Rex Stout (18 page)

The two thoughts–if such cerebral lightning flashes can be called thoughts—that came to Heather as she stood frozen for a fraction of a second, were, first, that she had been shot, and, second, that Brager had shot her. Both betrayed the state of her nerves. The first was not repugnant to reason, since people have been known to remain upright after being pierced by a bullet; but the second was manifestly absurd. Brager was frozen as stiff as she was. She looked down at herself.…

“That was a gun,” Brager said. “Outside.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“Shooting a pheasant again.” Brager crossed to a window and peered through the screen; then he crossed back, to the door, and
went out. After a moment’s hesitation Heather followed. Brager had disappeared around the corner of the building; she descended the steps and walked to the corner. Rounding it, and seeing Brager, she stopped, and stopped breathing. Then, without breathing, she ran the ten paces to him, to where he was bending over the figure of a man lying on the ground close to the wall of the building. As she got there Brager straightened up. She saw the face of the man on the ground, and breathed, a convulsive gasp.

“Be quiet!” Brager said harshly. “I think I hear him.”

He was peering into the woods, which on that side were only a dozen yards from the building. Heather could hear nothing. She was staring at George Cooper’s face, wanting to look away but unable to. It was the most horribly repulsive thing she had ever seen, with the lips twisted into the grimace of an imbecile, and two flies, a small one and a large one, perched on the edge of a hole in the right temple only an inch away from the corner of the eye. It was the flies that made it unbearable. She clenched her teeth and stooped to chase them away, but by the time she was upright again one of them, the small one, was back.

“Here,” Brager said. He took off his coat and spread it over the grimacing face. “Can you stay here?”

She asked inanely, “Where are you going?”

“Inside to telephone.” He was trembling, and from his voice it was rage. “That is all I can do. I am not a brave man. I am not a resourceful man. This happens here by the wall of my laboratory, under my nose, I hear it, and all I can do is go inside to telephone. That is what men do nowadays when terrible things happen. They go inside to telephone. Bah!”

He went. When he came out again, minutes later, Heather was standing backed against the wall, her clenched fists at her sides, her eyes shut.

So when, around eight o’clock, Alphabet Hicks arrived, too late, the place was considerably more inhabited than he expected to find it. In the pleasant twilight, cars of sightseers and reporters were lined up on the grassy roadside in front, and at the entrance of the driveway a cluster of them, men and women and boys, were gathered around a tall and handsome state policeman on guard there. Hicks, seeing that from down the road, backed his car into the entrance of a pasture lane and got out and walked. His jaw was set and his chest was tight. He was thinking, “If he
got that girl I’m a worm. No better than a worm. I should have taken her away.…”

He asked the policeman at the entrance, “What’s going on?”

The policeman eyed him and demanded, “Who wants to know?”

“I do. The name is Hicks. If it’s a secret you can whisper in my ear.” There were titters. Hicks glanced around, picked a promising face, and asked it, “Between you and me, what’s up?”

“Murder,” the face said. “A man murdered.”

“What man?”

“A fellow named Cooper. The husband of that woman that was killed here yesterday.”

“Thanks.” Hicks started up the drive.

The policeman let out a squawk, and, when Hicks disregarded it and kept going, dived after him. But no real difficulty developed, because Hicks saw a man coming down the drive, stopped in his tracks, ignored the policeman who grabbed his arm, and beckoned to the approaching man, whose Palm Beach suit and battered Panama hat had surely not been removed, nor the hat even shifted, since the day before.

The man’s face did not light up with recognition as he caught sight of Hicks, but he said morosely, “Hello there.”

“Hello,” Hicks said. “Is this Adonis holding my arm your superior or your inferior?”

“Nobody knows. It’s a case of brawn and brains. If you’re a lover of peace, what the hell are you showing up here for?”

“Business. I came on an errand.”

“You know we’ve had another casualty?”

“I just heard about it.”

The man shook his head reproachfully. “It’s beyond me. Okay, come on, I’ll take you in to Corbett. Have you got another one of those cards? My sister wants one.”

Hicks got out a card as they crossed the lawn, and handed it over. On the front terrace, which was deserted, the man asked him to wait and started inside, but Hicks stopped him:

“If you don’t mind, what happened to Cooper?”

“Killed. Homicide.”

