Rex Stout_Tecumseh Fox 02 Page 3

  After several more phrases, equally unrevealing, she hung up and returned to her chair. Incautiously she met Fox’s gaze, and again the compelling expectancy in his eyes caused her to speak without meaning to.

  “That was the P. & B. vice-president,” she said.

  Fox smiled at her and inquired pleasantly. “About the canceled dates? By the way, what’s wrong with his name?”

  “Nothing that I know of.”

  “I just wondered. You keep calling him the vice-president, but surely you know his name, don’t you?”

  “Certainly. Leonard Cliff.”

  “Thanks. You were saying …”

  “I was going to say that I went to see my uncle.”

  “Today?”

  “Yes, right after lunch. I hated to lose my job, and I decided to tell him the facts and try to persuade him to take the case away from Bonner & Raffray without giving a reason, and turn it over to some other agency. I was going to offer to return to him my pay for the three weeks I had been working on it. It seemed to me that was a fair thing to do. But the minute he saw me he began yelling about how he had told Miss Bonner he didn’t trust me and didn’t want me working on it, and if I had told him what I intended to he would instantly have phoned Miss Bonner about it, which I might have known anyhow if I had used my head. So I got mad and called him an ape, only I said troglodyte, and left.”

  She stopped. Fox prodded her, “Go ahead.”

  “That’s all. I started to walk home, and before I got here I walked into your car.”

  “But you said you’re in a jam.”

  Amy stared. “Well, good heavens, aren’t I?”

  “Not that I can see. Unless you’ve left something out.”

  “Then you must have an exalted idea of a jam,” Amy declared indignantly. “The least that can happen is that I lose my job. That may seem very picayune to you, with your ten-thousand-dollar fees, but it’s darned important to me. And anyway, if I just quit and let it go at that, how about the double-cross they’re putting over on my uncle? I may dislike him, in fact I do, but that’s all the more reason why I don’t want to have a hand in a game to cheat him.”

  “You won’t have a hand in it if you quit your job.”

  “But I don’t want to quit!”

  “I suppose not. And that’s all? That’s the jam you’re in?”

  “Yes.”

  Fox regarded her a moment, and said quietly, “I think you’re lying.”

  She stared, gulped, and demanded, “I’m lying?”

  “I think so.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Oh, well,” she said, and rose to her feet.

  “Now wait a minute.” Fox, otherwise not moving, was smiling up at her. “You’ve asked for some professional courtesy, so you’re going to get it. You may not know you’re lying, or let’s say misrepresenting; it may be only that something is interfering with your mental processes. Some uncontrollable emotion. There are two things wrong with your story. First, your unwarranted assumption that because you saw Miss Bonner talking with the vice-president—there, I caught it from you—she is double-crossing Tingley. There are any number of possible explanations besides that. Second, the obvious thing to do is to tell Miss Bonner that by accident you saw her with Leonard Cliff. Just tell her that, of course without any intimation that you suspect her of skulduggery. She may give an explanation that will completely relieve your conscience. If she doesn’t, you can then decide what to do. Don’t tell me that anyone with eyes as intelligent as yours hasn’t thought of as obvious a step as that.”

  “But I was scared to. I was too afraid of losing my job to do anything—”

  “Oh, no, you weren’t. You did do something drastic. You canceled two dates with Mr. Cliff. What for? In case there was an innocent reason for the Bonner-Cliff conversation, those dates were an important function of the job you don’t want to lose. You were too befuddled to think straight. Befuddled by what? Well, you canceled the dates with Cliff in a fit of pique. When you were describing him to me you faltered and broke a sentence off in the middle. You didn’t want to pronounce his name, and when you did pronounce it because I asked for it, your voice changed. When you talked to him on the phone just now, you turned your back on me, but not enough so that I couldn’t see the color in your cheek. You’re in a jam, I admit that, but in the last twenty centuries there have been billions of girls in the kind of jam you’re in. You have acquired a tender sentiment for Mr. Cliff. Is he married?”

