Rex Stout_Tecumseh Fox 02 Page 6

“I will. At 8:42 in the evening I get a call from Miss Duncan asking me to come to her apartment. I arrive at 10:10 and find her unconscious with a lump on her skull. I revive her, question her, and phone for a doctor, telling him to take her to a hospital if that’s where she ought to be. Thinking that Tingley may be lying in his office bleeding to death, I get there as quick as I can and find that he is dead and has been for a while. I notify the police at once. I phone the hospital and learn that Miss Duncan got a severe blow, is resting, and should not be disturbed. Early in the morning I go to the hospital, find that she is in good enough shape to talk, inform the police of her whereabouts—”

  “And when I get there,” Damon cut in dryly, “I find her surrounded by Nat Collins.”

  “Certainly. She had got knocked stiff alongside a murdered man she wasn’t on good terms with. Do you take the position that you object to her having a lawyer? I shouldn’t think so. To finish my speech, I then had a hasty breakfast and arrived at police headquarters at eight A.M., which is bright and early to be running bases. In your absence, I made a complete statement which was taken down by your subordinate, went by request to the district attorney’s office, got your message to return here at eleven, and here I am. On that performance you can fence me out of New York? Try it.”

  “You kept vital information from us for twelve hours. At least eight hours. And maybe something worse. Why all the telephoning?”

  “You mean last night?”

  “Yes. Half the people we’ve talked to—”

  “Five, Inspector. Only five. That couldn’t possibly have done any harm. I merely told them that I wanted to make sure they would be at work at Tingley’s this morning, as I wanted to talk with them again. I thought one of them might betray some interesting reaction.”

  “Did they?”

  “No.”

  “Why did you pick on those five?”

  “Because they were the five people who could most easily have put quinine in the mixing vats, and I was exploring the theory that Tingley had discovered the guilty one and got murdered as a result.”

  Damon grunted. “Is your theory based on facts?”

  “No, sir, only possibilities. All the facts I possess are in that statement you have.”

  “You’d like to believe that the motive for murder was in that quinine business.”

  “Like to?” Fox’s brows lifted. “It would be nice if a detective could choose a motive the way he does a pair of socks.”

  “But you’d like to believe that, because it would let Miss Duncan out.”

  “Now, come.” Fox grinned. “She’s already out.”

  “Do you think so? Then why Nat Collins? Who paid for the phone calls you made last night? Who are you working for? And how did a set of her fingerprints, in exactly the right position, get on the handle of the knife that cut Tingley’s throat?”

  Fox frowned, leaned forward, focused his gaze, and demanded, “Huh?”

  “They’re there,” said Damon succinctly. “We got plenty of hers from that leather bag which you had sense enough to leave where it was. I have asked her about it, in the presence of her lawyer, and she denies having touched the knife. Her explanation, of course, is that while she was unconscious her hand was used to make the impressions. Yours too, I suppose.”

  “You’re stringing me, Inspector.”

  “No. I’m not. The prints were there.”

  “Have you arrested her?”

  “No. But if we get a motive that will carry the load—”

  Fox continued to gaze, his brows drawing together, then leaned back in his chair. “Well,” he said, in an entirely new tone, “that’s different. I knew you don’t like anyone getting under your feet on a murder case, and I had decided not to annoy you on this one, thinking Nat Collins was all and more than Miss Duncan would need to make it as little unpleasant as possible. I had supposed that she had walked in there at a bad moment, and the murderer had conked her merely to get away. But now—”

  “Now?” Damon prompted.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to be a nuisance after all. Of all the snide tricks.” Fox abruptly rose to his feet. “Are you through with me?”

  “About. For the present. I wanted to ask if you have anything to add to this statement. Anything at all.”

  “No. You think I know something, but you’re wrong.”

  “Why do you say I think you know something?”

  “Because you told me about those prints, thinking you might open a seam. But you’re wrong. I’m starting from scratch. With your squad working on it already twelve hours, you know a devil of a lot more than I do. One of the things you know, I’d appreciate it very much if you’d tell me. Were Miss Duncan’s prints on the two-pound weight?”

