Bad for Business

Chapter 13

Fox’s eyes went half shut and then opened again. Collins cocked his head and frowned. The lawyer spoke: “That’s a very — remarkable statement, Miss Murphy. I suppose you’re sure of it?”

“I am,” she declared firmly.

“Was it you Tingley talked to on the phone?”

“No. It was Miss Yates.” She gulped, but her eyes were steady and her voice unfaltering. “I went to see her at her apartment Tuesday evening. We discussed something that made it — she had to call up Mr. Tingley, and she talked with him three or four minutes. She called him at his office. It was just a minute or two before eight when she rang off, because right after that a friend of hers came and I left and it was just past eight when I left.”

“By your watch? Was it right?”

“I set it by the radio every day at six o’clock. Anyway, the time was mentioned, because Miss Harley — Miss Yates’s friend — was expected at eight and she was right on time.”

“Did you hear Miss Yates phoning Tingley?”

“Certainly. I was right there.”

“Did you speak on the phone yourself?”

“No.”

“But you’re sure she was speaking to Tingley?”

“Of course. She was talking about — the business matter we had been discussing.”

“What was that?”

“It—” Miss Murphy halted. She gulped again. “It was a confidential business matter. If I tell you I’ll probably get fired. I may anyway. I spoke to Miss Yates about this yesterday, and said we ought to tell about it for Amy’s sake, but she said it wasn’t necessary, that Amy couldn’t possibly be guilty and she’d get out of it all right. But when I read the paper this evening — I decided to tell you about the phone call. But that ought to be enough. I don’t see that it matters what we were discussing.”

“Did you often go to see Miss Yates at her home?”

“Oh, no, very seldom.”

Collins leaned back and regarded her. “It’s like this, Miss Murphy. If we pass this information on to the police, you can be sure they will insist, they’ll demand, that you tell them what you were discussing with Miss Yates, because it was the subject of her conversation with Tingley on the phone, and they’ll want that from her, every word of it. And unless you give us all the details I’m afraid we’ll have to turn it over to the police, because we can’t deal intelligently with information as fragmentary as that. I’m sorry, and I certainly don’t want to get you into trouble, but that’s the way it is.”

She met his gaze. “If I tell you, Miss Yates will know I told you.”

“Possibly not. She may tell us herself without our revealing that you have already done so. We’ll try that.”

“All right. I’ve started it and I’ll finish it. It’s a long story.”

“We have all night.”

“Oh, it won’t take that long. Of course you know about the quinine.”

“Yes.”

“Well, for three weeks we’ve been investigating it. Questioning all the girls — everybody. And trying to prevent it’s being done again. New locks were put on the storage rooms and packing room downstairs. Upstairs everything was watched every minute. Edna Schultz and I knew that Mr. Tingley had Miss Yates and Mr. Fry watching us, but they didn’t know that he had us watching them. He called Edna and me into his office one day and said he didn’t suspect us or Miss Yates and Mr. Fry, but that he had to act as if he suspected everybody, only he didn’t want Miss Yates and Mr. Fry to know about it.”

She was rattling it off, with the obvious desire to finish a disagreeable task as soon as possible. “Since this trouble began, the mixers and the filling benches have been watched every minute by one of us four. If Edna or I did a mix, either Miss Yates or Mr. Fry tasted it just before it was dumped into the trays going to the filling benches. They did that openly, and they also put some in a sample jar and labeled it with the mix number, and took it to Mr. Tingley for him to taste. But when Miss Yates or Mr. Fry did a mix, Edna or I took a sample without letting anyone see us, labeled it, and put it where Mr. Tingley could get it. He told us not to take it to his office because we almost never went there, and they would have been sure to notice it and ask about it.”

Fox interposed, “Where did you put it?”

