Double for Death

Chapter 18

Fox, standing in the side hall, glanced at his wrist and saw it was half-past six. The expression in his eyes was a rare one, that of irresolution. For immediate exploration he had to choose between two trails and which should it be, a gun or a murderer? Resentment and wrath impelled him to the first, but sharp sense spoke for the second, since that inquiry had been already too long delayed by the jostle of events. A third desire was struggling for the field of his attention, but that he ignored, knowing as he did that his violent inclination to go outdoors was a childish reaction to the circumstance that he had been commanded to stay in the house.

Sense won; and since his own roaming was now restricted, he decided to find a button somewhere and ring for a servant. In the first room to the right of the hall, a small bare one which apparently functioned in the winter as a conservatory, there seemed to be no button; and in the adjoining one the need for a button disappeared. It was enormous and high-ceilinged, and still, judging by its furnishings, clung to its pretensions to the old-fashioned appellation of drawing room. In a corner of it, four people were seated talking in subdued tones. Fox had no desire for conversation with Fuller the lawyer or McElroy the multiple director, but the other two were Miranda and Vaughn Kester, so he approached.

“Excuse me,” he said abruptly, “but things are happening. I know of no reason why I shouldn’t tell you. They found an old Zimmerman revolver in Thorpe’s safe, fired bullets with it and learned that it was used to kill Corey Arnold Sunday night. Did your father own a Zimmerman revolver, Mrs. Pemberton?”

She was looking up at him with a frown. “Heavens, I don’t know. But I know he didn’t kill that Arnold man. I knew my father better than—”

“Excuse me. Did he, Kester?”

“Own a Zimmerman revolver? No. Mr. Thorpe hated guns and would have nothing to do with them.” Kester’s eyes were incredulous. “What you say is absolutely impossible, that they found the gun that killed Arnold—”

“Then you didn’t know it was in the safe?”

“Certainly not! And I wouldn’t believe it—”

“Excuse me. Here’s another one. The Zimmerman is an old German revolver and can’t be traced by sales records. But the one they found on the library floor today is an American pistol, a Dowsey, and can be so traced, and has been. I bought it in 1936 and have had it ever since. It’s mine. It’s the gun that shot Ridley Thorpe. I have no idea — what’s the matter, Mrs. Pemberton?”

Miranda had done more than blink; she had kept her eyes closed to Fox’s darting gaze for a full three seconds. Now his eyes were boring into hers and she was meeting them. “What’s the matter?” he repeated.

“Nothing,” she declared, in a voice perfectly composed. “Why?”

Fox did not blink. “As I observed a while ago, you have extraordinary control of your nerves. That private talk we were having got interrupted. I’d like to go on with it at your convenience. All right?”

“Certainly.” Miranda made a movement. “I have no doubt Mr. Fuller and Mr. McElroy—”

“Oh, no, it can wait until you’ve finished with them. I was looking for Mr. Kester. If the rest of you can spare him—”

Fuller put in caustically, “It seems to me, Mr. Fox, that you have your hands full right now, in view of your admission regarding the weapon found in the library.”

“It wasn’t an admission, Mr. Fuller. They proved it and confronted me with it. I am confined to this house and will be arrested as a material witness if I try to leave it. Sure my hands are full. Among other things, Mrs. Pemberton has engaged me to investigate the two murders. Is that correct, Mrs. Pemberton?”

Miranda, looking at him, allowed her head to move barely perceptibly, down and up.

“That’s correct, isn’t it?” he insisted.

“Yes,” she said, loud enough to carry six feet.

Fuller demanded, “You’re acting for Grant, aren’t you?”

“I am. That’s all right, I’m licensed. If I betray the interest of one employer to the advantage of another, they can take my license away and put me in jail — Mr. Kester, will you take me somewhere for a talk? I need to ask you some things that I would have asked long ago if someone hadn’t shot Mr. Thorpe with my gun.”

Kester looked at Miranda. She nodded. Kester said, “All right, as soon as I’m through here.”

Fox shook his head. “I’m sorry, but it’s urgent. It gets more urgent every minute.”

Fuller said emphatically, “I strongly advise you, Mrs. Pemberton, and you too, Kester, to use the utmost discretion in choosing—”

“Excuse me.” Fox’s eyes were into Miranda’s again. “I say it’s urgent. More so even than finishing my talk with you. If a bomb’s going to explode, don’t you think it would be better to light the fuse ourselves?”

She said, “Will you, Vaughn? Please?”

“Now?”

“Please.”

Kester got up, told Fox, “We’ll go up to my room,” and led him off.

If was Fox’s first trip upstairs. The upper corridor was broad and softly carpeted, and paneled in wood. The room into which Kester ushered him, a spacious chamber trying to look cool in white rugs and chair covers and counterpanes, was like an oven, with the late afternoon sun mercilessly glaring in. Evidently the household routine, which must have included drawn shades on the west side after lunch, had been disrupted by events. Kester lowered awnings, removed his coat and tossed it on a bed, and pulled a chair around to face the one Fox had taken.