  “No. Why should they be?”

  “Because Tingley had been struck with it on the back of his skull.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I felt the place. The body was the only thing I touched. He was struck harder and in a more vulnerable spot than Miss Duncan, and I think there was a fracture. I doubt if I’m being helpful, but I’ll finish. He was unconscious from the blow when his throat was cut. It would be next to impossible to slit a man’s throat with a single clean deep stroke like that when he was on his feet and had his faculties. So—if you’re nursing the fantasy that Miss Duncan did it—first she used the two-pound weight on him, and then the knife, and then she bopped herself on the side of the head with the weight. When she came to, she carefully wiped the weight clean but ignored the handle of the knife—”

  The door opened to admit a uniformed policeman, who spoke to the inspector’s inquiring eye:

  “Phillip Tingley is here, sir.”

  “All right, one second.” Damon regarded Fox gloomily. “You say you’re going to be a nuisance. You know the rules, and you know you were out of bounds last night. I’m not forgetting that. You say you touched nothing in that room, but you went there alone before notifying us, and someone searched the place for something. You? I don’t know. Did Miss Duncan send you there for something and you got it? I don’t know. Did you learn something that you’re not telling about that quinine business when you were there yesterday? I don’t know. Where do I find you when I want you?”

  “Home or Nat Collins’s office.” Fox added, turning to go, “Good luck, Inspector,” and tramped out.

  In an outer room where people were seated on a row of chairs against the wall, he stopped to tie a shoestring, and saw, from the corner of his eye, the policeman who had followed him out beckon to a bony-faced young man with brooding deep-set eyes. Having thus caught a glimpse of Philip Tingley for possible future needs, he proceeded to the corridor and the elevators.

  On the second floor of the Tingley building on 26th Street, Sol Fry and G. Yates sat at a little table in the sauce room making a desultory lunch of Spiced Anchovies Number 34, potato chips, lettuce with dressing, and milk. They had done that for over thirty years, and Arthur Tingley had often eaten with them, as had his father before him.

  “I don’t think so,” Sol Fry rumbled aggressively. “It’s a black mystery and that’s not at the bottom of it.”

  “You’re wrong as usual,” declared Miss Yates, with an equal aggressiveness in her unexpected soprano. “T. T. has had its ups and downs, like any other business, but there has never been anything disastrous, no real catastrophe, until this abominable quinine thing. And you’ll find this was part of it. It ended in murder.”

  That too was following a hoary tradition, for Mr. Fry and Miss Yates had never been known to agree about anything whatever. The most frequent cause of dispute was the question of where the production department ended and the sales department began, or vice versa, but anything would do, and had, for a third of a century, done. Today, if they were to talk at all, the topic could not very well be anything but the tragedy that had put Tingley’s Titbits in every news broadcast and on the front page of every paper, but that necessity was without effect on the tr
adition. So they continued to argue until, as Mr. Fry was taking the last potato chip, a voice suddenly startled them:

  “How do you do. Lord, it smells good in here.”

  Fry grunted belligerently. Miss Yates demanded, “Where did you come from?”

  “I’ve been wandering around.” Tecumseh Fox approached sniffing, his hat in his hand. “Never smelled such a smell. Don’t let me interrupt your lunch. Not to annoy the cop out front, I came in at the delivery entrance and up the back way.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Information. Cooperation.” Fox pulled an envelope from his pocket, extracted a sheet of paper, and handed it to Miss Yates. She took it and read it:

  To anyone not unfriendly to me:

  This is my friend, Tecumseh

  Fox who is trying to help me by

  discovering the truth.

  Amy Duncan

  She passed it across to Fry and surveyed Fox with a noncommittal stare. “So,” she observed, “it was Amy that sent you here yesterday.”

  “In a way, yes.” Fox pulled a third chair closer and sat down. “Her, plus my impertinent curiosity. But I’m no longer curious about the quinine, unless it appears that there’s some connection between that and Tingley’s death.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Fry.

