Rex Stout_Tecumseh Fox 03 (6 page)

“I don’t see—” Adolph Koch began.

“Please, Mr. Koch. When I am through—All of you here did not contribute to that fund. I invited Dora because she is mentioned in the note, and also to represent her father’s interest. If after discussion it is decided
to sell the violin—I’m sure we could get what we paid for it—and return the amounts to the contributors, the $1,500 will be of great help to Dora, who is too proud and silly to accept favors from friends. I invited Garda because she is Jan’s sister, Felix because he was Jan’s teacher, and Diego because he was Jan’s friend and was responsible for the contribution from Mr. Fox. Mr. Gill came to represent Miss Heath, who said she would be unable to come, but apparently she changed her mind.”

“The urgent appointment I had with important—”

“I understand, Miss Heath.” Mrs. Pomfret’s voice suddenly had vinegar in it. “There are some things I would like to say but can’t because this is my home. I will only suggest—it will be a relief if you will leave your share of the discussion to Mr. Gill. However, before we enter upon any discussion I must tell you of a surprising—”

“What discussion?” Adolph Koch demanded. “What is there to discuss? If you mean the violin, what’s the use discussing it when we don’t know where it is?”

“But we do. It’s here. It came this morning by parcel post, addressed to me.”

Everyone stared at her except Tecumseh Fox. His eyes moved to take them all in. He saw varying degrees of surprise, interest, and the shock of the unexpected; and Hebe Heath, across the table from him, with the back of her hand pressed dramatically against her mouth, gazed in wide-eyed incredulity at her hostess.

“No!” she gasped. “You mean—Jan’s violin—”

“I mean what I said,” Mrs. Pomfret told her shortly.

“This is interesting,” Koch murmured.

“You say it’s here?” Diego rumbled. “Let’s see it.”

“Wells,” said Mrs. Pomfret.

The secretary disappeared behind a screen, and emerged carrying a cardboard shipping carton some three feet long, which he deposited on the table in front of Mrs. Pomfret. She flipped back the folding covers and inserted her hand. Fox, shoving back his chair and starting for her, called:

“Excuse me! I wouldn’t handle it.”

He was at her side and met a twinkle in her eye “You mean fingerprints,” she said, as to one who should be humored. “There aren’t any. I asked the police commissioner to send up an expert—confidentially, of course. He wanted to take it away, but I wouldn’t let him.” Carefully and gently, her hand was raised from the nest of tissue paper in the carton, with all eyes staring at what it held.

“It’s a violin,” Koch said dryly, “but how do you know it’s Jan’s?”

“That’s another reason I invited Felix. Felix, will you—”

Beck, already there, was reaching for it with both hands, as a woman reaches for a baby. Fox retreated a step and watched the faces; the others were watching Beck.

“It looks like it from here,” Adolph Koch said to himself but audibly. He was the only one who had not left his chair; Mrs. Pomfret had stood up first, to reach into the carton. The others were stretching their necks to see, except Perry Dunham, who was so close he didn’t need to, and Hebe Heath, who, her breast heaving, was clutching her throat as though to strangle intolerable suspense.

For three long minutes Felix Beck was oblivious of them. His peering intent eyes went over every inch of the beautiful golden red-brown instrument, its ancient
patina now glowing, now dull, in changing angles of the light, as it was tenderly shifted in his hands. Then he held it against him, in his arms, looked at Mrs. Pomfret, and nodded.

“Well?” voices demanded in chorus.

“It’s the Oksmann Stradivarius,” Beck said.

A moment of complete silence was followed by noises. Perry Dunham said, “Let me see it,” and stretched out a hand, but Beck continued to hug the violin. Koch muttered, “So there’s something to discuss after all.” Hebe Heath flopped limply into her chair. Henry Pomfret nodded his head like a man who has had surmise verified. Dora Mowbray sat down again, unsteadily, and Ted Gill followed her example if not her manner and said something to her ear. Mrs. Pomfret grasped the neck of the violin near the pegs and Beck released it, and she returned it to the nest of tissue paper.

