Rex Stout (22 page)

She saw in the mirror that the pursuer was stopping too, fifty yards back. That was worse than impertinent, it was insolent. With the top of the roadster down, all she had to do to get a good look was twist from under the wheel and kneel on the seat, which she did. A highway light was so placed that she couldn’t make out who was in the car, through the windshield, but the licence plate did show TZ9205 or something very like it. With a
mutter of impatience she moved, thinking to get out and walk back, but with her hand on the door lever she stopped, arrested by a sudden little chill of fear. Even on that main highway, with cars roaring by in both directions, it was quite possible, if a man was sufficiently desperate and determined.

She scrambled back behind the wheel, put the gear in, and started off. In the mirror she saw that the other car started too. All right, to the devil with him. Her speedometer went to fifty. Let him play tag if he wanted to and see what good it would do him. Fifty-five. Sixty. On a curve her tyres whined, and she eased up a little. She realised that she had gone to sixty not by deliberate decision, but because the little chill of fear had spread through her blood almost to the indignity of panic, and that infuriated her. What the devil was there to be afraid of? Well—even on the lighted Post Road there were short stretches flanked by woods—and even where the lights were bright, after all, she was in an open car—and a shot, coming from behind, into the back of her head, as she whirled along at sixty miles an hour—and she realised that her teeth were clamped tight, her jaw rigid, as she gripped the steering wheel—

It was intolerable. So as she entered the thickening of habitations which was Larchmont she slowed down to thirty, and two minutes later, arriving at the array of lights from a cluster of filling stations, she slowed still more, rolled on by a short piece, and stopped. When a glance in the mirror showed her that the follower had likewise stopped, the same distance behind as previously, she pushed the gear to reverse and started to back. Back she went, smoothly, alongside the curb, her head turned, her left hand controlling the wheel, until her rear bumper gently kissed the front bumper of
TZ9205; then she stopped, pulled the gear to neutral, pulled the hand brake, and switched off the ignition.

A door of TZ9205 was flung open, and she sat motionless, with her head turned again, and stared as Amory Buysse and Woodrow Wilson clambered out and approached her.

“Well!” she said, and breathed deep. “What the dickens do you mean by following me like this?”

The Indian was stretching his wrinkled neck to peer at her from behind his companion’s shoulder. Buysse, at the running board, towered above her and had to look down. He said calmly, “We thought we ought to have a talk with you. Right away.”

“Did you have to sneak along behind me?”

“I wouldn’t say we were sneaking exactly. We just wanted to have a talk with you to-night, and we didn’t like to stop you—out on the road like this—”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Well—” Buysse lifted a foot to the running-board and crossed his forearms along the rim of the door. “For one thing, we’d like to ask a few questions about Mr. Guy Carew. Also it might help for you to explain exactly what the hell you were up to there at Barth’s place tonight.”

“What about Mr. Carew?”

“He’s in jail. Arrested for murder.”

“I know he is.”

“Sure you do. You ought to, you put him there. Who did you calculate you was helping out by telling the cops about his jacket and the yarn and so on?”

“Why, I …” Jean was gaping. “I didn’t—”

“Somebody did, and you was there. That’s one question. The next one might be, is it Wilson here or is it me you’re trying to frame for cracking you on the head? You see, ma’am, I’m slow but I’m not crazy. I realise that if
they get Guy for the murder, they’ve got to get someone else for the attack on you Thursday, because he couldn’t have done that. After we signed those papers at the dinner table there was some talk about where everyone was. Guy was out of that. We might as well get this settled first, who is it you’re trying to frame for it? Wilson or me?”

Jean found speech. “You’re crazy. You say you’re not, but you certainly are. You’ve got everything wrong side up.”

“Such as?”

“Everything. I didn’t tell the police about the jacket and the yarn.”

“Somebody did.”

“Certainly. Guy did himself. I was there. They had kept me all night, trying to make me tell, and I wouldn’t, and Guy came and told them himself so they would let me go. Also he told them it wasn’t true that Portia Tritt had been in his room all the time, and that made his alibi no good, and that was why they arrested him. They didn’t put that in the paper. I only tell you because I have—”

“Back up a minute.” Buysse was scowling at her. “You say he shed the Tritt alibi? Guy did?”

“Yes. She had lied about it—”

“But he did too. Guy’s not a liar.”

“No, but he thought that way he could find out—he was being clever.”

“He’s not clever either.”

