Double for Death

Chapter 4

They left the building and gained the sidewalk, but were not to get away without interference. As they climbed into the car, with Nancy protesting and demanding to know what was going to be done, Dan Pavey rumbled from the back seat:

“Hey, you didn’t pay your check. Here comes a waiter after you.”

The next moment Jeffrey Thorpe in his white dinner jacket, hatless, his eyes more bloodshot than ever from the rubbing, was standing on the running board and poking his head in and blurting:

“Miss Grant, I want you to understand—”

Nancy, clutching Fox’s sleeve, pleaded: “Go ahead! Please!”

Dan, leaning over from the back, asked: “Shall I push him off?”

“No.” Fox eyed Jeffrey. “Have you got a car around here?”

“Yes, that Wethersill Special across the street. I just want to tell her—”

“You can’t tell her anything here. Give—”

“He can’t tell me anything anywhere!”

“Miss Grant, you talk too much, too often and too soon. Mr. Thorpe, the man in the back seat is Mr. Pavey, my vice-president. Give him the key to your car, and take his place. Dan, take the Wethersill and follow us. Nothing fancy, just follow us.”

“But I just—”

“We’re leaving now.”

Jeffrey fished in his pocket for the key and handed it to Dan. Dan scrambled out and headed for the Wethersill, and Jeffrey took his place. As soon as Dan had got the Wethersill turned around ready to follow, Fox started the car rolling and spoke to Nancy.

“First, if you don’t mind, I’d like to catch up. You told me you didn’t know any Thorpes or any one connected with them. Your words.”

“I don’t!”

“You don’t. Does he know you?”

The back seat put in: “Let me tell—”

“No, Mr. Thorpe, I’m working for Miss Grant, I’d rather have it from her. Does he know you?”

“No, and he never will. He’s an arrogant fool. It was just — disagreeable. Last winter at the Metropolitan Opera House he accused me of stealing an ermine thing from his wife or fiancée.”

The back seat protested: “I’m not married and it wasn’t my fiancée! It was a girl I had—”

“Hold it,” Fox told him. “Please don’t do that any more. What were you doing at the Metropolitan Opera House?”

“Listening to an opera. I was a standee, of course, and dressed accordingly — I told you I came to New York to have a career — I was going to be a prima donna and was taking lessons — which Uncle Andy helped me pay for — but I finally found out that some of the notes are missing from my voice and now I’m modelling at Hartlespoon’s and earning my bread and butter. It happened in the refreshment room. She had carelessly left it on a table and I had a perfect right to move it — are standees people? — and the stupid disagreeable — he was actually going to have me arrested—”

“I was not! She was! She’s an imbecile—”

“Arbitrate it,” Fox suggested, bringing the car to a stop at the curb in front of a drugstore at the edge of town. “I have a phone call to make.”

He got out, entered the store and sought a phone booth. After a five-minute conversation he came out again and slid into his seat. “Get it settled?” he inquired as the car moved on.

“There’s nothing to settle,” said Nancy curtly.

“Uh-huh,” he grunted. “I called Nat Collins and he’ll be at the courthouse in half an hour. He may not be able to get a writ without an argument, but there’ll be fur flying.”

“Why didn’t we wait there for him?”

“Because I didn’t want to call him from there and we couldn’t help him anyway, and I can’t stand around or sit down when I’m sore. Also I wanted you out of there.”

“What the devil good am I, there or anywhere else? I can’t even pay the lawyer his retainer. You’re being — oh, damn—”

“Look here.” Jeffrey was leaning forward to her over the back of the seat. “Let me pay the lawyer — now wait! Say I’m an ape. Say I’m loathsome and repellent. Okay. But I owe you something. You could probably have collected colossal damages. That imbecile girl — she was my aunt’s husband’s partner’s daughter — she started it, but I admit I joined in and I’ll tell you why. I had been roped in. I hate opera and I thought if there was a row it might develop into our getting out of there. Then I got a good look at you with your eyes flashing and I’m here to tell you it was an experience. Right then and there it aroused — well, it was an experience. Then the excitement made that girl sick at her stomach and she insisted on leaving when I had decided I wanted to stay. I took her home and scooted back and got there before the show ended, but you had gone too — at least I couldn’t find you. I hunted you. The next day I got a detective. I advertised. I kept hoping I’d hear from a lawyer that you were suing for damages, but I never did. You should have. So it would merely be paying a legal debt if I pay a lawyer for defending your uncle — granting that he’s guilty, a guilty man has a right to a lawyer—”

“Make him shut up,” Nancy said savagely, “or I’ll open the door and jump out!”

