The Broken Vase

Chapter 13

Fox looked in another direction, with, he hoped, no gleam in his eye.

Koch finished with the phone, pushed it away, and dropped into a chair.

“You would suppose,” he observed testily, “that a man’s business might run itself for an hour or two. It’s my own fault, letting them depend on me for everything, so when I don’t get there sharp at nine thirty as usual...” He shrugged. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m out fishing.” Fox smiled at him. “Mrs. Pomfret got impatient and hired me to find out who killed her son.”

“Ah.” Koch smiled back. “She would.”

“And I’m trying to get a rise somewhere.”

Koch’s brows went up. “From me?”

“From anyone. I’m not particular.”

“Then the police haven’t made much progress?”

“Nothing very notable.” Fox threw one knee over the other. “By the way, you were speaking of your business — I know you make women’s clothes — do you make fabrics too? I have a note here from Mrs. Pomfret, if you’d care to see it, requesting co-operation—”

“That’s all right.” Koch waved it away. “You couldn’t be as objectionable as the police have been even if you tried. Nor as clumsy, I hope. They’ve been pumping my servants about the guests I invite to my house.” He smiled. “Yes, we manufacture some of our own fabrics. Does that have some sinister significance?” His eyes looked amused.

“I wouldn’t say sinister. Do you dye your fabrics?”

“Certainly.”

“Aniline dyes?”

“Of course. Everybody does.” Koch’s brow showed a crease. “I guess I’m up with you, but I don’t see the point. If you’re delicately leading up to nitrobenzene, we have gallons of it, and it smells like hydrocyanic, but after all it was hydrocyanic that was put in Perry’s whisky. Wasn’t it?”

“Sure. I told you I’m just fishing. Do you happen to know that nitrobenzene spilled on a man, even on his clothing, can kill him?”

“I don’t ‘happen’ to know it. I do know it. Anyone does who makes aniline dyes.” Koch was frowning. “What the devil is this, anyhow?”

“Nothing. Probably nothing important. A nosey detective asking mysterious questions. That is, it naturally seems mysterious to you...”

“It certainly does.” Koch, still frowning, got up and stepped to the side of the table. “And speaking of mysteries, here’s another one.” He picked up the vase. “Look at that!”

Fox did so, without excessive interest. “It’s pretty,” he conceded. “What about it?”

“Pretty?” Koch stared at him, snorted, and passed caressing finger tips around the lip of the vase. “But I presume there are intelligent people who might call it ‘pretty.’ Do you remember, the other day at Mrs. Pomfret’s, there was talk of a vase, a Wan Li rectangular, that had been stolen from Henry’s collection? This is it!”

“Really?” Fox gawked at it. “That’s interesting. Where did you get it?”

Koch replaced it gently on the table and grunted, “That’s the mystery. It was delivered here this morning, by parcel post. Just as I was about to leave for the office. That’s why you found me still here. I coveted that thing every time I saw it at Pomfret’s, and you can imagine — when Williams brought it and showed it to me — he had already opened the package—”

Fox nodded. “Yes, I can imagine. Especially in view of the peculiar circumstances. What are you going to do with it?”

“Return it to its owner, damn it! I phoned him just before you came, and I’m going to take it up there now. If I kept it here twenty-four hours, the temptation — but you wouldn’t understand. You called it ‘pretty.’ ”

“I apologize,” Fox said mildly, and added in the same tone, “This parcel post gambit is getting a little monotonous. Since you say it’s a mystery, I suppose you don’t know who sent it?”

“No.”

“Was it addressed to you?”

“Certainly. This is my house.” Koch pointed to articles on a chair by the wall: brown wrapping paper, and a sturdy little fiber carton which had started its career as a container of Dixie Brand Canned Tomatoes. “It came in that.”

“May I take a look at it?” Fox went to the chair. He found it was unnecessary to spread the paper out to inspect the address, for it had been neatly folded so that a small printed label was in the center of the visible surface, as well as the postmark. Picking it up to examine the label more closely, he saw that it wasn’t printed, but expensively and elegantly engraved, with Koch’s name and address. He turned, his raised brows putting a question.