“We may as well sit down,” she said, and waited until all were back in their seats. “I think you’ll agree that before we consider the question of what is to be done with it, there are one or two other points to be discussed.”

“Such as,” said Diego Zorilla determinedly, “whether Jan was playing on it Monday evening.”

“And” put in Ted Gill, “such as who mailed it to you.”

Mrs. Pomfret nodded at him. “That, I should think, comes first, but there is something else to consider even before that. The police are inclined to be interested in this—development. The man they sent here this morning wanted to take not only the violin, but also the carton and wrapper. At my request Commissioner Hombert kindly instructed him not to press the
matter. After all, no crime is involved—that is, Jan did it of his own volition, if the poor boy—”

“He didn’t!” The fierce exclamation was from Jan’s sister. “I don’t believe it! Jan didn’t kill himself! And you all know it! Some of you know it!”

“You’re a fool, Garda.” Perry Dunham was glaring across at her. “I was right there and saw him. So was Dora—”

“Dora!” she cried contemptuously. “You’re both lying! If it hadn’t been for her tricks—”

Mrs. Pomfret’s palm smacked the table. “That will do,” she said incisively. “Henry warned me that if you came you would make trouble—”

“And I will!” Garda’s black eyes flashed and her voice trembled with resolve. “You can’t shut me up! Just because you’re Irene Dunham Pomfret! You say there was no crime—but there was! Jan was killed. He was murdered!”

A derisive snort came from Perry Dunham. His mother straightened her shoulders preparatory to commanding the unfortunate situation, but was forestalled by another voice:

“She’s right.” Dora Mowbray, her fingers twisted tightly together before her on the table, moved her head from side to side as though to decide which one she wanted to tell it to. “Garda’s right. Jan was killed. I killed him.”

G
arda Tusar’s chair fell over backwards as she left it to gain her feet, but that was as far as she got, for she found her arms imprisoned in Diego Zorilla’s powerful grip. Sounds from the others were overborne by that from Perry Dunham, who, his eyes popping out at Dora, barked at her across the table:

“Have you gone batty, for God’s sake?”

“No, I haven’t,” Dora said, looking at his mother instead of him. Her voice came through a constricted throat, but there was decision in it. “I didn’t know it would be like that, but I did it. I must have. I thought when the violin was gone it might have been that—but now of course it wasn’t—”

“Just a minute, Miss Mowbray.” Tecumseh Fox, seated at her left, addressed her profile. “Are you saying that you shot Tusar?”

Her head turned. “That I?—”

“Fired the gun. Pulled the trigger.”

“Why—how could I? He did. Jan did.”

“Then,” Mrs. Pomfret demanded impatiently, “what are you talking about?”

“I am saying,” Dora faced her again, “that I think I killed Jan. If I sound melodramatic—I don’t mean to.
And God knows I didn’t mean him to die—I didn’t even mean to hurt him—though I did before—when I thought he had killed my father—”

“Slut!” Garda spat past Diego’s and Fox’s faces. “It was you who started that dirty lie—”

“Garda!” Mrs. Pomfret did not spit, but her voice prevailed. “You will stop that! You will behave yourself or you’ll be asked to leave, and any man here would enjoy carrying you out if it comes to that. This is disgraceful!”

Diego inquired, “Shall I?—”

“No. Put her in her chair—Now, Dora?”

“I don’t blame her,” Dora said. She took a deep breath. “Not that I’m a slut, nor did I start any lie. I have never said to anyone that I thought Jan killed my father, but for a time I did think so. I was—some of you know how I was—I loved my father—and I never did love Jan, the way he thought I should. And I thought I would hurt him in the only way I could hurt him.”

She took another breath. “It was a vile thing even to think of, I know it was, but my father dying that way—you said yourself, Mrs. Pomfret, I was half out of my mind. I thought I would work with Jan again, practice his big concert with him, and then I would ruin it—not so anyone would know except Jan, of course. I could have done that. I thought I could, but after we had practiced a few times I realized that I couldn’t—I mean that I wouldn’t be able to make myself do it—and anyway, I wasn’t so sure that I was right about how father died. I suppose my head was trying to get normal again.”