  “I do,” said Miss Yates. “Why does Amy need your help?”

  “Because of the circumstances, which the police regard as suspicious. She was there—she discovered the body—”

  “Nonsense. Anyone who thinks Amy Duncan could have murdered her uncle—what motive did she have?”

  “That’s the question they’re asking—beyond the fact that she didn’t like him and had quarreled with him. But also, her fingerprints were on the handle of the knife that cut his throat.”

  They both stared. Sol Fry said, “My heavens!” Miss Yates snorted, “Who said so?”

  “Oh, they’re there all right,” Fox asserted. “That’s well outside the limits of police technique in a case like this. Of course they’re aware that there’s more than one way the prints could have got there, but it goes to explain why Miss Duncan needs a little help. Will you folks tell me a few things?”

  “There’s nothing I can tell you,” Fry declared. “This thing is a black mystery.”

  “We’ll brighten it up a bit,” Fox smiled at him, “before we’re through with it. Of course you’ve already told the police where you were yesterday from 5:45 to 8:15 P.M.”

  “I have.”

  “Would you mind telling me?”

  “I mind it, yes, because I mind everything about it, but I’ll tell you. I left here a few minutes after five and went to 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue to look at a radio I had seen advertised. I listened to it an hour and didn’t like it. Then I walked to the 23rd Street ferry and crossed the river to my home in Jersey City. I got home about a quarter to eight and ate supper alone because my wife is an invalid and had already had hers. I went to bed at ten o’clock and had been asleep nearly two hours when you telephoned—”

  “I’m sorry I woke you up, Mr. Fry. I apologize. I should think the tube would be much faster than the ferry.”

  “The police do too,” Fry growled. “And I don’t care what you think any more than I do what they think. I’ve been taking the ferry for forty-five years and it’s fast enough for me.”

  “That’s the Tingley spirit, all right,” Fox agreed. He turned. “You don’t have to monkey with ferries, do you, Miss Yates?”

  She ignored the pleasantry. Having glanced at the clock, “It’s five minutes to one,” she stated, “and we’re going to start three mixers.”

  Fox looked surprised. “Today?”

  She nodded shortly. “Customers want their orders filled and people want to eat. Arthur would expect it. I told you yesterday, there hasn’t been an order go out of here a day late since I was put in charge twenty-six years ago.” Her voice had the timbre of pride. “If Arthur—” She stopped, and after a moment went on. “If he could send a message, I know what it would be. Stir the vats, pack the jars, fill the orders.”

  “Is that a sort of slogan?”

  Sol Fry abruptly pushed back his chair, arose, rumbled, “I’ll keep an eye on it,” and marched out.

  Miss Yates was on her feet.

  “This is pretty urgent, you know,” Fox remonstrated. “Miss Duncan is in a hole, and it may be a deep one, and time is important. If the quinine business furnished the motive for the murder, as you think, it’s all over now. Can’t you trust Mr. Fry? Do you have an idea he supplied the quinine?”

  “Him?” Miss Yates was contemptuous. “He would as soon put arsenic in his own soup as quinine in a Tingley jar. He may be a doddering old fool, but the only life he lives is here. That’s as true of him as it is of me.” She sat down, leveled her dark eyes at him, and said tersely, “I usually leave here at six o’clock. Arthur Tingley was always the last one out. Yesterday as I was leaving he called me into his office, as he has frequently done since this trouble started. He said sales had fallen off nearly one fourth, and if it kept up he didn’t see what could be done except to let P. & B. have it at their price. I said it was a shame and a crime if we couldn’t protect our produce from ruination by a bunch of crooks. All he wanted was bucking up, and I bucked him up. I left at a quarter after six and went home to my apartment on 23rd Street, only seven minutes’ walk from here. I took off my hat and coat and rubbers and put my umbrella in the bathtub to drain—”

  “Thank you, Miss Yates, but I didn’t ask for—”

  “Very well. The police did,” she said grimly, “and I thought you might like to know what they do. Usually I have dinner at Bellino’s on 23rd Street, but it was raining and I was tired and dispirited, and I went home and ate sardines and cheese. At eight o’clock a friend of mine, Miss Cynthia Harley, came to play cribbage, which we do Tuesdays and Fridays, and stayed until half past ten. What else do you want me to tell you?”