“Certainly he isn’t, but he thought he was. I only tell you about it because I have to tell someone. I’m glad you followed me and I’m glad I stopped. I have to have help. Guy’s lawyer is no good, he even thinks Guy is guilty, and he wants me to run away so they can’t make me testify about the yarn. I don’t even know anything about
you, except what I can see in your face, and up to an hour ago I even thought it might have been you who killed Guy’s father and knocked me on the head. Now I know it wasn’t.”

“That’s something. How do you know it wasn’t?”

“Because I know who it was. I knew by the way he looked at me to-night when the whip-poor-will sounded. That may sound silly to you, but I am positive as if I had seen him do it.”

“Maybe—” Buysse’s voice was silky. “Maybe you’re going to say it was Wilson here.”

“No. It was Leo Kranz.”

A grunt came from the Indian. Buysse peered in silence at Jean. She said, “I know it was. I’m absolutely sure. But how am I going to prove it? How is any one going to prove it?”

Wilson grunted again. Buysse finally took a deep breath. He said, “It might be. Kranz. It might be. But you can’t prove it by having a man make a noise like a whip-poor-will, not even to me.”

Jean blurted, exasperated, “Damn it, I don’t want to prove it to you! If you’re a real friend of Guy’s you shouldn’t be asking for proof, you should be helping to find it! That’s what I was doing when I went to Barth’s to-night, and now I don’t know what to do next.”

“Well, I told you I’m slow. I’m willing to believe you without proof, but that don’t get Guy out of jail. I’m no cleverer than he is, never have been, but you seem to tend that way. If you’ve got any ideas I can help with—”

“I don’t know.” Jean frowned at him. “I had one, and I’ve used it up. But it isn’t possible for a man to do a thing, actually commit a murder, and leave no way of proving it—is it? There are so many things—of course not the weapon, because it was there in the tomb. And no fingerprints, because he wore gloves. And if no one
saw him on his way to the tomb or coming back—but there must be something. For instance, the jacket. He must have worn Guy’s jacket. He could have got it from the closet in the hall without being seen, but what did he do with it afterwards? He couldn’t have returned it to the closet, or the police would have found it; after the yarn was found in Val Carew’s hand they searched everywhere for bayeta, so it couldn’t have been in the house. And if Kranz hid it somewhere, where did he hide it and why? And how did he get it into Guy’s room the afternoon I was there and Guy gave it to me? He wasn’t there that day. You see, Mr. Buysse? There’s an idea, even if it’s nothing wonderful. Where was the jacket from the morning of the murder until the day Guy gave it to me?”

“I had it.”

Jean stared, and Buysse jerked around to stare with her, at the Indian.

He, in the light from the filling station glare, looked imperturbable.

Buysse demanded, “You had what? None of your damned tricks, now.”

“Me?” Wilson grunted. “No tricks. I had the young one’s jacket.”

“You had it when?”

“All that time. Like she say.”

“Where did you get it?”

“It was by me. When my life came to my head that morning. When my life came back I work to get free, first my hands then my mouth then my feet. Then I look around, I see the young one’s jacket on the grass under the hedge. Then I see the door open, I go and look, I see Tsianina’s man dead. That look good, now he not marry other woman. I go get jacket and shake head at it, I think Tsianina’s son big damn fool, after he kill Tsianina’s
man he leave jacket where any one can find. Maybe not damn fool, may be take off jacket when he tie me, then forget so happy when kill Tsianina’s man. Leave jacket by so happy forgetting, not by damn fool. I have many cache where I keep things, no one can find. I put jacket in cache, go to house to see young one. Other woman there. He not act big surprise, damn fool again. He send me go tell you—”

“You damn jackass!” Buysse blurted. “All the time you’ve been sure Guy did it, and I’ve been sure you did it! Is this the truth?”

The Indian shrugged. “Now this woman say Kranz kill Tsianina’s man. Good trick. Young one in jail, get him out. Get him out, put Kranz in, everything okay.”

“Where did you cache the jacket?”

Wilson grunted. “Maybe show you.”

“You bet you will. Did you take it to Guy’s room the day he found it there?”

“Me? Sure.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Think may be young one worried where jacket. Me not thief, me not keep anyway. Good day come, take it from cache, take to his room.”

“Is this the truth, Wilson?”

“Plenty truth, my friend Buysse. Plenty.”

Buysse eyed him a moment in silence, then turned to Jean. “I think it’s the truth. I’ve known him thirty years.”

