Rex Stout_Tecumseh Fox 02 (10 page)

A
s the door opened and the visitor entered the room, he was—in appearance, bearing and manner—typically one of the younger set of top-flight New York business executives, soberly primed for an important interview. But four paces in he underwent a sudden metamorphosis. He halted abruptly, blood receded from his face, and his mouth opened and closed again without the emission of any sound. Then he started forward again, exclaimed, “Amy!” in a half-strangled tone in which distress and joy were mingled, and in that spurt reached the far corner of the desk, where he brought up with a second transformation, apparently caused by something he saw or didn’t see in Amy’s face, since he was looking nowhere else. He blushed furiously and looked derailed.

Fox went to the rescue with a hand outstretched for a shake. “Mr. Cliff? I’m Tecumseh Fox. That sitting in the hand-carved monstrosity is Nat Collins.”

The caller recovered enough aplomb to acknowledge the greetings passably, and addressed Amy:

“I thought you were in the hospital—I thought—I went there and they said you had gone home and I
went there—” He moved some six inches nearer, which was about one tenth of the space between them. “I thought you—are you all right?”

“I’m perfectly all right, thank you,” said Amy brightly.

“Well, that—” He stopped, the blush slowly receding, and then added in a weak and foolish tone better suited to a nitwit than an executive. “That’s fine.”

Fox helped out again. “Miss Duncan got a nasty crack, but suffered no serious injury. Did you come here to see her?”

“No, I—I didn’t know she was here.” Mr. Cliff was more of a man, talking to a man. “I came to see Mr. Collins. I intended to ask him where Miss Duncan was, but also I wanted to talk to him.”

“Sit down,” the lawyer invited, “and shoot.”

“But I—” Cliff looked from him to Fox and back again, in obvious embarrassment. “It’s rather confidential—”

“We’re willing to remove ourselves,” Fox offered. “Aren’t we, Miss Duncan?”

“Certainly we are.” Amy’s tone, as she arose, indicated that she would like nothing better than to remove herself. “I certainly—Mr. Cliff’s confidential affairs—certainly—”

“No!” The executive caught Fox’s arm. “I didn’t know I was interrupting—I don’t want to interrupt—there’s no reason—” Seeing he had Fox stopped, he moved to the chair at the other corner of the desk, sat, and said abruptly:

“I want to retain you, Mr. Collins.”

Nat Collins beamed at him approvingly. “To a lawyer that phrase is poetry way above Keats or Shakespeare. May I ask to do what?”

“To defend me—uh—not defend me exactly. The
police have questioned me in connection with the death of Arthur Tingley. I am not of course suspected of murder, but they have learned that I was negotiating with him to buy his business for my company—I’m a vice-president of the Provisions and Beverages Corporation. Also they have asked me if I had knowledge of a recent attempt to damage the Tingley business by adulteration of its product. I did have knowledge of it, because the news had got around in the trade—by rumor as well as by channels of information of the sort that every large corporation keeps open. I knew no more about it, and certainly nothing of the murder. But even to be questioned by the police in such a connection is a little—disturbing. In the interest of my company as well as my own, I want—well, I want the advice and services if necessary of a good lawyer. I’d like to retain you for that.”

Collins nodded. “To represent the corporation or you personally?”

“Why—I guess it would be better to make it me personally.”

“It sounds more like a corporation concern.”

“Well, maybe I can get them to share the expense.” Cliff took a checkfold from one pocket and a pen from another. “It won’t matter to you, I imagine, as long as you get paid.” He opened the fold and uncovered the pen. “What shall I make this for a retainer? Five hundred? A thousand?”

“Wait a minute,” the lawyer protested, “you’re rushing me off my feet. We’d better have a little discussion before you subsidize me for servitude. I am already representing Miss Duncan in connection with the Tingley murder, and I would have to make it understood that in case of a conflict—”

“There’s already a conflict,” Fox interposed. “You’re too late, Mr. Cliff.”

“Too late?” Cliff turned to him with the expression of an executive meeting unexpected and vexatious obstruction.

“Yep. I’m sorry. Of course you intend to return later to inform Mr. Collins privately that what you really want to pay him for is to represent Miss Duncan, and that’s already been arranged.”

