Rex Stout (5 page)

The third presently arrived, following the white-jacketed Ferguson, and accompanied by the individual. They were so obviously outlanders, from the standpoint of a New York fashion group, that curious glances met them as they passed the crowd. The one immediately behind Ferguson was an inch over six feet, with a square jaw and a mane of wavy grey, almost white, hair; and he had to cut his stride not to step on his guide’s heels. He wore unpressed gabardine pants which were too short for him, a pink shirt, a buckskin vest with rows of brightly coloured beads on it, and, in lieu of a necktie, a bandanna neckerchief which either an old cowhand or a débutante who had spent a month on a dude ranch would have called a tough rag. No coat and no hat. The individual trotting in his rear was less spectacular, but in his way fully as notable. Between sixty and ninety was as close a guess as could be made; the dark skin of his face was deeply seamed and ridged, and the cheekbones jutted up like hames; his eyes were black slits, hardly perceptible under the down-turned brim of his immaculate Panama hat; and his natty youthful Palm Beach suit, shaped at the waist, and blue linen shirt and red four-in-hand, were completely shocking when you saw his wrinkled old face.

But they were both quite self-possessed, obviously innocent of any consciousness of incongruity, as they stopped in front of Mrs. Barth. The six-footer with the tough rag sent a slow glance around from face to face and then settled on Mrs. Barth. His voice was as soft and unobtrusive as the footfall of a wildcat.

“Howdo, everybody. I just wanted to speak with you,
Mrs. Barth. But these …” He repeated the slow glance around.

“How do you do, Mr. Buysse.” It was Melville Barth’s greeting, not especially warm. “If what you want to talk about is that Lucky Hills business—though I can’t imagine why you should want to speak with my wife about that—won’t I do? My wife doesn’t like to discuss it for two reasons: she knows nothing whatever about it, and any mention of it upsets her, because it was—unpleasant.”

“Yes.” Buysse looked at him. “It sure was unpleasant. But I’m afraid you won’t do, Mr. Barth. I’d like to have a little talk with your wife without so many folks around. I didn’t know that waiter was bringing me out to a party like this, or I’d have stayed on the terrace. Maybe you’d go back there with me, ma’am? Or somewhere—”

“Nonsense.” Barth was sharper. “My wife knows nothing about it. Even if she did, why should she discuss it with you? After all, Mr. Buysse, you were merely there, in the house—as we all were.”

The six-footer nodded. “Sure, I was there. You mean I was just one of the bunch and the police are as interested in me as in any of you.” His square jaw tightened all but imperceptibly, then relaxed again, and there was no change in his soft voice. “I know all that. I may be no different to the law, but to myself I’m plenty differnt. I don’t want to bore you folks, but I wonder if you all know that I was a friend of Val Carew’s more than thirty years ago out West? I didn’t have either his luck or his brains. I used to paint pictures of Indians, but they were rotten pictures. In 1920, when Val decided to use a million out of his pile for setting up an Indian museum, he went to a lot of trouble to look me up and put me in charge of it. If it hadn’t been for Val Carew, do you know
what I’d be doing now? Neither do I. Anyhow I set to work, and people like Bella Weitzner consider me an authority on Indian cultures in all areas except caribou and guanaco, and if you don’t think Val and I made a good museum, go and take a look at it. So as I say, where anything connected with Val Carew is concerned, in his life or in his death, I consider myself plenty different from any one else in these parts. And a month has gone by since he was murdered—four weeks yesterday—and if anybody has noticed the dirty coyote who did it having a trap sprung on him would they please point it out to me. That’s why I think a little action won’t hurt, and that’s why I regard it as a proper step for me to request a little talk with Mrs. Barth.”

Leo Kranz looked alert and interested, but sceptical. Jean Farris was staring fascinated at the combination of the bandanna tough rag and the beadwork on the buckskin vest. Mrs. Barth sat with her lips compressed and her gaze directed at her husband.

Her husband appeared unimpressed. He repeated impatiently, “Nonsense. I tell you she knows nothing about it. What the devil do you want to talk about? What can she tell you?”

Buysse looked at him. “Maybe not much.” He looked at Mrs. Barth. “I’d had it in mind to ask you this a little different, ma’am, but I’m being crowded. You might even say rode off. What did you do with the peach you took from the dinner table that evening?”

Everybody looked astonished, Mrs. Barth most of all. She stared at him. “Peach? Good heavens, what peach? What are you talking about?”

