Rex Stout_Tecumseh Fox 01 (3 page)

“And now you want me to pull him out. Go ahead.”

“You will! Won’t you?”

“Go ahead. He climbed the fence. What did you do, wait in the car?”

“Yes. I sat and waited, I suppose fifteen minutes, and I was feeling satisfied with myself because I thought he must have got in to see Thorpe or he would have been back, when I heard someone scrambling over the fence and he called to me to turn on the car lights. He came and got in and I asked him what happened, and he said to drive on and he would tell me on the way, but I sat tight and made him tell me.
He said he had followed a winding drive about three hundred yards to the bungalow and instead of going to the door had gone around to the side where light was coming from a window. The window was open, and he stood behind a tree only a few feet away and looked in. Thorpe was there in a chair, leaning back comfortably smoking a cigar, listening to the radio playing a piece of band music—”

“Could you hear the radio out at the road?”

“Yes, I heard it plainly, it must have been turned up high. I looked at the dashboard clock and my wrist-watch too, and it was ten minutes past eleven and I decided it must be Al Rickett’s orchestra at the Regency on WRK, and I turned on the car radio, low, and it was. Uncle Andy said it was playing very loud. He stood there a minute or two, watching Thorpe through the window, and then went back around the corner and into an enclosed terrace to the door. He stood on the terrace for two or three minutes, waiting for a rest in the radio so his knock would be heard and that’s where he was when he heard the shots fired.”

“Uh-huh,” Fox grunted. “Did he tell you that at that time, sitting there?”

“Of course. He said he heard two shots. That’s where it was my fault again. I said he had got cold feet and was using that for an excuse, that it must have been something on the radio. I had heard something myself that had sounded like shots, but had taken it for granted it was a trick of Al Rickett’s. I—I made fun of him. He wanted to drive on and get away from there, but he never had wanted to go. We argued about it and we both got worked up, and I said things I’m darned sorry for now. I finally got out of the car and said he could drive on alone if he wanted to, and we went on arguing. We were still at it when we saw
the lights of a car inside on the drive coming our way. It stopped the other side of the gate and in a minute the gate swung open, and then the car came out in a rush, swerving sharp into the road. I was standing there and had to jump for my life, and by the time I got straightened up again the car had gone and its rear bumper had hooked into our left front tire and torn a gash in it and pulled it half off.”

“Your lights were on.”

“Uncle Andy had turned them off.”

“Did you see who was in the car?”

“I was too busy jumping and Uncle Andy was too busy yelling at me. Naturally I was so furious I was trembling. He got out and looked at the tire and swore some, and began looking for tools. I walked through the gate and on up the drive to the bungalow. He called after me, but I didn’t answer. I felt I had ample excuse to knock on Thorpe’s door myself.”

“After hearing shots fired? Brave girl?”

“Oh, no, I wasn’t brave, I was mad. I hadn’t thought they were shots, anyway. You’ll see how brave I was in a minute. The door of the bungalow was wide open and at the end of the entrance hall another open door showed a lighted room. I stood on the terrace and called a few times and got no answer, and then went in, entered the lighted room, and saw a body on the floor. One look was enough to tell you it was a body and not a man. I turned and ran, ran as hard as I could back down the drive, and told Uncle Andy and said he must get the spare tire on as quick as he could so we could get away from there.”

“I take back the brave. Nor was it bright.”

“That’s what Uncle Andy said. He said the man might not be dead and we should find out, and besides, everybody at Bascoms’ knew where we had
gone and we had asked half a dozen people the way to Thorpe’s place, so if we bolted we might be in the soup. He took a flashlight and trotted back up the drive with me behind him. I wasn’t brave then either; I trembled all over while I stood watching him kneeling to look at the body. He got up and said it was Ridley Thorpe and he was dead, and went to the phone and called the police. Pretty soon a car came with state troopers and then some others came. They kept us there a long while and then took us to White Plains and put us in separate rooms and asked me questions the rest of the night, and I suppose Uncle Andy too—”

“Did you send for a lawyer?”

“I don’t know any. I don’t think Uncle Andy does either. Why would he know a lawyer?”

“He might. Lots of people know lawyers. Go ahead.”