“I know. Drowned, suffocated, strangled, stabbed—”

“Shot.”

“Here?”

“Over at the laboratory.”

“Anybody charged?”

“I don’t know. That’s all I know. Nobody ever tells me anything. I get it on the radio when I go home.”

The man opened the door and disappeared. In a few minutes he emerged again and told Hicks, “Come on in. It looks like you’re welcome.”

District Attorney Corbett was installed again in the large and pleasant living room, at the big table with the reading lamp. Standing across the table from him was R. I. Dundee, and at one end of it a stenographer was seated. At the other end Manny Beck slouched in a chair. A policeman was just inside the door, and a man in plain clothes was in the background. When Hicks entered Corbett was speaking to Dundee in a tone of exasperation. That alone answered several questions for Hicks, knowing as he did that Corbett rarely addressed anyone old enough to vote in tones of exasperation, particularly a man of position and property like Dundee. Corbett was saying:

“Certainly you’re not under arrest. Certainly not! No one is under arrest! But under the circumstances I have a right to insist on your co-operation as a responsible citizen and ask you not to leave here without permission. It is a fact that neither you nor your son can furnish corroboration of your whereabouts at the time Cooper was killed. I didn’t say you are suspected of murder. And your remark about persecution of your wife is utterly unwarranted. Utterly!”

“We’ll see,” Dundee sputtered angrily. “I’ll stay here till my lawyer comes. I want to use the phone again.”

“Certainly. This one?”

“I’ll go upstairs.”

“One more question before you go. About Hicks. You said you sent him here yesterday on confidential business. Did you send him here today on the same business?”

“Hicks?” Dundee turned and saw him. “No!” he blurted, and tramped out.

Hicks went to a chair near the table, sat down, and observed, “When he’s mad he’s mad.”

Corbett made no reply. He offered no hand and was obviously in no condition to make a pretense of geniality. He looked at Hicks as if he had never seen him before, chewed at his lip, and said nothing.

Manny Beck snarled savagely, “Where have you been?”

“My goodness,” Hicks protested, “I seem to have come to the wrong place.”

“Where’ve you been?”

“Born in Missouri. Boyhood on a farm. Harvard. Graduated law school 1932—Where have I been when?”

“Since you left the courthouse this afternoon.”

“New York.”

“Where in New York?”

“Now listen. Name a time and I’ll name a place.”

“Six thirty.”

“Joyce’s restaurant on 41st Street, eating baked oysters. The waiter and the hatcheck girl will sign it. I left there a little before seven and drove straight here.”

Beck grunted and glared. Corbett’s baby mouth looked as if he intended to whistle, but instead he spoke:

“You missed out with your trio on the alibi today. Only two of you made it.”

“Two is better than one,” Hicks said sententiously. “Provided they jibe.”

“They jibe all right. Your two pals. Have you discussed it with them?”

“As I told you, I just got here.”

“I thought you might have had a phone call at that restaurant, say a little after six thirty. Maybe the waiter would sign that too. I thought perhaps you left just after getting a phone call.”

“Nope. No phone call.”

“What did you come out here for?”

“I was under the impression I came on Dundee’s business, but he says not. So I guess I’m investigating a murder. I’m finding out who killed Martha Cooper.”

Manny Beck grunted. Corbett said sarcastically, “That’s kind of you.”

“Not at all. I’m interested.”

“A few hours ago you were trying to trade in her husband.”

“Yes, I know. Of course that’s out, now that you’ve got him in custody. He can’t very well slip away again if he’s dead.”

“Who told you he’s dead?”

“A gentleman out front informed me. I’ll be glad to discuss it with you if you’ll tell me the details. All I know is that it happened at the laboratory, and he was shot. So naturally you have the advantage of me.”

“That’s a goddam shame!” Beck rasped. “I swear to God, Ralph—”

“Be quiet,” Corbett admonished him. “Look here, Hicks. At the moment I have no way of tightening any screws on you. Being a very smart man, you know that. You also know that while I am not as smart as you are, I am not half-witted. Let me ask you a question. Do you know what happened here about two hours ago?”

“No.”

“No one phoned you about it?”

“No.”

