Double for Death

Chapter 11

Nancy looked at it, saw what it was and looked up at Fox in astonishment.

“What kind of a crazy trick is this?” she demanded. “Did you say — say it again.”

“That photograph of you, bearing the inscription, was found by the police when they searched Ridley Thorpe’s rooms in his New York residence, in a drawer in a cabinet.”

Grant, having peered at the pasteboard over his niece’s shoulder, snorted incredulously. “Who says it was?”

“Derwin. He had it. He must have got it somewhere. But also, he put it up to Ridley Thorpe himself and all Thorpe did was hit the ceiling because the cops had invaded his home. He didn’t deny the picture had been there.” Fox’s eyes were on Nancy. “What about it?”

“Nothing about it.” She looked dazed. “But I can’t — do people actually do things like this? I’ve heard of frame-ups, but I never — I can’t believe—”

“It’s — why, it’s too damned funny!” Grant stared at the picture in helpless and indignant bewilderment.

“You say Thorpe — it wasn’t him that was killed, was it?”

“No. You’ve heard about it?”

“Yes. Crocker got it on the radio and came up and told us. He’s alive?”

“He is. Alive and kicking. Especially kicking. But, Miss Grant, while it may be incredible that the photograph was where the police say they found it, it is still more incredible that it’s a frame-up. No one but a lunatic would think of trying—”

“Then it’s a lunatic,” said Nancy firmly. “Those pictures were taken more than two years ago, when I was going to try a concert. I only got six. I sent one to my mother and gave one to Uncle Andy, and two went to the newspapers and— Oh!” Her eyes widened in horrified disbelief, and she lifted her fists and pushed them into her cheeks. “My God! Uncle Andy! Do you know—” She was speechless.

“Do I know what?” Grant demanded irritably.

Fox, gazing at her, said nothing.

“Oh — it’s awful!” she cried. It was the bleat of a camel whose back is bending under the last straw. “Of all the people in the world — did it have to be Ridley Thorpe? Did it?”

“I don’t know,” said Fox shortly. “Apparently it was.”

Grant shook her shoulder in a rough grasp. “What the hell are you talking about? Do you mean to say you wrote that on that picture and gave it to Ridley Thorpe?”

Nancy wriggled free, looked up at him, nodded and burst into laughter. She kept on nodding, bent over, laughing louder — high-pitched and half hysterical. Her uncle got her shoulder again and straightened her up.

“Cut it out,” he ordered. “This isn’t—”

“But it’s funny!” She gasped. “It’s a scream! It is funny!”

“Good,” said Fox. “Let’s hear it.”

Grant shook the shoulder he held. She pulled free again and told him with spirit, “Quit that! It hurts!” She looked at Fox. “It must have been — I suppose — Ridley Thorpe. And I say it’s funny. But I swear I don’t remember the name, not even now. Uncle Andy was helping me all he could, paying for my lessons, and my teacher said I should have a recital, but it would cost a lot of money and I couldn’t afford it — or rather, I just didn’t have it. My teacher was sure I was going to have a big career on account of my personality — I didn’t have sense enough to know I was being played for a sucker — and he said he could get a thousand dollars to finance the concert from a millionaire who was a well-known philanthropist and patron of the arts and I told him to go ahead. I suppose he must have told me the name of the millionaire, but if he did it glanced off because at that time I didn’t hear anything that wasn’t about me and my voice and my personality and my career. It was one of those. If you think I’m off the key now, you should have known me then. Having those pictures taken was one of the things I did with the thousand dollars and my teacher said it would be nice to autograph one for the millionaire, and I did so and gave it to my teacher to give to him. I’ll bet I thought he was getting more than his money’s worth, having that picture. That’s the way young geniuses feel about the rich boobs that stake them. And now — it was Ridley Thorpe! It must have been! Do you say that isn’t funny?”

Her uncle was scowling at her. “You never told me anything about a millionaire.”

