Rex Stout_Tecumseh Fox 02 Page 5

  She dropped the phone on its cradle, sat there a moment, and then braced her hands on the table and got to her feet. The collar of the gray fur coat was wet against her neck. She got it off and hung it on the back of the chair, but when she put her hands up to remove her hat she staggered, swayed sidewise, crumpled into the sofa, and passed out again.

  The first thing she knew, she smelled something disagreeable and irritating but familiar. Anesthetic? No. Ammonia. But why had she brought ammonia to bed with her? She opened her eyes. There was a man.

  He asked, “Do you know me?”

  “Certainly I do. Tecumseh Fox. But why—” She stirred.

  He put his fingertips on her shoulders. “You’d better lie still. Do you remember phoning me?”

  “Yes—I—”

  “Just a minute. If you turn your eyes you can see Mr. Olson here. He had to let me in, and he needs to know whether I’m friend or enemy.”

  She moved her head, said ouch, and saw the janitor there looking worried. “It’s all right, Eric,” she said. “Mr. Fox is a friend. Thank you.”

  “But you—you look sick, Miss Duncan.”

  “I’ll be all right. Thanks.”

  When the door had closed behind Mr. Olson, Fox got a glass from the table and proffered it. “Here, take a sip of this. Just enough for a spark until I know what floored you. I found it in the kitchen, so it’s on the house.”

  The brandy lit a fire in her. She swallowed the other spoonful and let him take the glass. Her head dropped back to the cushion and a spasm passed over her from top to foot.

  Fox’s voice sounded like a roar to her, though in fact it wasn’t: “Before I used the ammonia I took off your hat and covered your legs and did a little detecting. You’ve been walking in the rain, you left your bag somewhere, you’ve been wiping blood from your hand, not very thoroughly, and someone hit you on the head with something.”

  She made an effort to hold her eyes open, and to speak. The brandy was burning. “How do you know they did?”

  “There’s a lump above your right ear the size of a lemon. Feel it yourself. Who hit you?”

  “I don’t know.” She tried to concentrate. “I didn’t even know I was hit.”

  “Where were you?”

  “In Uncle Arthur’s office. He—he’s dead. He’s there on the floor with his throat cut open—Oh, I—I—”

  “Take it easy,” said Fox sharply. The suggestion of a smile which was more or less continuously at the corners of his mouth had suddenly disappeared. “And keep your head still; we don’t want you passing out again. Did you see your uncle dead on the floor with his throat cut?”

  “Yes.”

  “When you arrived?”

  “No. He wasn’t there when I arrived—I mean I didn’t see him—there was a light in the office and I walked in—I didn’t see anybody or hear anybody—”

  She stopped and Fox said, “Go ahead.”

  “That’s all I know. When I came to and opened my eyes—my hand slipped when I went to lift myself up—and I saw it was blood and Uncle Arthur was there so close—”

  “Just keep your voice calm. Go ahead.”

  “I crawled over to the wall and got a towel and wiped my hand—then I stood up—then when I could walk I went away. I knew something was wrong with my head but I was too dumb to realize what—”

  “Dumb or numb. Did you come straight here?”

  “I walked to an avenue—I think Eighth—and got a taxi.”

  “Did you phone me as soon as you got here?”

  “Yes, right away.”

  “You phoned me at eight forty-two.” Fox calculated. “Then you left there about ten after eight. What time did you get there?”

  “At seven o’clock. Only I was late, maybe ten minutes late. Uncle Arthur phoned and asked me to come at seven, but I was late.”

  “Did you take a taxi?”

  “Yes, it was raining.”

  “You left your bag there?”

  “I must have—in the taxi I didn’t have it.”

  “Why did your uncle ask you to come? What for?”

  “I don’t know. He said he had a problem—he asked it as a favor—a family favor, he said—if you’d give me a little more brandy.”

  He poured a small finger and handed it to her, and waited for it to go down.

  “Did he say what the problem was about?”

  “No.”