Diego growled at her, “That wasn’t a pretty idea you had, my little Dora.”

“I know it, Diego. But I soon got rid of it. Anyway,
I thought I had—no, I was sure of it. And Jan insisted I must work with him. Then that night came, and of course with the first bars he played I knew something was wrong, and I was afraid it was me, that I was doing unconsciously, without knowing it, what I had once planned to do. I wanted to call to him, to get up and run out, to do something, anything, but I couldn’t. I had to hang on and do my best, and I did. I never tried so hard—believe me! Oh, don’t you believe me? I never tried so hard—and my fingers were as stiff as my father’s had been and it was all wrong—it was horrible, horrible—”

“Nonsense,” Felix Beck declared gruffly. “That’s all nonsense. With the piano there was nothing wrong at all. Diego, do you agree?”

“I didn’t hear the piano. But I would have if there had been anything much wrong with it.”

“There was,” Dora insisted miserably. “There must have been! To make Jan choke it, kill it, like that? You heard him! I knew it must have been me, and when I saw him—when he—when I saw—”

“Fish!” said Mrs. Pomfret energetically. Fox darted a startled glance at her; the others, familiar with her favorite expression of impatience, merely glanced. She was going on, “Dora dear, your feeling of guilt is fantastic. Garda, your suspicions are claptrap and in extremely bad taste and you will please stop making a fool of yourself. We have a serious decision to make.”

Her meeting under control, she took time to clear her throat. “As I said, the police are aware that no crime has been committed, except possibly theft, and since the violin has been returned intact they won’t inquire into that unless we ask them to. So that puts it up to us. We can dispose of the violin and drop the
matter, or—Garda, be quiet!—or we can have an investigation made and try to answer the questions Diego and Mr. Gill have raised, which of course were in all our minds. My own opinion is that in spite of the unpleasantness that will conceivably result from an investigation, we owe it to Jan, to ourselves, to music, to have one made.” Her lips tightened. “I personally owe it to the impertinent scoundrel who sent that package to me.”

Koch, frowning, inquired, “Investigation by whom?”

“The police,” Garda Tusar said emphatically.

Dora Mowbray breathed, “Oh, no!” and then clasped her hand to her mouth.

“It seems to me,” Hebe Heath offered, “that it would be horribly revolting—”

A sharp and commanding glance from Ted Gill silenced her, but before anyone else could speak she started again, “But, Ted, I’m sure Mr. Koch would agree, because he was saying only yesterday—you remember, Dolphie, when I asked you why nobody—”

“Hebe!” It was Ted Gill. “We’re out of this.”

“Very well, Ted,” she said with aggrieved dignity.

“I think,” said Koch, smoothly and composedly, but with a suggestion of pink on his heavy cheeks, “that it depends entirely on who does the investigating.”

“So do I,” Mrs. Pomfret concurred. “Luckily one of our own number—one of the present owners of the violin—is a trained and skillful investigator. Mr. Fox, will you do it?”

“Him!” Garda exploded scornfully. “One of you!”

Mrs. Pomfret, ignoring her, observed what she took for reluctance on Fox’s face. “Of course,” she said, “I would expect to pay you for it. Myself.”

Fox shook his head. “There wouldn’t be any bill.”
He glanced around. “If there’s no objection from any of the owners of the violin—Miss Mowbray?”

Dora met his eyes, and nodded.

“Do you want me to find out what happened?”

“Yes—certainly.”

“Mr. Koch?”

“By all means. An excellent idea. My knowledge of your reputation is somewhat vague—”

“I pay my income tax. Miss Heath?”

“Oh, yes!” Her tone was enthusiastic and her incredible eyes were melting under his gaze. “Please do!”

“All right, I will.” Fox returned to Mrs. Pomfret. “It is understood, of course, that anything I find will be reported to all of you—I feel, as you did when you invited us here today, that consideration is due Miss Tusar and Mr. Beck and Diego. Your husband and son also, naturally.”

“Thanks!” Perry Dunham said with exaggerated gratitude. “I was afraid you were going to leave me out. When and how do we start?”