“Certainly not. I was afraid to. I let you think enough tickets were sold to cover expenses. I guess eight or ten tickets actually were sold. The rest was paper.” She touched Grant’s sleeve. “Now don’t get huffy. You darned sweet old Puritan.”

“I’m not a Puritan.”

“Yes, you are, Andy, I’ve told you that myself.” Fox tossed the photograph on the bureau, pulled a chair around and sat. He smiled at Nancy. “I like you very much. Every time evidence turns up that you’re a liar, you dissolve it with a story out of your past so improbable that no liar could invent it. And you can’t be much over twenty. You should have a marvelous future.”

“Are you kidding me?” Nancy wrinkled her brows at him. “You believe me, don’t you? About the picture?”

“Of course I believe you. I doubt if you could be trained to lie, you’re too conceited— No, we’ll argue that some other time. I want to ask you — I understand that you’re under bond as a material witness?”

“Yes. Mr. Collins—”

“Both of us are,” Grant put in. “Collins arranged it. He drove us here — he suggested it. He said if we went to New York we’d be pestered... we took the liberty of coming here...” He hesitated with embarrassment. “I don’t think I ever properly thanked you for letting me stay here — as your guest — so long that time... and now you’re doing this just because Nancy came and asked you—”

“Forget it.” Fox waved a hand. “I do what everyone else does who can afford it, I do what I like to do. I suppose you’ve heard me say that what keeps my spring wound up is curiosity. I’ve never seen or heard of anything yet that I wasn’t curious about. The things that move are more interesting than the things that stand still and the most interesting moving things that I’ve seen so far are people. All I’m saying, I’m just relieving your mind of the notion that you have anything to thank me for. The fact is, I ought to be thanking you, because I’m collecting a big fat fee out of this. I can’t tell you who from or what for, but I wanted to mention it and tell you that it won’t conflict with the job I undertook—”

There was a knock at the door. He looked at Nancy. She said, “Come in,” and the door swung wide to make room for the broad shoulders of Dan Pavey. To Fox’s inquiring glance he said:

“Mr. Thorpe calling. The young one.”

“On the phone?”

“No, he’s down on the porch. His sister’s with him.”

“Tell them I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

Dan shook his head. “I think it’s just a social call. He asked to see Miss Grant.”

Nancy blurted, “Why... of all the unbelievable nerve—”

“I told him I’d see if you were still up.” Dan eyed her with gloomy scepticism. “He’ll wait if you want to take time to think it over. Now that his old man’s alive and well and his cash has reverted to prospects, if you want to play it different—”

“Play what different?” Nancy demanded. “I’m not playing anything.”

Dan grunted. “Call it work then. I suppose it’s a kind of work at that. Providing for the future — okay, call it work. You can ask Fox and your uncle what they think, but my advice is to stay on that horse. His old man won’t live forever, even if nobody shoots him. You’ve already got him blinded with dust. How would this be? I’ll go down and tell him you refuse to see him, and I’ll keep him there talking, and pretty soon you can come down, pretending you thought he had gone—”

“Are you intimating—” Nancy choked with indignation. “Are you daring to intimate—”

Dan nodded imperturbably. “I sure am. What’s that to get sore about? I’m only being practical. The question is whether it’s time to begin to reel him in, whether I ought to go down and tell him—”

Nancy turned her back on the vice-president, as offensively as possible, and her eyes flashed at Fox. “Will you please tell Mr. Pavey,” she began scathingly, “to tell Mr. Thorpe that unless he stops annoying—”

“No,” said Fox brusquely. “You’ll have to control your personal reactions. If you want me to help your uncle you’ll have to help me too. In the job you asked me to do, getting you people out of a difficulty, Jeffrey Thorpe’s eagerness to converse with — may I say us — is a valuable asset. Hate him and despise him if you want to, that’s all right, but you can do it with him present as well as in his absence. Even better, I should think.” He turned to Dan. “Anyone else on the porch?”

“Oh, just two or three.”

“Anyone in the living room?”

“Leo and Wallenstein are playing chess.”