“The peach you took that evening at Lucky Hills. When the fruit was brought on at the end of dinner, you said that you liked fruit just before going to bed, and Val said he would have some peaches sent to your room, and
you said he needn’t bother, you had to go up for something anyway, and you picked a peach from the bowl and took it with you. We all saw you do it.”

“Well, I didn’t steal it, did I?”

“No. But if you don’t mind I’d like to know, what did you do with it?”

Mrs. Barth shrugged. “I suppose I ate it. Really, Mr. Buysse, I don’t seriously doubt your sanity—” She stopped, and appeared to decide the thing was amusing. “Now let’s see, I should be able to remember that peach, I’m very fond of them—I’m sure I ate it—of course I did! I remember biting into it—”

She stopped again, abruptly, and every one saw the quick change on her face. Obviously, suddenly she did remember, and the memory held something both unwelcome and embarrassing. She tried to stammer out of it: “It—the peach—I remember it was very good but not quite ripe enough—it was a clingstone, you know—”

Her husband demanded, “What the devil is this nonsense, anyway?”

Buysse, disregarding him, shook his head at Mrs. Barth. “Understand, ma’am, I don’t want to make trouble for someone who hasn’t already made some for themselves. I’ll tell you how this happened. There were no outdoor peaches ripe at Lucky Hills in early July. Those peaches on the table were expensive, big clings grown under glass. Nobody else carried one from the table. I’ve asked Orson, the butler, about it, and he’s sure that none were served to any one except at the table, and that none of the servants took any. He’s particular with the fancy stuff. The reason I asked Orson was that a little after sunrise on July 7th, the morning after that dinner and the morning Val was murdered, a seed from one of those peaches was found on the grass inside the yew hedge which surrounds Tsianina’s tomb.”

A silence. It was broken by Leo Kranz. He inquired politely, “Who found it?”

“I found it.”

Their stares were startled to a new focus. It was more like a dry rattle from a mummy than a living voice, and it came from the wrinkled old face beneath the immaculate Panama hat.

“Ah!” Kranz said. “Of course.”

Barth demanded, “Who are you?”

“Me?” The dry dead rattle. “Woodrow Wilson.”

Jean Farris sternly controlled a strong impulse to giggle. As an incident possibly relevant to tragedy, Woodrow Wilson finding a peach seed on the grass near the tomb of an Indian princess was beyond the bounds of solemnity. But unquestionably every one was solemn; she controlled the impulse.

Buysse was saying, “Wilson has been the guardian of Tsianina’s tomb for ten years, since her death. He is there every morning at daybreak. When he found the seed it was fresh; the shreds clinging to it were moist. It is true there was dew. I don’t see how anybody can deny it was the seed of the peach taken by Mrs. Barth. Without any apologies, what I want to know is, who put it there and when.”

Barth snapped, “Rot. There’s not the slightest proof it was that peach, and what if it was? Carew was alive at sunrise.”

“I still want to know.”

Mrs. Barth had sat with compressed lips. Now she spoke, exasperated. “All right, I’ll tell you. As I said, I ate the peach—”

“Be quiet, Laura.” The husband taking command. “This man has no right whatever to demand explanations, even if there were anything to explain. He’s butting in, and he can butt out again.”

“Sure I can.” Buysse was patient. “I only intimated it seems to me the police are doing a dog dance, and if they’re too busy on that to start a trail, maybe someone else can. Maybe me, for instance. But if I can’t even get an answer to a little question about a peach seed, I’m licked, and all I can do is turn the seed over to the police—I’ve got it here in my pocket—and let them use it in their dance.”

Leo Kranz had brows raised at him. “In a way, it really belongs to the police, doesn’t it?”

“I’m not worried about who it belongs to. What I want to know is how it got there. That’s what they’ll want to know too.”

“I expect they will.” Kranz’s voice was as soft as the other’s. “But you seem to have restrained your curiosity—for a whole month?”

“No. Wilson only told me about it three days ago. I’ve been trying to see Mrs. Barth.”

“Then Wilson restrained curiosity. I’ve often heard Val say that no one has more than an Indian. How about it, Wilson?”

The Panama hat moved slowly to one side and back again. The dry rattle sounded: “Too many words.”

“Oh, no, Wilson. You forget that I know you. You know what curiosity means as well as I do. Why did you wait nearly four weeks to tell about the peach seed?” Kranz took a quick step and stooped a little to get his gaze under the brim of the Panama. “Look here,” he demanded sharply. “Did you eat that peach yourself?”