“When,” he demanded, “did Mrs. Pemberton engage you to investigate this?”

“Outdoors a while ago.” Fox got up to remove his coat too, and sat again. “We have a lot of ground to cover, Mr. Kester, and we’ll have to cut corners and move fast. Are you on their list of suspects, or have you an alibi?”

“I have no alibi.” It was astonishing how chilly the secretary’s eyes could look in that furnace of a room. “Colonel Brissenden’s interview with Mr. Thorpe had just ended, and I had escorted him from the library and turned him over to Bellows to let him out the back way, the shortest way to his car. At the moment I heard the shot I was in the conservatory, on my way to get Mr. McElroy and the others, thinking they were on the front terrace. The sound of the shot paralyzed me. I am not a man of action. Then I started to run back to the library, and caught my foot in the rug in the hall and fell. I scrambled up and went on. Mr. Thorpe was there on the floor, on his face, and as I stood there staring at him a second, unable to move, there was a convulsive twitch to his legs and then he was still. My next action was to pay you a compliment.”

“Thank you very much. What was it?”

“I yelled for you. I yelled your name several times.” The twist on the secretary’s lips was presumably a smile. “I suppose I had been impressed by your handling of the job you had done for Mr. Thorpe.”

“We were pretty lucky on that. What direction did the sound come from? I mean the shot.”

“I don’t know. Of course I’ve reflected on it and have been questioned. I can’t say.”

“Did it sound as if it were fired in the open or in a confined space? Outdoors or in the house?”

“I can’t say that either. I’ve never heard a shot fired in a house. It sounded loud and close by.”

“Was there any smoke in the side hall? Or a sour smell? You know the smell.”

“I didn’t notice any. Colonel Brissenden says that the position of the body indicates that the shot was fired from the direction of the French windows.”

“Maybe and maybe not. He might have done a spin after it hit him. Who got there first after you?”

“Grant did. Then Bellows, and after him Brissenden. Then one of the gardeners came in through the French windows and Henry Jordan was right behind him. After that I don’t know, they came in a rush from all directions.”

“Was that blue scarf there on the floor when you first entered?”

“I don’t know when I saw it first. I didn’t even see the gun until I saw Grant looking at it and Brissenden telling him not to touch it— Speaking of guns, I’d like to ask a question.”

Fox nodded at the colorless eyes that looked as if nothing would ever make them blink. “Go ahead.”

“Who told you that the gun that killed Arnold was found in the library safe?”

“Derwin.”

“It’s incredible. Absolutely incredible. Do you suppose there’s any chance that he planted it there?”

“No. None of them. They found it there all right. Who has the combination of the safe?”

“Mr. Thorpe and I, and that’s all. That’s why I say it’s incredible. I haven’t opened it for over a week until this morning, to get the checkbook. I know I didn’t put that gun in there and to suppose that Mr. Thorpe did...”

“He must have.”

“He couldn’t have. Where did he get it?”

“I don’t know. According to Derwin and Brissenden, I got it and gave it to him, and that’s what he paid me that check for. They call it a strong inference, which shows how careful you have to be with inferences. Nothing would be easier, for instance, than to build up a strong inference that it was you who killed both Thorpe and Arnold. Sunday night you sneaked out of the Green Meadow Club, drove to the bungalow, fired through the window and were back at the clubhouse in bed by the time the police phoned to notify you. Your motive was obvious. You knew that Thorpe Control would drop forty points or more at the news of Thorpe’s death and jump back up again at the news he was alive. If you could swing a buy of, say ten thousand shares, that would make a profit of four hundred thousand dollars. Not bad at all. That’s why you didn’t make an effective search for Thorpe on Jordan’s boat Monday morning, to allow time for the market—”

Kester’s expression had exhibited no change whatever, but he interrupted indignantly: “He wasn’t on Jordan’s boat! I went straight to the cottage where he was!”

“Sure.” Fox nodded. “I know that, but the police don’t. I’m building up an inference for them. But even for me that doesn’t weaken it any. You went straight to Thorpe and stayed right with him, to make sure he wouldn’t disclose himself too soon. You were sure he wouldn’t anyway, knowing as you did how devoted he was to his reputation.”

Kester’s lips were twisted again for their substitute for a smile. “And then,” he said sarcastically, “I carried the gun around in my pocket for two days and put it away in Mr. Thorpe’s safe.”

“Oh, no. That would have been dumb. Somehow — this is a detail to be cleared up — Thorpe got hold of the gun and knew it was yours, and threatened to turn you over to the police. We have to have it that way to give you a motive for killing Thorpe. When you returned to the library after turning Brissenden over to Bellows, you stepped outside the French windows, fired from there, entered the house by the side hall, fell down to pretend you had tripped on the rug if any one appeared at that moment, got up and reentered the library, and yelled for me. As it happened, you see, your yelling for me wasn’t a compliment at all, it was an insult. I resent it!”