“Dining room?”

“Crocker’s reading poetry to Mrs. Trimble. Some of his.”

Fox grimaced. “That’s the disadvantage...”

He looked around. “This is a little small and anyway I doubt if Miss Grant would let him in her room. Will you please bring him up to my room?”

Dan said he would and went. Fox invited the Grants to accompany him. Nancy muttered mutinously, but went through the door when it was opened for her and again through another door into the large corner room. Fox got the lights on and some chairs moved, and then returned to the hall to receive the visitors. In a few moments he was back with them. Grant stood up and bowed and answered greetings: Nancy was absorbed in a bulletin of the United States Department of Agriculture which she had picked up from Fox’s desk. That position was untenable, for she would unquestionably have to speak to Miranda, who had been quite decent at the encounter in the courthouse; but before she had worked out a solution of the problem Jeffrey Thorpe marched over, planted himself in front of her and demanded hoarsely:

“Will you marry me?”

“Good heavens,” gasped Miranda and dropped into a chair.

Jeffrey ignored that. “I’m asking you, will you marry me?” He was hunched over at Nancy. “Of course you won’t, not now you won’t, but I wanted to ask that first to get things clear. Next, I want to ask when did you give your photograph to my father and why, and under what circum — hey, now don’t—”

But, popping out of her chair, Nancy slid past him, avoiding his hand outstretched to stop her, circled around Fox like a breeze around a bush, and only after she had the door open turned on the threshold to say to Miranda:

“Good evening, Mrs. Pemberton. I’m glad your father wasn’t murdered.”

Then she went out and pulled the door to behind her.

She headed for her room. At the top of the stairs she paused irresolutely, thinking that outdoor air might cool her off a little, but faint voices came to her from below, evidently from the porch, so she resumed her course along the hall. Because the composition soles of her sport shoes made no noise on the hall floor, postponing the warning of her approach until she flung the door of her room open, her surprised glance showed her not only Dan Pavey sitting in a chair, but also her photograph which he held in both hands as if it were a book he was reading.

“Excuse me,” Nancy said in an astonished voice, leaving the door open and standing there.

“Sure,” Dan nodded. He arose, without haste, facing her. “Mrs. Trimble asked me to come up and see about towels.”

“That’s curious. She told me where to get towels from the cupboard.”

“Oh.” Dan cleared his throat. “Then I guess she didn’t ask me to come up and see about towels.”

“You ought to know.”

“Yes, I ought,” Dan agreed. He tapped the photograph with his finger. “You see, this thing is important evidence. Fox shouldn’t leave it around like this. I happened to remember he had left it in here—”

“It is not evidence,” Nancy asserted stiffly. “I have given Mr. Fox a satisfactory explanation of how Mr. Thorpe got it. Am I supposed to explain to you too?”

“You’re not supposed to, but you can if you want to.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Right.”

“Are you prepared to maintain that Mr. Thorpe’s having my photograph is any of your business?”

“No.”

“Especially since my explanation satisfied Mr. Fox completely?”

“Right.”

Nancy stamped her foot. “Don’t stand there and say ‘Right’ like a robot!”

“Okay.”

“And Mrs. Trimble did not send you to my room to see about towels!”

“I’ve conceded that point.”

“So,” Nancy swept on scornfully, “why didn’t you say you sneaked in just for the thrill of looking at my picture? That would have flattered me! That would have made me tremble with delight!”

“You’re trembling anyhow.”

“I am not trembling! If I am, I assure you it isn’t with delight! And even if you came in here to snoop for what you regard as evidence, I’m glad you did because it gives me a chance to make a polite request. I would greatly appreciate it if in future you will confine your conversation to things you know something about. I am referring to the remarks you made a while ago about my — my purely private affairs—”

“I was only offering a suggestion,” Dan declared. “It struck me you were overplaying your hand. If you handle it right, I don’t think there’s any question that he’s all set to ask you to marry him—”

“He has already asked me to marry him. In Mr. Fox’s room just now.”

