Rex Stout_Tecumseh Fox 03 (20 page)

And Damon was lighting cigarettes and crushing them out not half smoked. That was more significant than any verbal confession whatever. Fox had seen him do that only once before, during the Hatcher case four years ago, and that case was still unsolved.

So, Fox decided as he drove uptown, the only hope was Diego. Either another try at Diego or go on marking time as he had done for the past three days, waiting for the police to flush Fish-Piscus, and he had had enough of that.

But the try at Diego had to be postponed. At the address on 54th Street Fox mounted the two flights of stairs, found that the door had been equipped with a new lock, rang the bell half a dozen times, and got no response. He sat on the top step for an hour, gave it up, returned to his car, drove home, and went to bed. In the morning, Saturday, he arose at six, was headed for the city before seven, and exactly at eight o’clock put his thumb on the bell push at Diego’s flat. He could hear the sound of the bell within, and in a moment a gruff call:

“Who is it?”

“Fox.”

A long pause, then: “What do you want?”

“I want to talk with you and I’m going to.”

Another pause, footsteps, and the door opened.

Diego was in pajamas. He had been got out of bed and he assuredly did not reciprocate his visitor’s desire for a talk, but politeness was in his bones, and he opened the door wide for Fox to enter, closed it, and indicated a chair.

“This disorder,” he rumbled apologetically. “I came
home late. Drunk. It’s chilly in here.” He went to close a window and came back and sat down. “I’ve been rude to you on the phone. I’m sorry, but I’ll have to go on being rude.”

“I don’t mind.” Fox grinned at him. “I’m hoping to talk you out of it. I know who killed Jan Tusar and Perry Dunham.”

Diego, bleary-eyed, hunched in his chair, blinked. He straightened up and blinked again. “The devil you do,” he said quietly.

“Yup. I do. But I can’t prove it.”

“You don’t have to prove it to me.” Obviously Diego did not mean to be stampeded; he intended to remain imperturable and noncommittal; but involuntarily he pronounced a name. “Koch,” he said, barely audible, and was immediately irritated that the sound had escaped him. He clamped his jaw and glared.

Fox shook his head. “I’m not saying. For the present. But I assure you I know. Also I assure you that if you keep on being chivalrous you’ll only make it worse.”

Diego made a harsh noise. “Chivalrous?”

“Well, whatever you want to call it. Miss Tusar didn’t steal that vase, even if she told you she did. Nor did she try to kill you with that booby trap. But there’s not a chance in the world of keeping her out of this. I’m being frank with you, Diego. The police haven’t caught up with me, partly because I haven’t been frank with them—”

“You can be. Go ahead. Did I ask—”

“No. You were and are the Spanish cavalier. I’m not sneering at you, I’m not even reminding you that the lady doesn’t deserve it, and anyway, you know as well as I do. I’m just telling you that it’s useless, and it will go a lot easier, even for her, if you tell me about it
now and let me handle it. Not to mention the danger of your being charged as an accessory—though I suppose that wouldn’t weigh with you. A more important danger is that she will be charged as an accessory if it isn’t handled right. Do you want that?”

Diego growled.

Fox leaned forward at him. “Use your head, Diego. Damn it, look at it straight. How did you happen to get hold of the vase? Did she give it to you for safekeeping?”

Diego said quietly, “I told you I’d have to go on being rude.”

“And I tell you I know the murderer. And you’re shielding him.”

“No.”

“But you are!”

“No. I don’t shield a murderer. I stole that vase from Pomfret and you saw it in my closet and someone came here and took it. That’s all.” Diego spread his palms up, a gesture he had rarely used since the accident to his fingers. “Let me alone. Won’t you? Go ahead and tell the police. I won’t mind that, but you—a good friend like you—it’s very difficult and painful—”

“You’d better not tell them you set that nitrobenzene trap for me. They’ve found out who bought it.”

“Thank you. That would have been foolish anyway.”

