There is nothing else for me to leave to anyone. Jan.’ ”

Tears started down Mrs. Pomfret’s cheeks as she finished with her voice trembling. Diego growled. Felix Beck groaned, and Dora Mowbray buried her face in her hands. Garda Tusar said in a strained high-pitched voice:

“I want that paper! I want it! It’s mine!”

Mrs. Pomfret, using her handkerchief on the tears, ignored her.

“I want it and I intend to have it! My brother—that was the last thing he did and I have a right to it—”

“No,” said Mrs. Pomfret sharply. “You may speak to me about it later.” She used her handkerchief again. “The only one mentioned by name is Dora, and if she wants to claim it she may.”

“But I—”

“That will do, Garda—I’m surprised all of you don’t cry. I can’t read it without crying. I felt that you were entitled to know its contents, but I’m sure you will agree that they should not be publicly disclosed, especially the reference to Dora. That is a—very intimate—matter. Now—the list, Wells?”

The secretary produced another paper.

“This,” Mrs. Pomfret continued, “is a list of those who contributed to the fund for the purchase of the violin:

“Which makes the total $36,000, and it was possible, as you know, to get the Oksmann Stradivarius so cheaply only by a lucky chance.”