“You can’t possibly—” Kester’s blue eyes were staring wide. “You can’t — why — it was your gun that shot him! Where did I get your gun?”

“Just a detail.” Fox waved it aside. “That and Miss Grant’s scarf, which you used to protect your hand from powder marks. If this were anything but an idle inference, little things like that wouldn’t trouble us much.”

“I thought,” Kester observed stiffly, “that you said we had a lot of ground to cover. You told Mrs. Pemberton it was urgent. If you wish from me a categorical denial that I am guilty of murder, you may have it. I am not. I am here to answer your questions at the request of Mrs. Pemberton—”

“All right,” Fox conceded. “No more idle inferences. Let’s have some facts. What about that bunch of directors and vice-presidents? Do they alibi each other? Were they in a huddle somewhere when they heard the shot?”

“I don’t know, except McElroy. He told me he was in the bathroom on the other side of the music room. I don’t know where the others were, but I suppose they were together, since Derwin let them go back to town.”

“Probably, but we won’t forget they were here.” Fox pulled at his ear. “There was something— Oh, yes. That threatening letter Thorpe received, which I returned to him this morning. Had you seen it before?”

“Certainly. I open his personal mail.”

“You read that even before he did, then?”

“Yes.”

“Did anything about it strike you as odd?”

“Odd? Certainly. The whole thing — I would certainly call it odd.”

“No, I mean something special. Some particular detail.”

Kester shook his head. “No. No particular detail. What do you mean?”

“We’ll pass it for the moment. Where were you born?”

“I fail to see,” said Kester dryly, “any connection between an oddity in a threatening anonymous letter received by Mr. Thorpe and the place of my birth. I was born in Salisbury, Vermont.”

“Where did you go to school?”

Kester stood up. “This is absurd. I am perfectly willing to furnish any information that may be helpful, since Mrs. Pemberton asked me to, but these inane and irrelevant—”

“You’re wrong,” said Fox curtly. “Please sit down. These are the questions I wanted to ask Thorpe as soon as I read that letter yesterday. Now he’s dead and I have to ask you. I’m not going to tell you why they’re relevant, but you can take it from me they are. Where did you go to school?”

Kester was frowning. “Do you mean this?”

“I do.”

He sat down. “I attended public school at Salisbury to the tenth year. My family moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, and I got the last two years of high school there. I then went to Dartmouth and graduated in four years.”

“Have you spent any time in Canada?”

“None.”

“Been abroad?”

“Once, in the summer of 1929, for two months.”

“Thank you very much. Do you happen to know where Luke Wheer was born?”

“Yes. Macon, Georgia. His people still live there. Mr. Thorpe sent them a gift every Christmas.”

“He was a remarkable man. Since Luke was with Thorpe for over twenty years, he couldn’t have spent much time in — the British Isles, for instance. Could he?”

“Very little. He has been there a few times with Mr. Thorpe on short trips.”

“But not every year for the shooting or anything like that.”

“Oh, no.”

“Well, that’s two of you. Now for the son and daughter. Or rather, their mother first. Was she an American, do you know?”

“Yes. You understand, Fox, this is simply ridiculous. By no stretch of the imagination—”

“Don’t try it. Take my word for it, I’m being practical and sticking to the point. Mrs. Thorpe was born in this country?”

“Yes. I prepared a biographical sketch of her. You seem to be interested in Great Britain. She was there only once or twice. She didn’t go abroad much, and when she did she spent her time in France or Italy.”

“How about the children’s governess — Jandorf who took Jeffrey to the zoo, and Lefcourt who took him to the aquarium? Do you know anything about them?”

“Not a thing. That was before my time.”

“Where did they go to school?”

“Private schools here in the east and preps. Miranda graduated from Sarah Lawrence and Jeffrey went to Harvard for three years but didn’t graduate.”

“Have they been to England much?”

“Miranda never, I’m sure, and Jeffrey, I think, twice.”

“Thank you very much.” Fox leaned forward and grimaced as he felt his shirt sticking to his back. “Now here’s something I can’t do because I’m incommunicado. I could bust loose by getting arrested and arranging bond, but that takes time. About these business associates that were here today, we need to know whether any of them is or was English, or was educated in England or Canada or Australia, or has spent a considerable amount of time there.”

“Maybe you need to know that. I don’t.”

“I do. Will you get on the phone and find out? You shouldn’t have much trouble; they’re all prominent men. There’s no concealment about it; it doesn’t matter if Derwin’s sitting at your elbow.” Fox stood up. “Will you do it?”

“The whole thing sounds preposterous.”

“Sure it does. Will you do it?”

“Yes.”

“Good. One other thing, have you had, or do you have, any definite suspicion about the writer of that letter?”

“No. Mr. Thorpe was an able and realistic businessman and financier. I suppose there are thousands of men who could persuade themselves that they are his victims.”

“You put that very nicely.” Fox picked up his coat. “That inference I built up, don’t start worrying about it until I find out how you got hold of Miss Grant’s scarf and my gun.”