“Another thing.” Jeffrey leaned farther forward. “I spoke of the exper—”

Nancy grabbed the door handle and pushed it down. Fox lifted his foot from the accelerator and snapped: “Don’t do that!”

“But I will! I swear I will—”

The car left the concrete, bumped a few feet along the wide grassy shoulder and stopped. Fox reached across Nancy to pull the door to, twisted around to face the back seat, saw that the Wethersill was stopping a dozen yards behind and spoke to Jeffrey.

“Will you quit talking to her?”

“But my God, I’ve just begun—”

“You’ll have to swallow it. She’ll jump out and break her neck. Or there’s your car waiting for you.”

“I like it here.”

“You can’t talk to her.”

“All right, I won’t. I’ll sit and look at the back of her head.”

“I see no profit in that — for me. I’m paying for the gas.”

“Well, hell’s bells, what do you want me to do? Talk to you?”

“You might.”

“What about?”

“Oh... tell me about Luke Wheer, your father’s valet. Have the police found him?”

“No.”

“What’s he like?”

“He’s dark brown, tall and skinny, and a little popeyed. As I just told what’s-his-name back there, he’s square and straight and easy-going, and Father had complete confidence in him. He’s been with Father over twenty years.”

“Have they found your father’s car — the one Luke went away in?”

“No.”

“Where did they take you to identify the body — was it still in the bungalow?”

“No. They didn’t find me till after two o’clock, out on Long Island and he — they had taken it to White Plains for the autopsy. I went there.”

“Have you ever been in that bungalow?”

“No. Nobody has.”

“Nobody at all?”

“No one that I know of. Of course, there might have been dozens and I wouldn’t have known it. All I knew about my father was what I read in the papers. I happen to know, though, that Kester had been in the bungalow.”

“Vaughn Kester, your father’s confidential secretary?”

“Yes. He mentioned it only last night. He said he was up there a couple of weeks ago to arrange about some repairs—”

“Wait for me. I must have skipped something. I thought Kester was at Green Meadow, near Pleasantville, last night, and it was after he was notified of the murder and left there for the bungalow that he disappeared.”

“That’s right.”

“And you were on Long Island?” Fox was frowning. “Where did you see Kester?”

“At Green Meadow. My sister and I had dinner there with him, and I went to Long Island afterwards.”

Fox’s frown gathered another wrinkle. “I guess I’ll quit reading the papers. I read that your sister was in the Adirondacks.”

“She was, but she flew down yesterday afternoon for the meeting I had arranged with Kester. He was our liaison officer with headquarters, meaning our parent. I’m not revealing secrets. All our best friends love to talk about it. When we needed to undertake financial negotiations we went to Kester. When I decided to be a Communist a few years ago it was Kester I notified.”

“Oh. Are you a Communist?”

“Not any more. I tried it a couple of months. I was so damn bored and useless. I ought to have a job, but I don’t seem to find anything. How about being a detective? Have you got an opening?”

“Not right this minute.” Fox’s tone had no banter. “I’ll consider it. After dining with Kester, did your sister go to Long Island with you?”

“Nuts.” Jeffrey scowled. “Mr. Fox, my sister didn’t kill my father and neither did I. That what’s-his-name back there had me convinced that Andrew Grant did, but now that I know who his niece is I hope he’s a fathead. I mean what’s-his-name.”

“Your hope seems reasonable,” Fox declared. “He has no evidence that Grant had a gun. The only motive that can be imputed to him, resentment at being fired from his job, is puerile. Beyond that, Derwin has nothing whatever except that Grant was there.”

“Oh, yes, he has. Grant lied.”

“Lied? What about?”

“About the time he got there, or maybe — anyway, he lied. He said when he looked in at the window Father was sitting there smoking a cigar and listening to the radio play band music, and it was a little after eleven o’clock. That’s impossible. If it was between eleven and eleven-thirty, Father was listening to Dick Barry. He hasn’t missed it once in three years.”

Fox made a noise of contempt. “As thin as that? Maybe he couldn’t get that station, or maybe in the bungalow his tastes changed, or maybe someone else turned on the radio — that’s as close to nothing—”

“No, really,” Jeffrey protested. “I tell you it’s a point. Grant must be lying. Ask anybody that knows my father. A year ago, when Dick Barry changed from seven to eleven o’clock, Father changed his bedtime. I don’t say he would have lost a leg to avoid missing it, but it’s a million to one that if he was in a room where a radio was at eleven o’clock, and he was conscious and free to act, he dialed WLX and got Dick Barry. Ten million to one. I suppose I shouldn’t tell you how what’s-his-name dopes it, but I will. He thinks Grant was in the room, covering Father with the gun, and Grant turned on the band music to smother the sound of the shots. Then of course he had to say the band music was playing because someone might have heard it. I hate to say it, but it sounds to me — what are you staring at?”