“Then you were trembling with delight. Congratulations.”

“Thank you very much.”

“I said, congratulations.”

“I said, thank you very much.”

“Then you—” Dan stopped.

“I what?”

“Nothing. I guess my suggestion wasn’t necessary. Congratulations.”

“You’re repeating yourself. You have already congratulated me.”

“So I have.” Dan got up. He tapped the picture again with his fingers. “I’ll give this to Fox.” He moved, detouring not to brush against her on his way to the door, and with his hand on the knob turned to say:

“I’ll wish you happiness some day. At present I hope you choke.”

He was gone before she got a retort out, though apparently one was on its way, for her mouth was open as she stood gazing at the closed door. “That’s what comes,” she muttered at it, “of eating six ice-cream sodas in five hours. The nerve of some bassos!”

She crossed to the mirror, decided her face was too red, went to the washbowl and started the faucet running, and when the water was cold enough took a cloth and dabbed her forehead and cheeks and neck. She was engaged at the mirror with her compact when there was a tap at the door. It opened as she turned, to admit Andrew Grant.

“Well?” Nancy demanded.

“More complications,” said her uncle wearily. “Fox wants to ask you something.”

“I’m not going back where that—”

“Oh, forget it, Nan. Let him yap. What’s the difference? We’re in Fox’s house and he’s trying to help us. Come on.”

Nancy compressed her lips, and after a moment said, “All right, I’ll come in a minute.”

She finished with the compact, made a couple of passes at her hair with a comb, marched into the hall and along it to Fox’s room, and entered. Her uncle was back in his chair between Miranda and Jeff.

“Sit down,” Fox told her curtly. He looked and sounded exasperated. “You bounce around too much. I would like to discuss ladies’ gloves. Mrs. Pemberton tells me that the police found one Sunday night under a shrub outside the window of the bungalow, and one on the running board of the car you were driving. Also that Derwin says you told him they aren’t yours and you know nothing about them. You undertook to tell me everything you know about this business, but you didn’t mention gloves.”

“Why should I?” Nancy demanded. “They weren’t mine. I had never seen them before.”

“Derwin showed them to you?”

“Yes.”

“What were they like?”

“Yellow cotton with outseams, very nice, about my size, with the Hartlespoon label.”

“You work at Hartlespoon’s.”

“What if she does?” Jeffrey sputtered. “That’s no proof—”

“Mind your own business,” said Nancy scornfully. “I don’t need your assistance, thank you.”

“Ha! You spoke to me!”

“You certainly are battering down obstacles, Jeff dear,” Miranda told him. She turned to Fox. “I took a good look at the gloves when Derwin showed them to us.” She smiled. “I think they would fit me as well as they would Miss Grant. The strange thing was that they were both for the right hand.”

“They were?”

“Yes.”

“Were they alike?”

She nodded. “Exactly alike. And both new, or almost new. Derwin seemed to think the police could trace them, but he said hundreds of pairs like that had been sold by Hartlespoon’s, so I think it would be rather difficult.”

“And one of them was found on the running board of Miss Grant’s car?”

“So Derwin said.”

“Did he tell you that, Miss Grant?”

“Yes, he did,” Nancy declared, “and I don’t believe it.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Jeffrey asserted. “Who found the gloves? Some cop. If you think cops don’t lie — once a motorcycle—”

“Please, Jeff dear,” his sister remonstrated. “I didn’t know you were hauling me over here as a witness, but now that I’m here—” She looked at Fox and smiled. “I want to say something that is hard to say without giving offense.”

“Try it one way,” he suggested, “and if that doesn’t work, try another.”

“I might not get a second chance. But I’ll try. I want to ask first, does this — the fact that it wasn’t my father who was killed — does that make any difference in the position of Mr. Grant and his niece?”

Fox shook his head. “I don’t see how it could. Not if they thought the man in the bungalow was really Thorpe. And they did.”

“Then they’re still in danger?”