“That’s all.” Nancy upturned the palms of her nice hands. “They left me alone in the room, and I climbed out a window and hung on the ledge and dropped and went down an alley and phoned and took that car and came here.”

“You left by a window?”

“I had to because the door was locked.”

Fox grunted. “Didn’t you know you had the right to insist on making a phone call?”

“I only wanted to phone to ask if you were here. You were the only person I could think of that might help him and I had to persuade you, and I was afraid I couldn’t on the phone. You see, I haven’t got any money and neither has he. I guess I could scrape up about a hundred dollars and I could borrow—”

“What have you left out?”

“Left out?” She frowned. “You mean about money?”

“I mean facts. What have you left out?”

“Why, nothing. Honestly I haven’t. Didn’t I admit I stole the car?”

“Not the car. The murder. What happened last night and what led up to it. What have you left out about that?”

“Not one thing.” Her lips quivered again for a smile. “You see why I had to come instead of just phoning you? With me here like this looking at you and you looking at me, you can’t possibly think I’m lying about anything. Won’t you—please? It’s all my fault … the whole thing is entirely my fault—”

“Excuse me,” Fox said abruptly, and got up and left her to finish her plea to the air.

Within the screen door was a wide hall with a waxed wooden floor, a stairway, tan wallpaper with gold stripes, pretty bad, and six doors, all of them standing open except two which were for closets. In the room to the left, which was very large and very full of books, chairs, shotguns, tennis rackets, geraniums, guitars, binoculars, parrots and so forth, Fox paused to put his hand on the shoulder of the man with the bee stings, who sat with a drink in his hand watching the homely young man stalk a fly with a swatter.

Fox asked: “Did you put soda on them?”

“No, I—”

“Put soda on them.”

Through the room beyond, which contained a table that could have seated twenty and also chairs for that number, and he was in the kitchen—huge, clean, hot and aromatic. He intercepted Mrs. Trimble on a trip from the range to the sink.

“Well, darling, how goes it?”

A man washing red radishes at the sink snorted. “I’m glad to hear she’s somebody’s darling.”

“I’m sure, Bill, all you did was marry her. I’m free to adore her. I’m going out on business.”

Mrs. Trimble glared at him. “Back for dinner?”

“I’ll try.”

“You won’t. Starve.”

Fox went out the back door and stuck his head around the roses to see Dan Pavey rubbing a chamois over the polish of the black convertible.

“Dan! All right?”

Dan tramped over to him, which seemed a long way to come for the one word he growled: “Right.”

“You left it the other side of the hill?”

“Right.”

“Put things away and get a coat on. We’re going over to White Plains and maybe around a little. On business.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if we took the station—”

“No.”

“Right again.” Dan turned, flipping the chamois, then suddenly turned again and stood hesitant.

“Well?” Fox inquired.

“Nothing. Only I remembered something. I remembered the time that good-looking Bennett woman came here to get you to help her, and after we’d had a talk with her we put her in the car and took her to New York and turned her over to the cops for poisoning her husband.”

Fox shook his head. “It didn’t happen that way. You’ve garbled it. Anyway, this is different. Miss Grant hasn’t poisoned anyone.”

“Thorpe wasn’t poisoned, he was shot. According to the paper.”

“She hasn’t shot any one either. Do you agree?”

“I do.”

“Good. If I change my mind I’ll let you know.”

Fox left him. Re-entering the house, he went upstairs to a large corner apartment which, in addition to the usual furnishings of a bedroom, contained a desk, a safe that reached the ceiling and filing cabinets. Nine minutes later, having washed his face and hands, cleaned his nails, brushed his hair and changed his shirt, tie and suit, he trotted down to the front porch and said to Nancy Grant:

“Come on, let’s go.”

T
he husky heavy man in a blue suit and black shoes with his chair tilted back against the wall was Ben Cook, the White Plains chief of police. The one at the big desk, in tailored grey summer worsted with slick hair and quick eyes was P. L. Derwin, the Westchester County district attorney. The younger one, incongruous in white dinner jacket and black trousers, with tousled hair and bloodshot eyes, was Jeffrey Thorpe; and the impeccably arrayed and arranged young woman with sleepy lids half down was his sister Miranda.