“And that’s all? You’re not curious about who bought it? Who tried to kill you?”

“I’m not curious about anything. Anything in the world.”

Fox looked at him. He had come with the intention of spending hours, all day if necessary, in an effort to get Diego to talk, but that stony face with the bloodshot eyes told him that it would be a day wasted.

“Okay,” he said, and picked up his hat. “Before I go there’s something else. About a year ago somebody broke one of Pomfret’s vases. A Ming five-color. This has nothing to do with the one you—uh—stole. This one was broken. Do you know anything about it?”

Diego squinted at him. “Know anything? I didn’t break it, if that’s what you mean.”

“Do you know who did?”

“No.”

“Had you heard about it?”

Diego nodded. “I was there when it happened.”

“When was that?”

“As you said, about a year ago. More than a year. Mrs. Pomfret had a musical in honor of a pianist named Glissinger, and there was a mob, as usual.”

“Who discovered that the vase was broken?”

“I don’t know. I had left. I didn’t hear about it until a week later. Pomfret was still inconsolable. He wasn’t going to buy any more pottery.”

“Was it known who had broken it?”

“I don’t remember, I wasn’t especially interested, but I think not. If it was, I’ve forgotten or I wasn’t told.”

“Do you know where the vase had been kept? Which room?”

“No.” Diego was scowling. “If this is some kind of a roundabout—”

“It’s plenty roundabout, no question of that.” Fox stood up. “Much obliged. Sorry I got you out of bed. I’ll let you know if and when the cops are coming. So long.”

Down on the street, he found a phone and made several calls, returned to his car and headed downtown.

Five hours later, at two in the afternoon, he was
climbing the stoop to the vestibule at the address in the East Sixties where Dora Mowbray lived. It was beginning to look as if his quest for information regarding the broken vase was going to prove as barren as had all other lines of investigation both by him and by the police. Adolph Koch had been able to furnish one item for the record: that the Ming five-color, one of the finest in existence, had been kept on a low cabinet near a corner of the yellow room, but that was all, though he had been present at the musical. Hebe Heath, in a blue tea gown on a divan in their suite at the Churchill, had furnished nothing at all except a look at the scenery, since she had been in Hollywood at the time. Felix Beck had contributed a suspicion that Garda Tusar had broken the vase, because he had seen her handling it, but he admitted that it was merely a suspicion. At the Pomfrets, the master and mistress had both gone out, and neither the butler nor the secretary could add anything to the meager facts Fox already possessed. Wells did indeed drop a dark hint about Mrs. Briscoe, but Fox let it out the other ear.

If Mrs. Briscoe or any other outsider had broken that vase, he might as well give the $5,000 back to Mrs. Pomfret and go home and pitch horseshoes.

He entered the vestibule and pushed the button marked Mowbray.

D
ora, sitting on the piano bench, wrinkled her forehead, hesitated, and said, “That’s funny.”

Fox felt a tingling in his stomach. “What’s funny about it?”

“Why—it was so long ago—and now you ask about it. Why do you ask about it now?”

“I’m curious. Something made me curious.” Fox threw one knee over the other and smiled at her. “But that wasn’t what you meant when you said it was funny. You mean something else. What was funny about it?”

Dora smiled back, but shook her head. “That’s all I meant.”

“No. It isn’t. You meant there was something funny about the broken vase, not about my asking. Come on, now. Didn’t you?”

“Well … yes.”

“Okay. What?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s one of the promises I made my father. You don’t need to tell me it’s silly, I know it is—but I did break promises I made Dad while he was
alive, little ones—and since he died—I want to keep them.…” She fluttered a hand.

“Did your father break the vase?”

“Oh, no!”

“Did the promise you made concern him? I mean was it to protect him from some disgraceful or dishonorable—”

“Good heavens, no!”

“Would it reflect discredit on his—”

“No, nothing like that at all.” Dora gestured impatiently. “I told you I know it’s silly, but I just won’t break any promises I made him, that’s all.”