“I wouldn’t say great danger. Unless something startling and unexpected turns up I doubt very much if either of them will be charged. Especially if Miss Grant can continue to explain suspicious circumstances as she did your father’s possession of that photograph. It was given to him by a voice teacher of hers, in grateful acknowledgment of his donation towards the expenses of a recital. She had never seen him before Sunday night in the bungalow and since that wasn’t him, she never has seen him.”

“I knew it!” Jeffrey cried exultantly. “Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I say I was perfectly certain—”

“You said that, yes,” Miranda interposed crushingly, “but you were afraid to ask him and you didn’t eat any dinner. Don’t start your married life with misrepresentation.” She returned to Fox. “But they’ll still need a lawyer? And you?”

“Oh, yes. They’re under bond, and that’s unpleasant. They were unlucky enough to be at the bungalow without having been invited. Until the murderer is discovered—”

“Isn’t that Collins man expensive?”

“He is.”

“Then that...” Miranda sent a quick glance at Nancy and another at her uncle. “That’s what I want to say. My father regrets very much that Mr. Grant and his niece have got into trouble — through no fault of theirs — on account of him. Not that it was his fault either, but that’s his place, and that man was supposed to be him... so he feels it would be unjust to expect them to bear the expense in addition to the unpleasantness and notoriety, which can’t be helped...”

Nancy, flushing, opened her mouth, closed it and bit her lip. She looked at Miranda and said with restraint, “Damn it all. I took money from your father once, though I didn’t know him. For the sake of my career, not to deprive the world of my gifts. Honestly, I believed it! Now that I’m working for $31.50 a week, I know more about money and I’ve got snobbish about it. I like my own more than anybody else’s. At five dollars a week I could pay my share of the lawyer’s fee in a couple of years. Don’t you agree, Uncle Andy?”

Andrew Grant shook his head. “No, I can’t say that I do. I’m not snobbish about anything. If Ridley Thorpe, with his millions, would feel better if I let him pay the lawyer, I’m willing to accommodate him.”

“That’s sensible—”

“Excuse me, Mrs. Pemberton. The trouble is, while I could easily persuade myself that it would be all right for your father to pay it, I see no reason why you should.”

“I didn’t say—”

“I know you didn’t, but I suspect you should have. I don’t think you’re telling the truth. From your manner, the way you spoke, I don’t think your father said a word about it. I’m sure he didn’t. You were making the offer on your own hook. I’m pretty good at self-justification, I’ve had a lot of practice, but I’m afraid I couldn’t justify my accepting that offer from you, except on the supposition that you committed the murder yourself and you don’t want to see innocent people suffer on account of it.”

“Really,” said Miranda. “I couldn’t very well confess it before witnesses, could I?”

“Not very well. I realize that. Or the alternative supposition that you know your brother did it and you feel similarly—”

“You’re not funny,” said Jeffrey gruffly.

“I know I’m not, Mr. Thorpe. I just threw that in. You’d never kill any one if you were sober. Tecumseh Fox taught me how to look at people.” He regarded Miranda. “You might, though, if you were working on a problem and that was the only answer you got.” He smiled at her. “Of course it would depend on how vital the problem was.”

She smiled back. “All right, I did the murder. I want to pay your lawyer and Mr. Fox.”

“No, Mrs. Pemberton, I’m sorry. I’m especially sorry because I’m out of a job right now.”

“But why can’t I be permitted to dislike seeing innocent people suffer even if I’m—”

He shook his head with finality. “No, please don’t. I can assure you that it hurts me worse than it does you. I’ll probably be paying the damn thing for years.”

“You deserve to,” Miranda stood up. “And you said you aren’t snobbish! That’s the lowest form of snobbishness, about money. Very well. Mr. Fox, when this is all over I’m going to invite you to dinner. Jiffy, come on home and get busy on your list for your bachelor dinner. Miss Grant — why don’t I call you Nancy?”

“Go ahead.”

“I will. Good-night, Nancy. My God, you’re lovely.”