Miranda, whose name was Pemberton and not Thorpe because that was the one vestigial remain of a divorced husband, said: “I couldn’t even offer a guess.”

“Neither could I,” her brother declared. “Luke has been with Father over twenty years, almost ever since I was born. I don’t say he was devoted to him, but—hell, you know. He was square and straight and easy-going, and I would have bet Father had more confidence in him than any one else in the world. Anyway, why would he? He had a good job for life and an easy one. All he had to do was valet, which with Father
was a cinch. He cooked and chauffeured only in that damn’ weekend hideout.”

“It’s ridiculous,” said Miranda.

The district attorney put his fingertips together. “I accept your opinion, of course,” he stated, in the tone of politic patience which an elected person has always in stock for such citizens as bereaved millionaires. “But the fact remains that Luke Wheer has disappeared. If we are to believe Grant and his niece, he went precipitately, in your father’s car, within a few minutes after the shooting, and your father’s pockets had been emptied. No one knows what money or valuables he may have had with him or in the bungalow.”

“Luke never did it,” said Jeffrey Thorpe with conviction and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles.

“Someone did,” Ben Cook rasped and scowled unimpressed at the district attorney’s admonitory glance.

“I doubt it myself.” Derwin was judicious. “I doubt if he—uh—fired the shots, but he may have—uh—taken advantage of the situation. I’m satisfied in my own mind that Grant did the shooting. It’s unfortunate—yes, Bolan?”

The man who had entered reported nasally: “Grant says he’s perfectly willing, sir, but nothing doing on any more questions.”

“I don’t want to ask him any. Bring him in.” The man went and Derwin turned to Miranda. “I dislike asking this of you, Mrs. Pemberton. I know it’s a painful thing—”

“I don’t mind.” She compressed her lips and released them. “I mean it’s all pretty painful. To look at the man who did it won’t make it any worse.”

They all turned their heads as the door opened. The man who entered, ushered in, was near forty, one
side or the other. In spite of looking unwashed, extremely weary and disarranged as to clothing, there was an air of efficacy and distinction about him. Under the circumstances, which he understood, it must have been difficult not to make too much either of defiance or contempt, but his face and attitude displayed only a composed resentment. He walked in nearly up to the desk, stopped and turned to confront the young man, and then wheeled to face the young woman, looking down straight at her.

“I didn’t kill your father,” he said in a voice strained with fatigue. “That’s nonsense. I’m sorry anybody did. I needed to get my job back and he was my only chance of getting it. You look more intelligent than any of these idiots around here. Are you? If you are, for God’s sake tell them to quit bullying me and start looking for the damn murderer. They brought me in here to see if you would recognize me as someone who has been prowling around the basement door. Do you?”

“No.”

“Have you looked at me long enough?”

“Yes, thank you.”

He walked out.

Miranda’s eyes followed him to the door, then her face returned to the district attorney. “I—” She bit it off and compressed her lips.

“Yes, Mrs. Pemberton?”

“I believe him.”

“Rot.” Her brother snorted. “You have no reason to believe him or disbelieve him either. Maybe he’s a good liar. He certainly knows how to look into a girl’s eyes and hand it out, Sis dear.” He looked at Derwin. “But one thing, I’ve never seen him before.”

“Have you, Mrs. Pemberton?”

“No. Never.”

“Why do you say you believe him?”

“I do, that’s all.” She shrugged. “And I think—”

She stopped and he prodded her. “Yes, Mrs. Pemberton?”

“I think you’re going to find things that will make it more painful than it is now. If I didn’t think you’d find them eventually, I wouldn’t say this, but I think you will. I know you have the impression that I’m cold-blooded about my father’s sudden death, but Ridley Thorpe wasn’t much of a father. He was too busy being a financier and a philanthropist and a great man. The fact is that since Mother died, when I was ten years old, my brother and I have been orphans except that we have had our bills paid. But I knew my father a good deal better than he knew me, because I was interested in him—at least I used to be—and he was never interested in me. And what I think you’re going to find out eventually, if a murder is investigated the way it’s supposed to be, is that he didn’t have that bungalow for seclusion with Luke and his thoughts. He had it for—I mustn’t shock you, I suppose—for secret female companionship.”