  Amy said, in a small voice, “No.” She sat down and looked at Fox’s dark-red necktie, and after a moment lifted her gaze to meet his eyes. “I deny it,” she said aggressively.

  “Why? Why deny it?”

  “Because it isn’t true.”

  Fox shrugged. “You tricked me,” he declared. “What you need isn’t Tecumseh Fox, it’s Dorothy Dix. I suppose what irks you most is that you were nursing a belief that the P. & B. vice-president was inclined to reciprocate in the matter of sentiment, but if he is secretly in cahoots with Miss Bonner he must know that you are merely doing professional work on him and therefore his own apparent reactions are open to suspicion. Of course on that point I can’t help you any, but I should think your feminine intuition—”

  Amy jumped up and made for the bedroom, not hobbling, and from the inside closed the door.

  Fox sat for five seconds, looking at the door, raised brows widening his eyes. Then he sighed, arose, got his hat from the table, and started for the entrance to the hall. Halfway there he stopped abruptly, wheeled, sailed his hat through the air to an accurate landing in the center of the table, went to the bedroom door and opened it, and entered.

  “About the advice you asked for,” he said brusquely. “I think you ought to go ahead and tell Bonner you saw her with Cliff, and also tell her that you have become infected with a personal attitude toward him which disqualifies you for this assignment. That way you may keep your job.”

  “I am not infected!” said Amy hotly. She stood facing him. “And I assure you I don’t care—his reactions—what do I care whether—”

  “There’s a bell ringing.”

  “I can hear it, thank you.”

  Fox moved aside to give her free passage to the door, which was standing open. She disappeared from his line of vision, but he heard a pause in her footsteps, a sound which he detected as the punching of a latch button, and her footsteps again; and as he saw her recrossing the living room he called, “Do you want me out of here?”

  Amy replied curtly, “Do as you please,” and continued to the door to the hall, which she opened. On the threshold she stood bracing herself, arranging her muscles and preparing her face obviously not in expectation of the laundry boy; but if by any chance what she did expect was the P. & B. vice-president, her preparation for the encounter was in vain. A woman ascended the stairs to her view and came down the hall—a woman of thirty, smart and compact in a handsome tweed suit and a conventionally perky hat, with yellow-brown alert eyes in a rather narrow but attractive face.

  “Oh,” said Amy in a voice unnecessarily loud. “Good afternoon, Miss Bonner.”

  “Hello, Amy.”

  She entered as Amy made gangway, and circled the room with a glance as Amy closed the door.

  “Sit on the sofa,” Amy invited her. “As you have discovered, it’s the only comfortable seat we have.”

  “Thanks,” Miss Bonner, standing, indicated with a nod the hat in the center of the table. “Is there someone here?”

  “Why—oh, the hat.” A swift glance had already told Amy that the bedroom door had been closed, all but a crack. She tried a little bubble of a laugh and it came out very well. “No, that’s just a souvenir.”

  “Instead of a scalp?” Miss Bonner smiled, not warmly, but nevertheless it was a smile. “Not Mr. Dickinson? Or is it?”

  “Oh, no, I haven’t got very far with him.”

  “I suppose not. He’s probably wary.” Miss Bonner sat on the sofa. “I only have a minute. I had t
o go downtown and stopped in. You didn’t phone at three o’clock to report.”

  “No, I—I’m sorry.” Amy sat on the chair. “I didn’t leave Mr. Dickinson until after three, and then I had an errand, and I thought I’d wait till I got home to phone—and on the way here, if you’ll believe it, I actually walked into a car and got knocked down, and that shook me up—”

  “Did you get hurt?”

  “Nothing to speak of. Only a bruised knee.”

  “I like to receive reports on schedule, Amy.”

  “Of course you do. I’m sorry. This is my first offense, Miss Bonner.”

  “I know it is. So I’ll overlook it. I’m taking you off of the Tingley case.”

  “Oh?” Amy gawked at her. “Taking me—” She stopped.

  “Yes. Your uncle phoned this morning and raised cain. Unluckily, his son—it seems he has a son—”

  Amy nodded. “My cousin Phil.”