“You see!” Jean put a hand on his arm. “What did I tell you? There’s bound to be proof, if only somebody will find it!”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call that proof that Kranz murdered Val Carew—”

“No, but it helps to prove that Guy didn’t! Would he have put his own jacket under the hedge and left it
there? And if he had, wouldn’t he have asked Wilson later what he had done with it? Wouldn’t any one realise that if he had done the murder and left the jacket under the hedge, then when he found it that day in his room—” Jean stopped with a frown. After a little she went on, “No, that wouldn’t fit. It’s too complicated for me, at least the way my head is now. I’m about half dead. But what are we going to do about this jacket business and Wilson? Who are we going to tell?”

Buysse slowly shook his head. “Got me. Up to twenty minutes ago I was giving odds that it was Wilson that killed Val, and for a plugged nickel I’d have broke his back for it, but I wouldn’t have liked to see the cops get him, and no more would I now. And while this whip-poor-will story of yours is good and fancy—”

“It is not fancy! It’s absolute fact. And someone has to be told about Wilson and the jacket, but who? Do you know Orlik, Guy’s lawyer?”

“I’ve met him. Got grease in his brains. He made them turn Wilson loose at White Plains.”

“I don’t care if he did, I don’t like him. He wanted me to run away, and anyhow, he thinks Guy is guilty, so he’s no good.” Jean’s frown deepened. “I know another lawyer, but he wouldn’t like—I mean, I know him personally.” She stopped in perplexity. “It’s utterly ridiculous, we’ve found this out, and what can we do with it? Unless we tell Inspector Cramer.” She nodded. “I believe that’s it.”

Buysse objected, “He’d only lock Wilson up again.”

“No, he wouldn’t. Not
only
that. I may be naïve, and I’ve never hated any one as I hated him last night, but I believe that what he wants is the truth and he’ll work to get it. That’s the thing to do, I’m sure it is. We’ll go to him together in the morning, and take Wilson.”

But Buysse balked, and proved to be stubborn. He
had various objections, and Jean tried to overcome them. They argued back and forth, with Buysse still unconvinced, and he was finally coerced to reluctant agreement by Jean’s ultimatum that she would herself see Cramer in any event, and if she did that Buysse and Wilson would certainly be sent for.

She asked Wilson if he would accompany them, and he responded with a grunt which was interpreted by Buysse as an affirmative. It was settled that the two men would call at her apartment at ten o’clock in the morning, Sunday, and they would proceed en masse; Jean gave Buysse her address.

Buysse took his foot from the running-board, but turned back to her to observe, “Look here, ma’am, something I think I ought to mention. You’ve really got it cinched in your mind that Kranz murdered Val Carew. That right?”

“Yes. I know he did.”

“That’s going pretty strong. There wasn’t any whip-poor-wills in that tomb.” Buysse shrugged. “Anyhow, you got a little excited up at Barth’s to-night and told him to his face that you knew it was him that cracked you on the head. If it was him that killed Val, he’ll figure that you feel the same way sure about that, and being a murderer he’ll imagine maybe that you know more than you do, and he might get himself worked up. What kind of a place do you live in?”

“Why—a flat. A walk-up. I told you the address.”

“Any men around?”

“In my flat? Certainly not.”

“Are you all alone there?”

“At night, yes.”

“Well, I don’t think you ought to be to-night. You told Kranz right down his throat that you know he’s a murderer and you expect to prove it. For instance, I don’t
think you ought to leave your car in a garage and then go home alone. Wilson and I would be glad to trail along—”

“Nonsense. I’m not afraid. Nothing will happen.”

“Really, ma’am, I don’t want to—”

“No, thanks very much, it isn’t necessary.”

She won that argument too, and three minutes later had said good-night and was headed south along the Post Road.

She nearly fell asleep in the bathtub. It was well after midnight. The chicken salad which Oletha had left for her in the refrigerator, and the blueberry pie in the oven, had been attacked with ferocity, and had been followed by two cups of tea. The temptation was almost irresistible to fall on to the bed with her clothes on and let blessed sleep take her, but the thought of warm water caressing her skin was seductive too, and she dragged herself to the faucet and turned it on. She would lie there for ten minutes and consider the project of the morning; often while in the bathtub she had got excellent ideas for designs; it seemed to loosen her brain. But it didn’t work; instead, she found herself trying to see Guy in jail, the kind of room he was in, what he was sleeping on, if he wasn’t sleeping what he was thinking about; then she was dreaming about an enormous door which kept opening and shutting and every time it opened a whip-poor-will flew out; and then she was dreaming that she had fallen into a lake of warm milk and someone was pulling her down by the feet and trying to make her swallow the milk….