“For the present I’ll accept that. About a quarter to six Brager was in the office at the laboratory building when the door opened and Cooper walked in. This is what Brager says. Cooper sat down and started to talk. He was rambling, incoherent. He talked about his wife, and his life being ruined, and he didn’t kill her but he was going to find out who did, that was all he wanted to live for. He went on and on. When Brager went to the telephone Cooper wouldn’t let him use it. Finally Cooper started on the subject of his sister-in-law, Heather Gladd. He thought Heather knew something about her sister’s death that she would tell him if he got a chance to talk with her, and that was what he had come for. He was so earnest about it that Brager believed him and took pity on him. So Brager says.”

Hicks nodded. “I wouldn’t quote you on it.”

“Right. Brager went to the house and found Heather in the kitchen with Mrs. Powell and Dundee. Corroborated. He got her away by a pretext, and on the way to the laboratory told her about Cooper wanting to see her. When they got there Cooper wasn’t in the office where Brager had left him. Brager looked in the laboratory. No Cooper. He returned to the office and they were discussing the situation when there was the sound of a shot. Right in their ears. That’s the way Heather put it. Windows were open. Brager went to the window and then outdoors, and Heather followed him. Cooper was lying on the west side of the building, two feet from the wall, dead. Brager thought he heard someone moving in the woods, but saw no one, and the sound stopped. He went in the office and phoned. They both stayed right there until the police arrived. Bullet hole in Cooper’s right temple. No powder burns. No weapon found.”

Hicks was frowning. “Does Miss Gladd confirm all that?”

Corbett nodded. “To a T. She is a charming girl. A very beautiful girl.”

“Are you talking to me?”

“Well.” Corbett looked at Manny Beck and back at Hicks again. A little sound which could have been called a chuckle escaped from him. “God knows I don’t blame you for having good eyes and a warm heart. Remember you haven’t confided in me. For instance, you may or may not know that Cooper was madly in love with the younger sister before he married—and when he married—the older one.”

“I wasn’t acquainted with them.”

“Neither was I. But naturally we’ve been checking up. You know how these things are. A lot of ideas come to you, most of them foolish, but you keep trying. First we were interested in Cooper, then when he was out, one idea we got was about Heather. Cooper came out here to see her Monday evening. In a jealous scrap with her sister, you know? In a rage, temper? She could easily have swung that candlestick.”

“I get it.” Hicks smiled at him. “I alibied her because she has a pretty face and nice legs. I sure go cheap. What about Brager?”

“There is reason to believe that he is by no means immune to female charms. And she has been living right here in the house with him for over a year.”

Uh-huh, Hicks thought, you’ve been looking under blotters too. He said, “Of course I ought to be indignant, but I’ll save it. What about Cooper, then? I’ll bet she shot him. Sure she did, and Brager’s got her alibied for that too. That puts him one up on me.”

“Horsing around,” Manny Beck growled. “You sure can take it, Ralph.”

Hicks gestured in irritation. “I’ll tell you, Corbett. In plain words. You’re funny and you’re slick and you’re dirty. You don’t any more believe that junk than I do.”

Corbett chuckled. “Time for me to be indignant. I said it was just an idea. For instance, what if Cooper knew she had killed her sister, and she had to shut him up? You don’t like it?”

“I wouldn’t even say that. I don’t even not like it.” Hicks stood up. “So with your permission—”

“Wait a minute. Sit down.”

Hicks sat down.

Corbett rested his elbows on the table, rubbed his palms
together, and cocked his head on one side. The expression on his face was apparently intended to be judicial. Manny Beck, with his eyes closed, was slowly shaking his head right and left, as if to indicate that the immediate external world, both of sight and of sound, was too painful to be borne.

“I’ll put it to you this way,” Corbett said. “There is no question about about your being in possession of information about these people directly or indirectly relevant to these murders. Of course you are. I want it. The people of the State of New York want it, through me. How are they going to get it? By coercing or threatening you? No. Not you. For two reasons among others: you’re bullheaded, and you don’t like me. Forget about me. You’re dealing with the people of the State of New York. You know more about it than I do, but it’s quite possible that if you had come clean yesterday or this afternoon, Cooper would still be alive. I appeal to you. There’s a murderer loose. The chances are twenty to one that we’ll get him. Or her. I appeal to you. You ought to help us. If you do, we’ll get him quicker, that’s all and I give you my word here and now that we’ll do everything possible to protect the interests and private secrets of any innocent person. We’ll stretch that point as far as it will go.”