Koch nodded. “The beggar has a nerve, hasn’t he?” He was suave and amused. “That was clipped from the corner of an envelope of my personal stationery and pasted on there. But it doesn’t help much, because I’m pretty lavish with my stationery. Only last week I sent out a thousand invitations to a show of Frank Mitchell’s — a young painter I’m interested in.” He glanced at his watch. “You know, I must be at my office before noon, and I do want to see the look on Pomfret’s face when I hand him this thing. If you want to ask me some more mysterious questions, why don’t you ride up there with me? Unless you’d rather stay and try to get more out of my servants than the police did?”

Was his smile banter, or a challenge, or merely the polite urbanity of a civilized man tolerating unmerited harassment? Fox couldn’t tell; but in any case, it seemed doubtful that the maid was saving any helpful revelation for him. He accepted the invitation to accompany Koch uptown.

It appeared, during the twenty minute ride, that Koch had no revelations either. He could add nothing to what he had told the police and the district attorney. He had regarded Perry Dunham as a bumptious young scatterbrain, but he sympathized with Mrs. Pomfret and would be willing, he said, to undergo serious inconvenience if by doing so he could be of any help in the situation. He would like to know why the devil Fox had asked about nitrobenzene; he would also like to know who had sent him that vase, and why to him; he was in fact, he said, in a vastly better position for asking questions than for answering them.

The effect he produced at Pomfret’s, as registered not only on the husband’s face but also on the wife’s, must have met his extreme expectations, when, after a brief and rather stilted exchange of amenities, he suddenly produced the vase. Pomfret stared at it for five seconds in dazed incredulity, then stretched his mouth from ear to ear in a grin of unalloyed delight, and reached with an eager hand. Mrs. Pomfret, whose lids were even redder and more swollen, and skin more leaden, and shoulders less erect, than before, darted a sharp and suspicious glance at Koch, and one just as sharp, though not as suspicious, at Fox.

“That’s the Wan Li, isn’t it?” Koch inquired.

Pomfret gurgled an ecstatic affirmative.

Koch bowed to Mrs. Pomfret. “I couldn’t resist giving myself the pleasure of delivering it in person. Now I have to rush to my office. Mr. Fox will explain to you.”

He bowed again and was gone. Pomfret didn’t even see him go; he was carefully and lovingly inspecting all sides of his treasure so miraculously returned; and though he presumably listened to Fox’s recital of the circumstances of the vase’s return, he didn’t halt the examination for it. Mrs. Pomfret gave Fox both her ears and her eyes, and when he finished asked bluntly:

“Well, what do you think?”

Fox shrugged and turned up his palms.

“Fish,” she said in weary derision. “There’s no question that the Heath creature took it and he got it from her and mailed it to himself. Or else he took it in the first place and got frightened...” She fluttered a flabby hand. “It doesn’t matter now.” She pointed at the vase in her husband’s hands. “I hate that thing now. I hate everything here. I hate everything. I hate life.”

Pomfret hastily put the vase down and passed an arm around her shoulders. “Now, Irene,” he expostulated gently, “you know very well that’s morbid...”

Her lips tightened to a thin line, she reached for his hand and gripped the fingers till he winced. Fox arose, said he would communicate anything that was worth communicating, and took his departure.

The thing was as chaotic and senseless as a nightmare. As a nightmare, he thought, marching south on the avenue like a man knowing his destination, which he didn’t — as the sort of nightmare Hebe Heath would have. Nothing led anywhere; nothing had any apparent relation to anything else. Take for instance that coin catalogue in Dunham’s apartment. Or Dunham’s going for the violin that day. Why? Granted that he knew the varnish was there, he couldn’t very well have expected to scrape it out. Or take that damned vase; was it connected with the death of Perry Dunham or wasn’t it, and if so, how? It would have been reasonable to suppose that Mrs. Pomfret’s suspicion was sound, that the vase-lifting had been another exploit of the wondrous and unimaginable Hebe — but in that case, how in heaven’s name had it got into Diego’s closet, and why should Diego?...

He swerved abruptly into a cigar store, sought the phone booth and called the MBC studios, and after an inquiry and a short wait heard Diego’s bass rumble in his ear.