  “Did you think it was about the quinine?”

  “I didn’t see how it could be—I don’t remember exactly what I thought.”

  “What time did he phone you?”

  “I don’t—wait, yes I do. I saw I’d have to leave in about an hour, so it was a little before six. Around a quarter to six.”

  “What did you do during that hour?”

  “I went in the bedroom and lay down. I had a headache.”

  “Let me feel your head.”

  She let him. His competent fingertips, inserted through the strands of her brown hair, moved gently over and around the bump over her ear, then, with his eyes on her face, the fingers suddenly pressed firmly, and she winced and grimaced.

  “Did that hurt much?”

  “Well—enough.”

  “Sorry. I think you’ll be all right. Excuse me for rushing things, but there’s a possibility even now—did you make sure your uncle was dead?”

  “Make sure—” She stared.

  “Make sure he wasn’t breathing or his heart beating.”

  “My God.” Her tone was horror. “But he—no—what I saw—”

  “All right. But the jugular had to be reached.” Fox gazed down at her. “Why didn’t you phone the police?”

  “I couldn’t. My head—I wasn’t really conscious of what I was doing until I got outdoors—”

  “I don’t mean there. After you got back here. You knew I was sixty miles away and it would take me an hour and a half to get here. Why didn’t you phone the police?”

  She met his gaze. “Oh,” she said. “I simply don’t know. I guess I was afraid, but I don’t know what I was afraid of. Right after I phoned you I tumbled here on the sofa. If you think—what I’ve told you is exactly the way it was—but if you think—”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Why, I—all I can say is, when I phoned you, it was awful and I was stunned and felt helpless—I don’t know what you can do and of course there’s no reason why you should do anything—”

  Fox suddenly and surprisingly grinned. “Okay. You sound good to me.” He stepped to the table, got out his notebook and found a page, pulled the phone across, and dialed a number. After a moment he spoke:

  “Hello, Clem. ’Tec the Fox alias Fox the ’Tec. Greetings. Come out in the rain, please. No, but a little job that may be important. Come right away to 320 Grove Street apartment of Miss Amy Duncan, two flights up. I won’t be here, but she will. Examine her head. First, attend to her—I’m sure there’s no fracture. Second, determine if you are prepared to swear that she received a blow about three hours ago which knocked her cold. Third, take her to that hospital you try to boss and put her to bed. No, I didn’t. When I hit ladies they land in China. Right away? Good. Many thanks and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Fox shoved the phone back and turned. “So. That’s Doctor Clement Vail and he’ll be here within half an hour. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going. You’ll be in better shape to converse with cops tomorrow than you are tonight. Doctor Vail is handsome and sympathetic, but don’t tell anyone anything until you hear from me, which should be in the morning. This may be rough going, or there may be nothing to it as far as you’re concerned. Even if we wanted to pretend you weren’t there, which is rarely a good idea, we couldn’t, with all your taxi rides and leaving your bag behind. Is there a catch lock on that door at Tingley’s Titbits?”

  “But you—you’re not going there—”

  “Somebody has to. Don’t hold me up. Is the door locked?”

  “No—I think I didn
’t even close it—it’s open—”

  “Good.”

  Fox picked up his coat and hat. Amy stammered:

  “I don’t know what to say—I mean, I had a nerve yesterday to ask you to help me, and now—”

  “Forget it. I love to shine my light. Also, this is my chance to make the P. & B. vice-president no better than a dim and trivial memory. By the way, though you’re minus your purse, apparently you’re not broke. There’s nine dollars and thirty cents on the table.”

  “I had some money here.”

  “Good for you. Remember, no talking until you hear from me. See you tomorrow.”

  He left her. Downstairs he found the janitor, to hand him a dollar and ask him to admit Dr. Vail. It was still raining, but his car was right in front. He had to make three turns to get to Seventh Avenue, where he headed north. If any of his friends or associates had been in the car, they would have felt a tingle of expectation at hearing him strike up the tune of the “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers.” “Lah-de-dah, dumdum, lah-de-dah, dum-dum,” as the Wethersill rolled uptown, with the windshield wiper for a metronome.