“Excuse me,” said Fox softly. “I apologize, Mr. Thorpe. I also apologize for a sudden decision I’ve made. I’m going somewhere in a hurry. So if you’ll kindly take possession of your car—” He stuck his head out the window and called: “Dan! Come here! Step on it!”

“But my God,” Jeffrey complained, “I was doing my best—”

“I know you were. I appreciate it. Thank you. Why don’t you write Miss Grant a letter? Get in, Dan, get in! If you don’t mind, Mr. Thorpe — thanks — women always read letters before they return them unopened. See you again. Look out, I’m—”

The convertible moved, regained the concrete, was at 20 in second, at 40 in high, at 60. Fox’s baritone was approximating the tune of “The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers”:

“Lah-de-dah, dum dum, lah-de-dah, dum dum...”

The back seat, Dan’s bass again, demanded: “Why, are we getting hot?”

“Dee-dee-dee — no! We’re taking a flyer on a ten-million-to-one shot!”

Nancy spoke loud to his ear: “But you’re turning south! I don’t — where are we going?”

“Going to work, Miss Grant. Heigh-ho! We’re going to New York to find someone who knows someone who knows Dick Barry.”

Two hours later Dan and Nancy were seated at a table in a corner of an enormous air-conditioned room on Madison Avenue near 60th Street. She was sipping an orangeade and he was finishing a Perisphere Float.

Dan was telling her not to worry. “He’ll find him all right,” he assured her. “If he’s buried he’ll dig him up. Don’t worry about your uncle either. That’ll work out. If you’ve got to worry, worry about me. I’m supposed to keep you awake. You might think it wouldn’t matter where you were awake or not, but you heard me trying to suggest — huh. Here he comes again. Find him, Tec?”

Tecumseh Fox, his hat in his hand, stopped at their table, and shook his head. “Not yet. Some day you’re going to get a stomach-ache. Come on.”

Two hours still later Dan and Nancy were facing each other in a booth of the fountain grill of the Hotel Churchill. She was sipping iced pineapple juice and he was working on a Strawberry Dream.

“You’re dead wrong,” Dan was saying earnestly. “I mean in my opinion. The right age for a man to marry is between fifty and fifty-five. I can give you a dozen good reasons, but I won’t do it now because you’re not wide enough awake to appreciate them and anyway you’re too young. I expect to get married in about fifteen years. Say I had got married when I was twenty-five. Where would I be now? A fellow I know named Pokorny was saying the other day — here he comes again. Find him, Tec?”

“No.” Fox was there. “Come on.”

In the summer dusk Dan and Nancy were at a table on the raised terrace of the Eskimo Village at the New York World’s Fair. In front of him a Caramel Iceberg was slowly melting into slush; Nancy was cooling her fingers around a glass of iced tea with lemon.

Dan grunted. “I can stand it if you can,” he declared.

Nancy looked at him in surprise. “Stand what?”

“Now now.” He grunted again. “I’ll bet you’d never guess.”

“I’m too hot and tired to guess. And this certainly seems like a wild-goose chase to me, the celebrated Tecumseh Fox chasing all over five boroughs for hours trying to find a radio gossip and dragging us with him. I don’t feel like guessing.”

“Right. I repeat, I can stand it if you can.”

She gestured in weary exasperation. “Stand what?” she demanded. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“I am referring to that camel at the table by the pillar that keeps staring at you.”

“Oh.” Nancy darted a sidewise glance. “I hadn’t noticed him.”

“Sure you hadn’t.”

“Well, I hadn’t. And what if I had?” She shot another glance. “What’s wrong with him?”

“I didn’t say anything was wrong with him. But since you ask, have you noticed the outfit on the chair by him? It looks professional. If you felt like guessing, you might guess he’s a news photographer.”

“What if he is?”

“Well, you’re news, aren’t you?”

“Why... but he...” Nancy looked startled. “He couldn’t know that.”

“He could if he reads the tabloids and his eyes are good.” Dan scowled across the slush of his Caramel Iceberg. “I admit it’s possible you hadn’t noticed him gazing at you. Naturally you’re used to it. You’ve had whole audiences gazing at you. It’s your job to put on clothes and walk around so people can look at you. Also it’s obvious that you’re perfectly aware that your face and figure are stareogenic, so you wouldn’t—”

“What does stareogenic mean?”

“Genic is a suffix which means generating or producing. Therefore stareogenic means ‘generating stares.’”