  “Well, his son saw you at the theater the other evening with Mr. Cliff, and told him about it this morning, and when he phoned me and asked a question I had to answer it. He said he didn’t trust you and spoke slightingly of your moral standards, and so forth, and said he didn’t want you connected with his affairs.” Miss Bonner upturned her palms. “So that’s that, my dear. I must say, in view of your uncle’s manners, I’m not surprised you didn’t get along with him. For the present you can concentrate on Mr. Dickinson. Did you make any progress today?”

  “Nothing worth mentioning. He’s pretty hard to handle.” Amy shifted in her chair. “But I—about the Tingley case—I’m glad you’re taking me off. So that’s all right—but there’s something I wanted to tell you—not that I have any reason to suppose it was connected with the Tingley case, actually—but I just thought I should tell you that I saw you at Rusterman’s Bar Saturday with Mr. Cliff.”

  Miss Bonner’s alert eyes narrowed slightly. “You did?”

  Amy nodded. “I was there with Mr. Dickinson, and I saw you—not that it has any significance, of course, but—”

  “But what?”

  “I thought I ought to tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “Well—I had understood you to say that you didn’t know Mr. Cliff and had never seen him, and I thought—one thing I thought was that perhaps you didn’t know it was him, and I should tell you—”

  “I see,” said Miss Bonner, with ice suddenly in her voice. “I wondered what you were trying to get at on the phone this morning. Thank you for making it clear. You were trying to find out if I knew who I was associating with, so that if I didn’t you could tell me.” The ice in her voice got colder. “Since you thought you ought to tell me, why didn’t you do so?”

  “You mean this morning,” Amy muttered.

  “I mean this morning.”

  “Well, I—I am telling you—”

  “You’re floundering,” Miss Bonner gestured impatiently. “I told you, Amy, when I hired you, that the first requisite in the detective business is completely unadulterated trustworthiness. Most of the things a detective does are necessarily secret and confidential, and an operative whose reliability is in any degree open to suspicion is no longer of any value. I don’t know what you’re hiding from me, but you’re hiding something. I don’t like it. I don’t like it a bit.” She suddenly and energetically arose and pointed at the middle of the table. “And another thing I don’t like is that hat. Souvenir? Souvenir of what?”

  She moved with such unexpected swiftness that Amy merely sat and goggled at her, helpless. Darting to the bedroom door, with a hand extended to push it open, Miss Bonner stopped as abruptly as she had started, when it swung wide just before she reached it and her path was blocked by the solid figure of a man who stood there smiling at her. She fell back a step.

  “Flagrante,” he said. “There’s no doubt of that, but not delicto. How do you do, Miss Bonner. I’ve heard of you.”

  She regarded him from head to foot, and back up again, and then turned her back on him without returning the amenity. She spoke to the youngest member of her siren squad, and the ice had become dry ice:

  “Apparently your uncle knows what he’s talking about. I’ll mail you a check for last week. I’ll hold up the release on your bond until I find out whether you’ve forfeited it or not.”

  “But Miss Bonner!” Amy was pleading. “There’s nothing wrong—if you’ll let me—”

  “Bosh. I find a rival—but no, I won’t flatter myself that Tecumseh Fox would consider himself a rival of Dol Bonner—I find an eminent detective in your apartment, and that alone is enough, without adding that he is concealed in your bedroom while I am discussing my business with you—” She broke off, turned, and smiled sarcastically at the man. “But why do I go on talking, Mr. Fox? Silly, isn’t it?”

  “Fatuous,” Fox agreed, returning the smile. “It’s because you’re mad.” He moved past her, toward the door to the hall. “You’d better walk it off.” He opened the door and politely held it for her. Without another glance at her ex-employee, she walked to it, and passed through, and he closed the door behind her.

  “You might—” Amy stopped to get better control of her voice. Her chin worked, and then she began again, “You might have helped me—you might—instead of shoving her out—”

  Fox shook his head. “Not a chance. I couldn’t deny I’m a detective, and how was I going to explain being here? If I had said my car hit you and I brought you home, I would only have made myself ridiculous. You know that. It’s one of the oldest gags in the business, especially with female operatives. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the way you introduced yourself to Mr. Leonard Cliff. Wasn’t it?”