  “Cribbage?”

  Her brows lifted. “Is anything wrong with cribbage?”

  “Not at all.” Fox smiled at her. “Only I am impressed at the pervasiveness of the Tingley spirit. Tell me, Miss Yates, who in this place dislikes Miss Duncan?”

  “No one does that I know of, except Arthur Tingley. He did.”

  “The quarrel, I believe, when she left here, was about an employee who got into trouble and Tingley fired her.”

  Miss Yates nodded. “That was the final quarrel. They never did get along. For one thing, Amy was always standing up for Phil.”

  “His son Phil?”

  “His adopted son. Phil’s not a Tingley.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know that. Adopted recently?”

  “No. Twenty-four years ago, when he was four years old.” Miss Yates stirred impatiently. “Are you expecting to help Amy by questions like this?”

  “I don’t know. I would like as much of the background as you’ll take time to give me. Wasn’t Tingley married?”

  “Yes. But his wife died in childbirth and a year later he adopted Phil.”

  “Do you know who Phil’s parents were?”

  “No, but I know he came from some home up in the country somewhere.”

  “You said Miss Duncan was always standing up for him. Did he need standing up for?”

  Miss Yates snorted. “He not only did, he does, and he always will. He’s not a Tingley. He’s an anarchist.”

  “Really? I thought anarchists were extinct. You don’t mean he throws bombs, do you?”

  “I mean,” said Miss Yates in a tone that excluded levity, “that he condemns the social and economic structure. He disapproves of the kind of money we have. Because he was an adopted son, Arthur kept him on the payroll and let him have a drawing account of forty dollars a week which he never half earned. He was in Mr. Fry’s department, with a territory in Brooklyn, mostly neighborhood stores and delicatessen shops. Why I said Amy was always standing up for him, Arthur kept jumping on him once or twice a w
eek, and Amy kept saying there was no sense in it because Phil was what he was and yelling at him wouldn’t help any. I suppose she was right, but Arthur was what he was too.”

  “I see,” Fox screwed up his lips and looked thoughtful. “Do you know whether Tingley’s disapproval of his adopted son led to any step as drastic as disinheritance? Do you know anything about his will?”

  “I know all about it.”

  “You do? Will you tell me?”

  “Certainly.” Miss Yates was plainly desirous of erecting no needless obstructions to an early conclusion of this interview which was keeping her from the mixing vats. “The police know it, so why shouldn’t you? I don’t mind saying that some of us here were worried about what might happen in case of Arthur’s death. Especially Mr. Fry and me. We knew Arthur had had the idea handed down to him of keeping the business exclusively Tingley, and that was why he adopted a son when his wife died and he vowed not to marry again. And we knew if it went to Phil, with the notions he had, there was no telling what would happen. But this morning, Mr. Austin, the attorney, told us about the will. It leaves everything to Phil, but takes control out of his hands by setting up a trust. Mr. Austin and Mr. Fry and I are the trustees. If Phil is married and has a child, it goes to the child at the age of twenty-one.”

  Fox grunted. “That’s reaching into the future, all right. Did Phil know about the will?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you or Mr. Fry?”

  “I said we didn’t. Not till this morning.”

  “So you and Mr. Fry, with Austin as a minority of one, are now in complete control of the business.”

  “Yes.”

  “All phases of it, including such details as salaries and emoluments—”

  “That,” said Miss Yates curtly, cutting him off, “I don’t have to listen to, however willing I may be to help you get Amy out of trouble. I had to take it from the police, but not from you. Mr. Fry and I each get nine thousand dollars a year, and we’re satisfied with it. He has put two sons and a daughter through college and I have over a hundred thousand dollars in government bonds and real estate. Neither of us cut Arthur Tingley’s throat to get a raise in salary.”