Amy made a noise. Nat Collins chuckled. Mr. Cliff, dealing with a man, said with spirit and composure, “You seem to know my intentions better than I do. On what basis do you make such a remarkable assertion—”

“Excuse me,” Fox said brusquely, “but you’re wasting time we might use for something else. Basis? As good as concrete. After chasing around the east end and Greenwich Village during business hours, you can’t deny your energetic interest in Miss Duncan’s welfare. How many firms of lawyers does your corporation have on its payroll? I suppose three or four, and good ones. In the kind of difficulty you describe, wouldn’t you merely phone one of them to report for duty? Of course you would. And would you be volunteering to write your personal check instead of letting the company pay? Not unless you love stockholders with an unprecedented passion. Offering to toss in a thousand dollars of your own hard-earned dough for the honor of dear old P. & B.?” Fox shook his head. “Dismount. Honestly. No soap.”

Collins was laughing,. “You see, Mr. Cliff, he’s a detective.”

“I—” Cliff stammered.

Amy, having already made noises, was on her feet
again. “This is utterly—” She left that unfinished. “It doesn’t seem to matter that I—”

“Please, Miss Duncan,” Fox entreated her. “Of course it matters. Sit down and count your blessings. The fact is, you are all that does seem to matter, which should be gratifying—I suppose, Mr. Cliff, you learned from the paper or radio that Nat Collins was acting for Miss Duncan, and you knew his fees are outrageous and her resources limited. As I say, you’re too late; that has been taken care of; but you can help out some in another way, if you will. What were you and Dol Bonner talking about in Rusterman’s Bar—please, Miss Duncan, sit down and relax—last Saturday afternoon?”

Mr. Cliff gawked at him. A frown creased his brow. “What the devil—”

“I assure you it’s material, competent, and relevant. Miss Duncan: do you want Mr. Cliff to tell us what he was discussing with Miss Bonner?”

“No,” Amy blurted.

Fox glared at her. “Please don’t be a nincompoop. All aspects of this affair are going to have to be cleared up, whether we like it or not. Use your head, which was not fractured. Do we want him to tell us?”

“Yes,” Amy said.

“All right,” Fox turned to the executive,
“she
wants you to tell us.”

Cliff looked at Amy. “You do?”

“Yes, I—if you feel like it.”

Cliff said to Fox, “We were discussing a business matter.”

Fox shook his head. “We need more. Doubtless you have learned from the press that Miss Duncan is Arthur Tingley’s niece and was once employed by him—that was her connection with that place. Tingley engaged
Dol Bonner to investigate the quinine in his titbits, with a conjecture, among others, that you or your firm had a hand in it. He learned that you had been seen in confidential conversation with Bonner, and feared that she was double-crossing him. You can tell us whether she was or not.”

Cliff looked wary. “I fail to see what that has to do with Miss Duncan.”

“That’s another story, and for the present beside the point. It certainly had to do with Arthur Tingley, who was murdered, and with you.”

“But you—” Cliff screwed up his lips. “You are, presumably, merely trying to protect Miss Duncan from—unpleasantness.”

“Right. And it may turn out that the only way to do that is to discover who killed Tingley.”

“God knows I didn’t. And I had nothing to do with the adulteration of his product, either.”

“Good. But your talk with Miss Bonner?”

Cliff looked at him, at Amy, at the lawyer, and back at Fox. He laughed shortly. “It could be funny, I suppose. You say Tingley hired Bonner to investigate the quinine. As you know, I wanted to buy Tingley’s Titbits. It’s the finest product in that line, with the best and biggest and oldest reputation, and it would have filled a gap for us. I knew Tingley would sooner or later take the hook, they always do. Then I heard that Consolidated Cereals was trying to butt in, and then came the news of the adulteration. I suspected C. C., knowing how they work. I thought I knew how to get a line on it, but it required some delicate doing. I telephoned Miss Bonner. I didn’t want to go to her office, or her coming to mine, so we arranged to meet at Rusterman’s to discuss it.”

“Were you acquainted with her?”

“No. I had never met her.”

“How did you happen to pick her?”

“I had heard of her, and this seemed to be her sort of job. She did some work for a friend of mine once.” The executive glanced around. “I am counting on your regarding this information as strictly confidential.”

“You can. And did Miss Bonner undertake—what is it, Miss Duncan?”

“Nothing,” Amy declared. “Nothing!”

“You seemed to be speaking.”