“Diego? Tec Fox.”

“Oh. Hello. How are you?”

“I’m fine. Will you have lunch with me?”

“Uh— I’m sorry. Uh— an engagement.”

“Then later, five o’clock, whenever you say, for a drink? And have dinner with me?”

“What do you want?”

“I want to talk with you.”

“About that... thing?”

“Yes. That and other—”

“No.” Diego was curt. “I won’t talk about it, now or any other time. That’s definite and final.”

“But Diego. I don’t think you realize—”

The line was dead.

Fox stared at the soundless receiver in amazed disbelief. Diego the courteous Spaniard, Diego of the quaint and engaging punctilio, had hung up on him! He could almost as soon have believed him capable of putting poison in a man’s whisky... With slow reluctance he replaced the phone, sat there a moment frowning thoughtfully at it, arose abruptly with an air of decision, strode out to the sidewalk, and turned west at the next corner toward Madison Avenue.

On Madison he went half a block downtown, entered the somewhat gaudy lobby of an apartment hotel, crossed to the elevator and stepped within, met the inquiring glance of the operator and told him casually, “Ninth, please.” But it was not as simple as that. The operator asked him politely but pointedly whom he was calling on; and it turned out that his attempt to cut a corner had been unnecessary, for when the young man at the desk phoned Miss Tusar’s apartment that Mr. Fox was calling he was instructed to send him up. Unobtrusively Fox was observing faces, knowing that all members of the staff from the manager down, questioned by the police regarding Miss Tusar, had displayed either a loyal reticence regarding their tenant’s habits and movements and friends, or a surprising ignorance of them.

Similarly he observed the square and stolid countenance of the uniformed maid who admitted him to Suite D on the ninth floor. Her name and address — Frida Jurgens, 909 East 83rd Street — was in a notebook in his pocket, one of several procured the day before from Inspector Damon; and one glimpse of her obdurate geometrical visage was enough to explain the meagerness of her contribution to the dossier. With efficiency, if with no grace, she disposed of Fox’s hat and coat and conducted him within.

Garda, advancing to meet Fox, greeted him with an extended hand, a half smile confined to a corner of her mouth, and the full direct regard of her black eyes, with now no blaze in them.

“It took you a long time to get around to it,” she said with pretended petulance. “That’s a better chair there. You remember you told Mrs. Pomfret you’d try to persuade me to be reasonable? That was more than a week ago.” Sitting, she shivered delicately. “It seems a year. Doesn’t it?”

Fox, taking the recommended chair, said that it did. So she was going to be amiable and charming, which she could do without straining at it. The chair was in fact comfortable, the room was not too hot and had air in it, the décor was tasteful and restrained...

“I don’t know,” Fox said, “about persuading you to be reasonable, but I’d like to persuade you to be frank. Henry Pomfret’s Wan Li vase is back home again.”

A flicker of her lids veiled the black eyes for an instant, then he had them back. “His vase? You mean the one that was stolen?”

“Yep, that one.”

“It’s back home? You mean he got it back? How nice!” She was effusive. “Where did you find it?”

“Thanks for the compliment.” Fox smiled at her. “Undeserved. Mr. Koch returned it to him this morning.”

“What!” Garda looked blank. “Koch! — How did he... my God, Koch? He stole it? He had it all the time?”

“Not according to him,” Fox said dryly. “He got it the way Mrs. Pomfret got the violin back — it came by parcel post. This morning. He spent an hour or so admiring it and then delivered it to its owner. Pomfret is delighted.”

“And Koch doesn’t know who sent it to him?”

“Nope.”

“And no one — then they’ve got it back but they don’t know who took it.”

“That’s right. They don’t. But I think I do. I think you took it.”

Garda’s eyes opened at him. The blaze was there for a fleeting second, then she burst into laughter. It was not an affected ripple or a forced haw-haw, but a real and hearty laugh. She checked it, leaned forward and pursed her lips prettily at Fox, and coaxed him in mock entreaty:

“Tell me another one! Oh, please!”

Fox shook his head. “That’s the only one I know, Miss Tusar. I’d like to enlarge on it. May I?”