“Then you’re trying to say that it’s obvious that I’m aware that my face and figure generate stares.”

“That was the idea.”

“Like the bearded lady, for instance, or Albertelle the What-is-it, man or woman, only a dime ten cents—”

“I said nothing about beards or what-is-its, I merely said that you—”

“Miss Grant!”

Their argument had removed their attention from the camel at the table by the pillar, so his deft and speedy manipulation of his outfit had been unobserved. Now, as he suddenly shouted Nancy’s name and they both turned to face him, they blinked simultaneously at the blinding glare of the flashlight bulb. Dan, as he blinked, also leaped. Then the camel blinked, as Dan’s fist caught him on the side of the jaw and toppled him among chairs and tables, his camera bouncing on the floor. There were screams, and movements, and waiters came rushing.

An authoritative voice sounded: “May I ask what that was for?”

Dan, turning, frowned at Tecumseh Fox. He shook his head. “I think I’ve got a stomach-ache.”

“I hope you have.” Fox got Nancy by the arm. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Following them, Dan had the appearance of a man who could be detained only with considerable effort and difficulty, so no one tried.

At eleven o’clock that Monday night Nancy Grant was in an upstairs room at the Fox place, sound asleep. The soundness of her sleep was due partly to her healthy youth, partly to the extremity of her fatigue and partly to a tablet which Mrs. Trimble had dissolved in water for her; and her presence at the Fox place was due to the fact that it was closer to White Plains than was the little flat in New York which she shared with a Hartlespoon co-worker. Her Uncle Andy was sleeping, or not sleeping, somewhere in White Plains, just where she didn’t know. He was being held as a material witness and bail could not be arranged until Tuesday morning, in spite of the fur Nat Collins had started flying; and if he were charged with murder, as seemed likely, there would of course be no bail. But for the three good reasons cited, she slept.

Downstairs, the large room which was full of things contained also half a dozen people. Dan Pavey and the man with the bee stings were playing backgammon; the homely youth and a man with a short neck and a long grey mustache were arguing over a crossword puzzle; Tecumseh Fox was playing a guitar duet with a black-haired little Latin with narrow slanting eyes. But at 10:58 Fox put down the guitar, went to the radio and switched it on, dialed for a station, moderated the volume and stood frowning down at it. It spoke:

The homely youth called across: “I never knew your curiosity to get you down that low before.”

He got no retort. Fox stood for ten minutes.

The homely youth arose and left the room. Fox stood another ten minutes,

Fox turned the radio off, gave every one a good night and left the room. He was halfway up the stairs when Dan Pavey’s rumble came from below:

“Hey, Tec! Anything stirring tonight?”

“I don’t know. I may have laid an egg. I said ten million to one.” Fox turned to continue up and then turned again. “But I’m getting a bet down. Do you want a slice?”

“What are the chances?”

“You might triple it.”

“I’ll ride for a hundred.”

“You’re on. Good night.”

Fox ascended, went down the hall to the large room with a desk and a safe, seated himself and pulled the telephone across. He got the man he wanted and spoke:

“How are you, Harry? Family all right? Good. I’m sorry to bother you at home like this, but I may be moving around too fast in the morning to get you at the office. I’m developing a sort of an interest in the Ridley Thorpe murder. Of course. No, I’m working in a side show. What I wanted to ask, I notice that Thorpe Control Corporation closed at 89 Saturday and dropped to 30 today. Is that because the Thorpe enterprises were dominated by Thorpe and he was responsible for their success? No other reason? Holy smoke. Oh, you think it will. He was as good as that, was he? I suppose so. Let’s see — buy me a thousand shares when you think it’s around bottom tomorrow morning. Even if you think it may drop again in the afternoon, get it before twelve o’clock. Wait a minute — get it before eleven o’clock. That’s important. No, I can’t, but I never bet on a sure thing. Suit yourself...”

He hung up, tiptoed back down the hall to listen for a minute at the door of Nancy’s room, returned and undressed, and went to bed and to sleep.

Thunder awakened him. It was low thunder issuing from the throat of Dan Pavey. Fox recognized it and stayed on the pillow.

“What?”

“Derwin and a state trooper.”

“What time is it?”

“Ten minutes to one.”

“Did you let them in?”

“No, they’re on the porch.”

Fox turned on the bed light, hopped out, donned a linen robe and slipped his toes into mules, went downstairs with Dan at his heels and opened the front door the width of his shoulders. Two faces were there.

“Well?”

Derwin spoke. “I want a talk with you.”

“Well?”

“Not through a crack. I want to know what information you have that will protect Andrew Grant.”