“I took it to the cloakroom and put it in the pocket of my coat hanging there, and Mr. Tingley would go there and get it. Edna did the same. It wasn’t hard to do it without being seen, since it was our job to dump the mixers. But I guess I got careless, because Tuesday afternoon Mr. Fry caught me doing it and jumped on me. He took me to the sauce room and commanded me to tell him what I was up to, and Miss Yates came in and he told her about it. She got mad at him and told him that the girls, including Edna and me, were in her department and she would handle it, and they fought about that awhile until Mr. Fry got too mad to talk and went out. Then Miss Yates asked me what the idea was, and I was on a spot. I got flustered, and when she got mad I did too, and I saw the only thing I could do was tell Mr. Tingley about it. I bounced out of the sauce room and up to the front, to the door of the office. It was closed. I knocked, and his voice yelled from inside that he was busy and couldn’t be disturbed.”

“What time was that?”

“A little after five. About a quarter after.”

Fox nodded. “He was conversing with his son. Could you hear anything they said?”

“I didn’t stay long enough. I went around through the other offices and out the front entrance and on home. But while I was eating supper I decided I had acted like a fool. If I saw him and told him about it, and he merely told Miss Yates that I had explained the matter to him and she was to forget it, I would be in bad with her forever, and after all she was my boss. She had had a perfect right to demand an explanation, since she didn’t know what the real explanation was, and I shouldn’t have got my Irish up. I decided I hadn’t better wait till morning to fix it with her, so I went to her place on 23rd Street and told her—”

“What time did you get there?”

“Right around half past seven. I told her the whole thing, how I had only been following Mr. Tingley’s orders, and Edna too. At first she didn’t believe me, I guess because she simply couldn’t believe that anybody, Mr. Tingley or anyone else, could think she might be involved in that quinine business. She phoned to ask Edna about it, but Edna wasn’t at home. She asked me a lot of questions, and finally she phoned Mr. Tingley, but found he hadn’t come home yet, so she tried the office and got him there. When she rang off she was so mad she could hardly speak. She would probably have lit into me, though it wasn’t my fault, but just then Miss Harley came and I got out. I thought she’d be cooled off by morning, but I knew I’d get the devil from Mr. Tingley for letting myself get caught. But in the morning...”

Miss Murphy fluttered a hand.

Nat Collins was frowning reflectively and rubbing his chin. Fox was regarding the tip of Miss Murphy’s nose dubiously and pessimistically.

“Anyway,” she said defiantly, “whatever happens to my job, Amy Duncan is a good scout and I won’t have that on my conscience! I mean that I didn’t tell about his being alive at eight o’clock.”

Fox grunted. “It may help your conscience, but I’d be much obliged if you’d explain how it helps Miss Duncan.”

“Why... of course it does! What I said — what you said — if she was unconscious—”

“She says she was unconscious,” said Fox dryly. “Up to now I have believed her. I still would like to believe her. But if you’re telling the truth—”

“I am telling the truth!”

“I admit it sounded like it. But if you’d like to see Miss Duncan arrested for murder and held without bail, go and tell it to the police.”

“If I—” She gawked at him. “My God, I don’t want her arrested! The only reason I came to tell you—”

“Please!” Fox was peremptory. He rose to his feet. “I haven’t got time to diagram it for you, but Mr. Collins will. You certainly have blown us sky-high. But before I start on a search for some of the pieces, please tell me: did the sample Mr. Fry caught you taking get delivered to Mr. Tingley?”

“But I don’t understand—”

“Mr. Collins will explain after I go. Just answer my question. Did Tingley get that sample?”

“Yes. At least I put it in the cloakroom, in my coat pocket — that was about a quarter after four — and when I got my coat later it was gone.”

“Were other samples delivered in that manner to Tingley on Tuesday afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“Four or five.” Miss Murphy considered. “I had — let’s see — one Fry and two Yates, and Edna had two Fry — that was the two ham spreads—”

“All right.” Fox got his hat and coat and turned to her again. “One thing. If you tell the police what you’ve told us, Miss Duncan will probably be charged with murder and thrown into jail. At least she’ll be in great danger of it. Suit yourself. I hope you’ll hold off for a day or two, but that’s up to you. How do you feel about it?”

“Why, I—” Miss Murphy looked wholly bewildered and a little frightened. “I don’t want — could they — I mean if I don’t tell them and they find out about it, could they arrest me?”