  Amy stood staring at him, biting her lip, breathing visibly.

  “Wasn’t it?”

  She nodded.

  “So,” Fox nodded back, “it would have gone over big if I had tried to dish that out for her. I did have a tale ready that would probably have done the trick, but I couldn’t trust you for your end. You’re all in pieces. I can’t blame you much, since in Mr. Cliff you seem to have picked on one who puts quinine in people’s food and hoodwinks you by consorting with your boss—”

  “He didn’t—I didn’t—”

  “Consort means merely to associate.”

  Amy threw herself onto the sofa and buried her face in a cushion.

  Fox stood frowning down at her. After a little he turned and strode toward the open doorway to the kitchenette, and in five paces swiftly pivoted his head to the rear; but if he expected to find her peeking he was disappointed. All he did in the kitchenette was drink two glasses of water from the faucet, letting it run a while first; then he returned to the sofa and saw that her shoulders were still making little jerks.

  He spoke to the back of her head. “I’m late for an appointment, Miss Duncan, and I have to go. Your difficulties are pretty complicated. I’m in a slight one myself, because the minute I saw your eyes I fell in love with you, but we can ignore that because I’m doing it all the time. Are you listening?”

  Her “yes” was muffled, but it got to him.

  “Well. Your personal involvement with Mr. Cliff is out of my line, and anyway I am temporarily his rival for your affections. Did you hear the temporarily?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. As for your job, that depends on how good an operative you are. If you’re good, we can probably smooth it over with Miss Bonner after she cools off. We can’t possibly tell her you walked into my car, but I can sound extremely plausible if my heart’s in it, and for the present my heart is yours. However, the real point is that I was born curious. I can’t explain why I have a feeling that whoever put quinine in Tingley’s Titbits was daring me to find it out and prove it, but I have. I used to pretend I could ignore such things, but I can’t. So I’m not going to.”

  He got his hat from the table. “You’ll hear from me. I don’t know when. I’m in the Westchester phone book. So long.”

  Chapter 3

  At eleven o�
��clock the following morning, Tuesday, there were three persons in the dingy anteroom of the Tingley offices on the second floor of the old building on 26th Street: a red-faced youth getting his change and a receipted bill at the cashier’s window, a man in a gray suit waiting on a chair, and another man on another chair looking ferociously patient, with a large sample case on the floor between his feet. The seated men watched the youth pocket his change and leave. Soon afterward a door leading within opened and a man emerged—an erect man of sixty in a conservative and expensive topcoat and dark felt hat to match—and left by the exit to the hall. His appearance seemed to remind the man in the gray suit of something, for he got out a notebook and pencil, wrote in a neat hand, “GJ88 at TT Tues.,” and returned the tools to his pocket.

  Five minutes later noises issued from the aperture of the cashier’s window. The man in the gray suit, deducing that they were intended for him, arose and approached. The old man with rheumy eyes peered through and said:

  “Mr. Tingley is very busy. He wants to know what you want to see him about.”

  The man in the gray suit got out the tools again, tore out a sheet from the notebook and wrote on it, “Quinine,” folded it and handed it through the hole.

  “Send that to him, please.”

  In another three minutes he was invited inside and a woman with a snub nose appeared to conduct him to the room whose door still said THOMAS TINGLEY. He entered, said good morning politely, and told the man seated at the roll-top desk that it was Mr. Arthur Tingley he had asked to see.

  “I’m Arthur Tingley.” The plump but sagging face of the man at the desk looked as harried and exasperated as his voice sounded. He exhibited a slip of paper. “What the devil is this? Who are you?”

  “I sent my name in. Fox. A man by the name of Fox.” The visitor pre-empted a chair that was by the corner of the desk, and smiled pleasantly. “I live up in the country, up near Brewster. Last week I bought some jars of Tingley’s Titbits, and when one of them was opened it tasted bitter. A chemist friend of mine analyzed it for me, and he says it has quinine in it. How do you suppose that happened?”