“No, I—I guess I coughed—of course I’m glad—”

“I suppose you mean that you’re glad that your uncle would be glad to know that Miss Bonner was not double-crossing him, and that her meeting with Mr. Cliff was perfectly proper, and that Mr. Cliff was not putting quinine in his liver—”

“Yes—of course—”

“Of course. But don’t overdo it. There’s a new iris out—I have a clump of it up at my place—named Rosy Wings. Your face reminds me of a bud of Rosy Wings just bursting into flower. I’m glad you’re glad, but there’s still an unsolved murder, and the police won’t be nearly as much impressed—”

“My God!” Mr. Cliff ejaculated as one who had just emerged from a noisome cavern into a sunny day. “That was all—your uncle thought I—he told you—you thought I—” He was out of his chair and across intervening space, and had one of her hands. “Amy!”

“Well, I—Leonard—I—”

They gazed at each other, with Nat Collins regarding them quizzically and Fox dubiously. Cliff murmured something at her and she murmured back, and they were both smiling.

Collins said, “I have two hard cases to bone up on.
I take it, Miss Duncan, that you accept Mr. Cliff’s statement without discount.”

“She’d better,” Cliff declared, “after suspecting me of such a low-down trick as adulterating a competitor’s product. Good lord!” He stayed by Amy’s chair, and spoke to her: “May I take you home? Are you through here?”

“No,” said Fox, “she isn’t. I want to ask her some things.”

Cliff returned to his chair and sat down. “Go ahead.”

Fox shook his head. “Confidential things. You can wait out front if you want to, but it will be a long wait.”

“But with Miss Duncan’s permission—you understand that I’m not claiming any right—”

“It wouldn’t do you any good,” Fox said shortly, “if you did. Miss Duncan is under the suspicion of the police in a murder case. So are you and some other people. I am acting on the assumption that she is innocent, but on no similar assumption regarding anyone else. If you were a detective working for her you would do the same. So we won’t get personal and you can wait in front as long as you want to. All right?”

Cliff’s face did not give the impression of acquiescence that it was all right, but he rose to his feet. “I won’t quarrel about it,” he told Fox, “because I owe you something. I certainly do. Also I have a fact to give you which I have already given the police. Tingley phoned me yesterday afternoon and made an appointment to see me at ten o’clock this morning.”

Nat Collins looked interested. Fox said, “Thanks. What time did he phone?”

“At twenty to six. Just before I left the office.”

“What did he say?”

“Just that he wanted to see me, and we made an appointment. He had never phoned me before, our communication had all been on my initiative, and I was pleased because I thought it meant that he was ready to make terms, but he didn’t say so. He was curt and anything but amiable, but under the circumstances that was only natural.”

“You thought he was surrendering.”

“If you want to call it that. I thought he was prepared to make a deal that would be profitable for both sides.”

Fox grunted. “It took a lot of quinine to get him into that frame of mind. I’m not saying that you furnished the quinine. By the way, you say you left your office at twenty to six. Would you mind telling me where you spent the next two hours and a half?”

The trite and routine question produced an effect. Cliff’s eyes altered their focus for a fleeting glance toward the opposite corner of the desk, and his face changed color, faintly but perceptibly to an alert regard.

“Yes,” he said, “I would.”

“You mean you’d mind?”

“Yes.”

“You mean you refuse?”

“Yes.”

Fox shrugged. “Since the cops have questioned you, you certainly had to tell them. But suit yourself.”

“I didn’t tell the cops. I refused to. I told them that instead of inventing something about going for a walk or going to a movie, I preferred to state that from six to nine Tuesday evening I was on personal confidential business which I declined to disclose.”

“I see.” Fox smiled at him. “Maybe you’d better give Nat Collins a retainer after all.”

“I believe I’ll be able to keep afloat, Mr. Fox. So you’re Tecumseh Fox. Well, as I say, I owe you something.” Cliff looked at Amy. “May I wait for you and take you home?”

Their eyes met. “Why,” she said, “it may be a long wait—”

“I don’t care if it’s a year.”

“Well—of course a girl loves attention—”

“I’ll be waiting,” he said, and marched out.

After the door was closed, Fox cleared his throat to address Amy, but she spoke first.

“I want to kiss you,” she said, “on the mouth.”

“Come ahead.”

“But I can’t. I think I’m part Puritan. I’ll bet I’m blushing. Or else I regard kisses as dissolute, which is so darned old-fashioned it makes me furious, but I can’t help it. Only I really do want to kiss you.”