“No,” said Collins firmly and forcibly.

Fox smiled at her reassuringly. “He’s a good lawyer, Miss Murphy. If you’ll give me time to turn around, say a couple of days, I’ll appreciate it— Where’ll you be if I need you later, Nat?”

Collins told him the Churchill Theater and then the Flamingo Club, and he left them.

As Fox walked north on Madison Avenue and turned in to 41st Street, where he had garaged his car that morning, no friend or associate who knew him well would have been likely, after one glance at his face, to stop him for a jovial word or two. Or even, for that matter, to speak to him, since you don’t speak to a man who doesn’t see you, and Fox wasn’t seeing anything or anyone. The attendant at the garage, seeing the extent of his customer’s preoccupation with inner affairs, trotted out to the sidewalk ahead of the car to avoid a possible manslaughter of pedestrians.

But the feel of the steering wheel in his hands automatically created in Fox’s brain the appropriate concentration of attention, excluding all others, as it does with every good driver, and in spite of the eminently unsatisfactory state of his mind, he arrived at his destination on 23rd Street without scraping a fender. The building he stopped in front of was certainly not modern but had an appearance of clinging stubbornly to self-respect; the vestibule was clean, with the brass fronts of the mail boxes polished and shining, including the one which bore the name of YATES, where Fox pressed the button; and the halls and stairs inside were well-kept and well-lit. One flight up Fox pressed a button again just as the door was opened by Miss Yates herself.

“Oh,” she said.

Fox said he was sorry to disturb her and asked if he might come in, and was permitted, not graciously perhaps but still not grumpily, to dispose of his coat and hat on a rack in the foyer and enter a large and comfortable room with a little too much furniture and an air of being thoroughly contented with the status quo. He accepted an invitation to a chair. Miss Yates sat on an upholstered divan, on its edge as if it had been a wooden bench, and said bluntly:

“In case you think you fooled somebody this afternoon, you’re wrong. Arthur Tingley told me he didn’t trust you. Neither do I.”

“Then we’re even.” Fox matched her bluntness. “My trust in you is nothing to brag about. And apparently Tingley’s trust in you was something less than absolute, since he arranged secretly with Carrie and Edna to check on you.”

Miss Yates made a noise. The muscles of her face tightened, but the expression that appeared in her eyes could not have been called fear. Finally she began, “So Carrie—” and stopped.

Fox merely nodded.

“Very well.” She wet her lips. “What about it?”

“Several things about it, Miss Yates. For one thing, your extraordinary conduct. Is it true that you spoke with Tingley on the telephone at eight o’clock Tuesday evening?”

“Yes.”

“Are you positive it was his voice?”

“Certainly I am. And what he said — it couldn’t have been anyone else.”

“Then why — I don’t ask why you didn’t tell me, since you weren’t obliged to tell me anything if you didn’t feel like it — but did you tell the police?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

She just looked at him.

“Why not?” Fox insisted. “You’re intelligent enough to know that in their investigation of the murder that information was essential, vital. Did you want to obstruct the inquiry into the murder?”

Miss Yates’s eyes were leveled at his. “You just said,” she declared evenly, “that I wasn’t obliged to tell you anything if I didn’t feel like it. I’m not obliged to tell you anything now, either. But if I refuse to, I’m not fool enough to suppose that that will be the end of it, now that Carrie—” Her lips tightened, and in a moment she went on, “You asked if I wanted to obstruct the inquiry into the murder. I didn’t care about that one way or another.”

“You don’t care whether the person who killed Tingley — knocked him on the head and cut his throat — is discovered or not?”

“Well — I care, yes. I don’t suppose any normal person wants a murderer to go free. But I knew if I told about that phone call I’d have to tell what it was about, and I’m entitled to my pride, everybody is. There has only been one pride in my life — I’ve only had one thing to be proud about — my work. The work and the business I’ve given my life to — and for the last twenty years I’ve been responsible for its success. My friends and the people who know me, they know that — and what’s more important, I know it. And when Carrie — when I learned that Tingley had actually suspected me, had actually had my subordinates spying on me—”

A flash gleamed in her eyes and vanished again. “I could have killed him myself. I could. I would have gone there if Cynthia Harley hadn’t come—”

“But you didn’t.”