“Well.” Fox leaned back. “All right. Two men are murdered, and possibly three, but the murderer goes free because you don’t want to break a silly promise you made your father.”

“Murderer?” Dora goggled at him. “That’s ridiculous!”

“No, it isn’t.”

“But it is!”

“I say it isn’t, and I know a lot more about it than you do. I knew there was something phony about that broken vase before I came to ask you about it, or I wouldn’t have come. I’m telling you straight, Miss Mowbray. If you keep that promise to your father you’re shielding a murderer.”

“But it has nothing to do with a murder!”

“It has.”

“It’s absurd!”

“No.” Fox leaned forward at her. “Now look. Use a little common sense. Tell me about it. If it’s not what I think it may be, I forget it. If it’s what I suspect, you wouldn’t want me to forget it. Would you?”

“No.” Dora admitted reluctantly. “Not if …”

“Certainly not. Here’s what I already know. On a December afternoon sixty or seventy people were guests at a musical at Mrs. Pomfret’s. In the drawing room. During an intermission drinks were served in the yellow room, and after the program there were refreshments. The Ming five-color was on a low cabinet in a far corner of the yellow room. After some, perhaps all, of the guests had departed—specifically, Diego and Beck and Adolph Koch had left—it was discovered that the vase was broken. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” Dora admitted. “Except that some of the guests were still there. I was.”

“How many of them?”

“Just a few. Ten or twelve.”

“Do you remember who they were?”

“Well …” Dora pursed her lips. “Mrs. Briscoe. Glissinger. Barbinini. And Elaine Hart, I know she was, because she was at the other end of the room with Perry when he found the vase—”

“Perry Dunham? Was it he who made the discovery?”

“Yes. The rest of us were around the fireplace when a loud whistle came from Perry across the room and he called to Mr. Pomfret to come. Then Mr. Pomfret yelled for his wife, and we all went to see what it was, and there was the vase in a dozen pieces on the floor.”

“And?”

“That’s all. Mr. Pomfret looked as if he was going to cry, and he couldn’t speak, so Mrs. Pomfret asked us if we knew anything about it, and we said we didn’t and cleared out.”

“But what was funny about that?” Fox was frowning. “What was it that you regarded as funny?”

“The funny thing didn’t happen there.”

“Where did it happen?”

“At home. Afterwards. Dad had left before the program was over to keep an appointment, and later, when he came home to dinner, before I mentioned what had happened, he said he supposed Pomfret had sent for the police about the vase. I asked how he knew about it, and he said that on his way out he had meant to stop in the yellow room for a drink, by the door from the reception hall, but as he was about to enter he saw the reflection of Pomfret in that big mirror at the end. He stopped at the expression on Pomfret’s face, and saw that he had in his hand a piece of the Ming vase, and he didn’t want to be delayed by the rumpus he knew Pomfret would make, so he went on out.”

“Pomfret didn’t see him.”

“Apparently not.”

Fox had a gleam in his eye. “So the broken vase was discovered twice, by different people.”

Dora nodded. “It looked that way. I told Dad he must have been mistaken, because Pomfret had said nothing about it, and he was standing there talking with us calmly and naturally when Perry called to him, and he was certainly surprised and shocked when he saw the vase, but Dad said he was positive he had seen the piece of the vase with the yellow dragon on it in Pomfret’s hand. Later he asked me to promise I wouldn’t mention it to anyone, and I did. He said we had all we could do to attend to the monkey business in our own lives without butting in on other people’s.” Dora bit her lip. “He was a wise man—and he was kind, very kind. He never liked Mr. Pomfret.”

“Did he have any theory to account for that particular monkey business?”

“I don’t think so. If he had he didn’t tell me.”

“Did he ever mention the vase again?”

“Not that I remember. I’m sure he didn’t.”

“Presumably Pomfret was alone in the yellow room when your father saw him?”

“Presumably. The program was going on.”

“How long was it from then until the moment Perry Dunham discovered the vase?”