  In the neighborhood of the Tingley building the street was completely deserted, desolate in the driving rain. He parked squarely in front of the pedestrian entrance, unlocked the dash compartment and took out a pistol and a flashlight, slipping the former into his pocket and keeping the latter in his hand, and got out and darted across the sidewalk. But what he headed for was the dark tunnel of the cobbled driveway for trucks a little to the right of the entrance. The beam of the flashlight showed him that it was empty throughout its length, past the loading platform to the other end of the premises. He darted out again and up the two stone steps, found the door open as Amy had said, entered the building, and mounted the stairs, not needing the torch because the lights were on. In the anteroom he stood motionless for ten seconds, heard nothing whatever, and proceeded, with no effort to conceal his own noise. The doors were all standing open.

  Two spaces inside Arthur Tingley’s office, just beyond the edge of the burlap screen at his right, he stopped again. Taking Amy’s story as she told it, it must have been just there that she had been struck. Considering the screen, that was all right. He circled the screen and directed his eyes downward.

  A tightening of the muscles around his mouth and a breath intake through his nostrils somewhat quicker and deeper than common were his only visible reactions to what he saw. Though a glance was enough to make it more than probable that Amy had not, in her stunned daze, left her uncle to bleed slowly to death, he stepped around the area of the congealed liquid on the floor to bend over for a brief but conclusive examination. That done, he straightened up for a survey. For three minutes he stood, moving only his head and eyes, filing away a hundred details in the cabinet in his skull. The outstanding items were:

  A bloody towel on the floor by the wash basin, sixteen inches from the wall.

  Another bloody towel on the rim of the basin, to the right.

  A long thin knife with a black composition handle on the floor between the body and the screen. In the factory that morning he had seen girls with similar knives, sharp as razors, slicing meat loaves.

  Also on the floor, between the two front legs of the wash basin, a metal object nearly as big as his fist, in the form of a truncated cone, with a figure 2 in high relief on its side. That too, or its fellow, he had seen in the factory: a two-pound weight of an old-fashioned scale in the sauce room.

  Farther away, out beyond the edge of the screen, a snakeskin bag—a woman’s handbag.

  When he moved, it was to kneel for a close inspection of the knife, without touching it; and the same for the metal weight. It was unnecessary to repeat the performance for the handbag: from his height he could see the chromium monogram, AD, at a corner of it. It, too, he left untouched; in fact, he touched nothing, as he toured the room, but he saw that someone else had touched a great many things, during what had apparently been a thorough search. Two drawers of the rolltop desk were standing open. Objects which, when he was there in the morning, had been neatly and compactly stacked on rows of shelves, were now disarranged and anything but neat. A pile of the trade journal, The National Grocer, had tumbled to chaos on the floor. The door of the enormous old safe was standing wide open. Arthur Tingley’s hat was still on the little shelf above and to the left of the desk, but his coat, instead of being on the hanger which dangled from a hook beneath the shelf, as it should have been, was in a heap on the floor.

  Fox noted these and many other evidences of a search, stood scowling in the middle of the room and muttered, “It’s too damn bad I can’t make a job of it,” and departed.

  It was still raining. Five minutes later, at 11:21 by his watch, he was in a phone booth in a drugstore at 28th and Broadway, speaking in the transmitter:

  “All right, if the inspector isn’t there I’ll tell you about it. May I have your name, please? Sergeant Tepper? Thanks. You’d better write this down. Name: Arthur Tingley. Place: His office on the second floor of his place of business at Twenty-sixth Street and Tenth Avenue. He’s there dead, murdered, throat cut. Let me finish, please. My name is Fox, Tecumseh Fox. That’s right. Tell Inspector Damon I’ll see him tomorrow—hold on and get this, will you?—I’ll see him tomorrow and tell him where Amy Duncan is. Amy Duncan!”