“I don’t— Oh, sure. You’ve been listening to the radio.”

“And now I’m going to listen to you.”

“I haven’t got a thing to tell you, Mr. Derwin. Sorry.”

The trooper muttered something to Derwin. Derwin muttered back and showed his face again, twenty inches from Fox’s nose. “Look here, Fox, what’s the use of stunting it like this? Just to be cute? You know damn well we don’t want to pin it on Grant unless he’s guilty. If he can prove he didn’t lie — if you can explain why the radio was playing band music — I’ll turn him loose right now. I’ve got him out here in the car. Damn it all, this thing is worse than dynamite — the murder of a man like Ridley Thorpe—”

Fox shook his head. “Sorry, nothing to tell. Radio muck. Dick Barry trying to start a sensation. But I’ll give you a hot tip, buy Thorpe Control on the drop in the morning. That’s an insult to your intelligence — see if you can figure out why. Good night.”

He shut the door. Shoulders were against it and explosive protests came, but Dan’s bulk was with him and the door clicked shut as the lock caught. Fox thanked Dan, went back up to the corner room, heard a car retreating down the drive and was asleep again in three minutes.

It was not thunder, but clangor, that roused him the second time — the telephone bell. He switched on the light, bounced to the floor and trotted to the desk. As he lifted the receiver, a glance at the clock told him it was a quarter past three.

“Hallo.”

“Hallo.” The voice in his ear was low and blurred from lips too close to a transmitter. “I want to speak to Tecumseh Fox.”

“This is Fox.”

“I...” A pause. “I must speak to Fox himself.”

“You are. I’m Fox. Who is this, please?”

“I’m calling on account of the statement made by Dick Barry on the radio. Was that authorized by you and what basis did you have for it?”

“You’d like to know. Don’t be silly. Is your last name—”

“Don’t say it on the phone!”

“I won’t. Is your last name Teutonic and does it mean from the village?”

“No.”

“Is your first name Old English and does it mean from the red field?”

“No. But that’s enough...” The voice was agitated and even more blurred than before. “That tells me you do know—”

“Wait a minute. What does your last name mean?”

“It doesn’t mean anything. It was—”

“What does your first name mean?”

“It’s Celtic and means small or little.”

“Hold the wire a minute.”

Fox went to the shelves and pulled out a book bearing the title, “What Shall We Name the Baby?” flipped to a page, got what he wanted in a glance and returned to the phone.

“Fox again. Go ahead.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“Yes.”

“I’m talking from a booth in an all-night lunch place at Golden’s Bridge. We want—”

“Is he with you?”

“Yes. Not in here — he’s in the car around the corner. We want to see you.”

“Come to my place.”

“No, there are people there.”

“Go north on Route 22, six and two-tenths miles from where you are. Turn left on to Route 39 and follow it three and four-tenths miles. Turn right on to a dirt road, go one mile and stop. You’ll get there before I do. Wait for me. Have you got the directions?”

The voice repeated them. “But you must be alone. We absolutely insist on that—”

“I won’t be. My vice-president will be with me.”

“Your what?”

“Never mind. You’re in no position to dictate terms, are you, Mr. small or little? I’ll handle my part. You be there.”

Fox slipped out and down the hall, entered a room, grasped a massive shoulder and shook it, said: “Come on, Dan, work to do,” trotted back to his room, dressed in four minutes, put an automatic in a shoulder holster under his arm and another smaller one in his hip pocket, tiptoed back to Dan’s door and whispered explosively: “Come on!”

“Right,” Dan yawned.

Three dogs met them in the dark in front of the garage door and saw them off. Fox took the wheel, wound along the drive and was on the highway. The headlights split the summer night at seventy miles an hour; and since it was only fifteen miles or so to the spot on Route 39 where the dirt road offered its narrower and dustier track, the ride wasn’t as long as it was fast. Fox slowed down and swung around the sharp turn on to the dirt. It was uphill the first thousand yards, then leveled out and narrowed still more as the leaves of the trees on either side reached out for space.

Rounding a bend, there was a car, a long sedan, parked at the roadside in the entrance to a disused wood lane, a branch from a tree scraping its top. Fox drew up behind it, turned off the lights, told Dan to stay there and got out. A man emerged from the sedan and moved towards him in the darkness, all but impenetrable there in the woods. The man spoke:

“Who are you?”

“Tecumseh Fox.”

“I’m Kester. Who’s in your car?”

Instead of answering, Fox swept past him, found the handle of the rear door of the sedan and flung it open, sent the ray of a flashlight darting within, focused it on a face and uttered a cordial greeting:

“Good evening, Mr. Ridley Thorpe.”