“No,” she said bitterly, “I didn’t.”

“And you didn’t tell about the phone call because you didn’t want it known that Tingley had you watched by your subordinates.”

“Yes. And then later, there was another reason, when it came out about Amy’s getting hit on the head and lying there unconscious for an hour. I didn’t understand it, and I don’t now, but I don’t believe she killed her uncle or was involved in it, and I saw that if it became known that he was alive at eight o’clock it would make it a lot harder for her. So that was another reason. But not the main reason.”

“But there was also,” Fox suggested, “a pretty cogent reason why you should have told about the phone call. Wasn’t there?”

“I don’t know what.”

“Your own position. As a murder suspect. You’re aware, of course, that with the police you’re still under suspicion. You have no alibi during the period that they now regard as the important one. It isn’t very pleasant to be suspected of murder, and by telling about the phone call—”

Miss Yates snorted. “Let them suspect. Anyway, if they seriously suspect me of murder, what good would it do to tell them about the phone call? No one but me heard Arthur Tingley’s voice, and couldn’t they say I was lying?”

“I suppose they could.” Fox eyed her gloomily. “I wish to inform you that at present it is not my intention to tell the police about this, and I don’t think Carrie Murphy is going to, at least not right away. How about you?”

“Why should I tell them now if I haven’t already? If they find out about it and come and ask me — and I don’t trust Carrie or you either—”

“I don’t blame you.” Fox arose. “I don’t trust myself after today. My heart’s in the right place, but my brain’s withering. Thank you very much. Don’t get up.”

But Miss Yates, adhering to the common courtesies even for a man she didn’t trust, went to the foyer with him and let him out.

He got in his car and drove to Seventh Avenue and turned downtown. Near 18th Street he stopped in front of a restaurant, went in, and told the waitress to bring him something good to eat provided it wasn’t codfish or cauliflower. He was not by any means indifferent to food, and even in his present deplorable condition would have become aware of it if he had been served with something inedible, but when he left half an hour later he could not possibly have told whether the contented feeling in his stomach should be credited to breast of guinea hen or baked beans.

The dashboard clock, which he kept set within a minute or two, said five minutes to eight as he rolled to the curb in front of 320 Grove Street, got out and crossed the sidewalk to the vestibule. A figure emerged from a shadowy corner and was revealed as Mr. Olson with a toothpick in his mouth. He announced that Miss Duncan’s bell was still being ignored upstairs, let Fox in, and stood listening in the hall until voices from above assured him that this caller was still a friend.

Fox, however, saw plainly from the expression on Amy’s face that though he might be regarded as a friend he certainly wasn’t the right one. When the door opened he was confronted by a vision of youthful loveliness in a becoming green frock, eyes shining and cheeks a little flushed with warm though restrained expectancy; and the passage of the cloud of disappointment across her features was not swift enough to escape his glance.

“Only me,” he said. “Sorry.”

She tried to compensate. “Oh, I’m glad! How nice — I mean I was hoping you — here, let me have your coat—”

He let her put it on a hanger. A rapid swoop of his eyes showed that the room had recently received attention; the cushions on the sofa had been patted into shape and neatly arranged; the magazines and other objects on the table had been tidily disposed; the rugs showed no careless speck and the ashtrays were chaste.

“You going out?” he asked politely.

“Oh, no. Sit down. No, I’m not going out. I... will you have a cigarette?”

“Thanks. I suppose I should have phoned—”

He stopped, and she whirled, as a bell rang. “Excuse me,” she said, and stepped to the door to the hall and opened it. Fox surmised, of course, who it was, and was inclined to look the other way not to constrain any display of sentiment that might be contemplated, but the sound of Amy’s modestly effusive greeting tapering off on a note of bewildered surprise demanded his attention and got it. Whereupon his own brows were raised in surprise, for Leonard Cliff entered the room like a thundercloud, somber, grim and menacing.