  He cut off loud remonstrances by hanging up, went out to his car and drove to the Hotel Vandermeer and asked the doorman, who greeted him as an old acquaintance, to have the car garaged. Inside the clerk greeted him similarly, but exhibited no surprise when he wrote “William Sherman” on the registration sheet.

  He smiled at the clerk and said, “The police are after me, and they may even canvass the hotels, but I intend to sleep.” He put a fingertip on the “William Sherman.” “You can always trust the written word.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Fox.” The clerk smiled back.

  In a clean and comfortable room on the twelfth floor, Fox got his notebook from his pocket and flipped to a page, and arranged himself at ease in an upholstered chair next to the telephone. He stayed there half an hour, making a series of seven calls. The sixth was to his home in the country, to tell Mrs. Trimble that there would probably be an inquiry for him, and that he wasn’t telling her where he was so she wouldn’t know. The seventh was to the East End hospital, to tell Dr. Vail where he was, and to learn, as he did, that Miss Duncan had no serious injury, had been safely transported, and was fairly comfortable.

  He undressed and went to bed a nudist.

  Chapter 5

  Though the detective bureaus of the New York City police force are by no means staffed exclusively by university graduates—a questionable fate which Scotland Yard in London seems to be headed for—neither does their personnel consist entirely of heavy-handed big-jawed low-brows. Inspector Damon of the Homicide Squad, for instance, while he is rather big-jawed, possesses fine sensitive hands, a wide well-sculptured brow, and eyes which might easily belong to a morose and pessimistic poet. His educated voice is rarely raised but has an extended repertory, as is desirable for a man who deals daily with all kinds from disintegrating dips to bereaved dowagers.

  As he sat behind his desk at headquarters at eleven o’clock on Wednesday morning, speaking to a man seated opposite—a gray-haired man with the four buttons on his coat all buttoned and his hands folded in his lap in the manner traditional to parsons—his voice was merely businesslike:

  “That’s all for now, Mr. Fry, but you will of course keep yourself available. I have told Miss Yates that beginning at noon things can proceed as usual at the Tingley premises, with the exception of Mr. Tingley’s room. We’ll have two men in there day and night, and nothing is to be touched, and certainly not removed, without their approval. I am aware of your authority, jointly with Miss Yates, as a trustee, and we’ll cooperate all we can, but if there are any documents or records in that room—”

  “I told you there’s none I need,” Sol Fry rumbled angrily. “The record
s of my department are where they belong. But I don’t care a Continental—”

  “So you said. That’s all. It will be the way I say for the present—Allen, show Mr. Fry out and bring Fox in.”

  A sergeant in uniform stepped forward to open the door, and after another rumble or two Sol Fry gave it up and went. In a moment Tecumseh Fox entered, crossed briskly to the desk, and stood.

  “Good morning, Inspector,” he said politely.

  Damon grunted. As he sat looking up at the caller his eyes were not only morose but also malign. After a silence he extended a hand.

  “All right, Fox, I’ll shake, but by God. Sit down.”

  Fox sat. “You’re going to find—” he began, but the other cut him off:

  “No, no. Try keeping quiet once. I’m going to make a short speech. Do I ever bluster?”

  “I’ve never heard you.”

  “You’re not going to. Nor do I get nasty unnecessarily. But here is a statement of the minimum: you and Miss Duncan together held up a murder investigation twelve hours. It’s true you phoned last night, but you concealed the vital witness, the one to start with, and kept her from us until morning. What you do around other parts of the country is none of my business, but I warned you three years ago against operating in New York City on the theory that when you’re running bases the umpires go out for a drink. Have you seen the district attorney?”

  Fox nodded. “I just came from there. He’s as sore as a finger caught in a door.”

  “So am I. I think you’re through in Manhattan.”

  “I’d call that bluster. Quiet bluster.”

  “I don’t care what you call it.”

  “Have you finished your speech? I’d like to make one too.”

  “Go ahead, but make it brief.”