“Me?” The old Indian grunted. “I always said you are a damn fool.”

Kranz started to demand again, but was interrupted. “This is perfectly idiotic!” Mrs. Barth’s exasperation was obviously mounting. “Didn’t I say I ate the peach? And I ate it—no, Mel, you be quiet yourself! Mr. Buysse is
right; we’ll turn that silly seed over to the police, and for heaven’s sake, haven’t you had enough of
that?
Let me alone.” She addressed Buysse: “Since you seem to have so good a memory of that evening, you probably remember that after dinner my husband went to the library with Mr. Carew and I went upstairs. I stayed there a while, came down again, and left the house by the doors at the end of the corridor where the tapestries are—I don’t know what you call it—”

Buysse nodded. “That’s the north wing. How did you happen to go that way?”

She compressed her lips at him. “I went that way because I didn’t care to meet any one, and I didn’t care to meet any one because I was going to see that tomb which, of course, was notorious, and I didn’t regard it as anybody’s business. Indians aren’t the
only
curious people in the world, and I knew the way from the discussion at dinner, though I wasn’t going to admit I would care to look at the thing. It was a nice starlit night, and I found it easily. I went inside the yew hedge and walked all around it. It happens that in addition to being curious I like to eat fruit outdoors when I am alone because it doesn’t matter how the juice drips, and I took the peach along and ate it there, and naturally I dropped the seed on the ground. I suppose I would have dug a hole and buried it if I had known it was going to be regarded as a
clue.
” She sighed. “Really, of all the insane—”

Buysse had his eyes straight at hers. “So you ate the peach there Tuesday night. Not Wednesday morning.”

“I’ve answered your question, Mr. Buysse.”

“I know you have, ma’am, much obliged. And what I really had in mind, you ate it yourself. You understand, I didn’t really have any idea—what do you want?”

That was not for Mrs. Barth. What had interrupted him was a tug at his sleeve from the rear, from Woodrow
Wilson. Apparently what the old Indian wanted was gangway, for, disregarding Buysse’s question, he made his way past him to the inside of the circle, crossed so close to Mrs. Barth that she shrank involuntarily, and stopped in front of Jean Farris, within a foot of her, peering intently. But seemingly it wasn’t Jean’s face that interested him, for his gaze was aimed at a point on her jacket half-way between her chin and her waist.

Leo Kranz demanded, “What are you doing? What do you want?”

“Me?” Nothing of the Indian moved but his lips, and they scarcely visibly. “I like to touch.”

“Touch what? You ought to know better—”

But Jean understood, or thought she did. The dark old wrinkled face so close to her was a little disconcerting, but she smiled at it and assured it, “Go ahead. I don’t mind.”

He put out a hand, in no haste, slipped two fingers under the edge of the jacket at the spot where the red stripe began, and rubbed the material, slowly and delicately, between his thumb and fingers. Then he leaned over to peer more closely, and rubbed some more.

He grunted, straightened up, and stepped back. Jean spoke: “You are perfectly correct, Mr. Wilson. You have good eyes.”

“For heaven’s sake,” Mrs. Barth exclaimed, “what is it he’s correct about?”

She got no answer because of a new interruption. They had all been too intent on the Indian’s tableau to notice the couple’s approach, and were aware of them only when the voice sounded from behind Leo Kranz:

“He’ll never tell you, Mrs. Barth! Not
that
Indian! I know him. How do you do? I’m afraid we’re a little late—but the traffic!”

She came through a gap in the circle—rather tall,
moderately slender under a blue summer-weight mantle, not one of the youngsters but by no means in need of generosity from them, with fair skin untanned but not pallid, alert grey eyes, and soft light hair, neither brown nor yellow, showing at one edge of an elegantly tricky little hat. She paired well, by contrast, with the man behind her—dark but not swarthy, around thirty, tall, with the breadth of an athlete, a sober face if not solemn, black eyes that were certainly more than slits and still might somehow vaguely remind you of the eyes that had been peering at the stripe in Jean Farris’s jacket.

There were greetings and handshakings, expressions of astonishment by the man at finding Buysse and the old Indian there and an appearance of embarrassment as his hand met the hand of Melville Barth, a sudden artificial gaiety on the part of Jean Farris—surprising since not even malice had ever called her artificial—and a darting of the eyes of Leo Kranz, apparently not to miss any movement or gesture of the woman in the tricky little hat.