“You may if you’ll keep it funny.” Garda had sobered. “That’s the first time I’ve laughed since — for a long time.”

“I doubt if you’ll find it funny. It’s complicated, too. It begins with a question the police have been trying to answer, where your income comes from. Inspector Damon says that you spend more than ten thousand a year, probably a good deal more, that its source is not visible, and that you decline to reveal it.”

“Why should I? It’s none of their business. Nor yours.”

“That may be true. But that’s the trouble with a criminal investigation: it tries every hole in sight until it finds the one its rabbit is in, and that’s often a serious inconvenience to innocent bystanders. I suppose you know that the police have tested the theory that you are being financed by some person— uh—”

“Don’t spare my sensibilities,” Garda snapped. “Of course I know it. They’ve even tried to bully my maid.”

“Sure. What do you expect? You’re one of the central figures in a murder case, and you’re concealing something. They conclude, since you won’t tell the source of your income, that it must be either criminal or disgraceful, or both. The theory I spoke of — they haven’t been able to get evidence of that, so they’re trying another one. That you’re blackmailing someone.”

“They!..” Garda’s eyes flashed. “They wouldn’t dare!”

Fox nodded imperturbably. “That’s what they’re working on now. I doubt if they’ll get anywhere. My own theory is that you’re a bandit. I think you stole Pomfret’s vase.”

“That was funny the first time—”

“I didn’t mean it to be. Please. Just let me sketch it. You are beautiful and clever, probably unscrupulous, and have entrée to places where there are all kinds of small and portable objects of considerable value. It would be no trick at all for you to realize considerably more than ten thousand a year. You took that vase of Pomfret’s, knowing it was worth a lot of money, but had to hang onto it because you found it was impossible to dispose of it safely. Please, Miss Tusar, you might as well let me finish. Diego, who loved you and had been intimate with you, knew how you — made money. He suspected, or even knew, that you had taken the vase, charged you with it, and compelled you to turn it over to him. He may have threatened to expose you, but if he did it was only a bluff, for Diego is too much of a gentleman to expose a lady bandit. Doubtless his intention was to return it to Pomfret, but being a simple soul, wholly devoid of the resources of an intriguer—”

“That’s enough!” Garda’s eyes were snapping. “To expect me to sit and listen to a rigmarole of lies—”

“Not all lies, Miss Tusar. It isn’t a lie that Diego had the vase. I saw it there at his place.”

Garda’s lips parted, and Fox could hear the breath going in. There was no fire in her eyes; instead, they withdrew; the lids half closed, and the slits were dull dead-black. “I don’t—” she began, and stopped.

Fox said patiently, “I saw the Wan Li vase in Diego’s closet. I assure you that isn’t a lie. How it got from there into a parcel-post package is another matter. I have an assortment of theories on that, but they can wait. The point now is, where did Diego get it? I’m convinced he got it from you. In no other way can I account for his having acted as he did to me. He did, didn’t he, Miss Tusar? He got the vase from you?”

Garda shook her head, but apparently not to signify a simple negative, for a corner of her mouth curled upward in disdain, half indignant and half amused. “Really?” she said. “You really ask me if I am a common little thief, like that? And if it were so? You would expect me — do you know what?” Her eyes danced at him. “I have a notion to say yes, and see what next you would say—” She stopped abruptly, her whole expression changed, and she fairly spat at him, “You are a complete fool!”

Fox sighed, gazed at her gloomily, and said nothing.

“Your Diego too!” Garda said harshly. “Speak of Diego! He’s your friend, no? And he had that vase? Why don’t you ask him where he got it? That would be a different affair, now, if you bring him and he would lie and say he got the vase from me—”

“Shut up!” Fox blurted at her savagely.

Instantly she smiled at him. “Ah,” she said softly, “you don’t like—”

“I said shut up!” Fox was standing, towering over her, his neck muscles twitching. “So if Diego said you had the vase you’d call him a liar, would you? You may or may not be a common little thief, I admit I can’t prove it, but you’re certainly a common little rat!” She came up from her chair; his hand roughly pushed her back; she smiled up at him.

“I would enjoy,” Fox said more quietly but not with any less feeling, “rubbing that smile off. If it wasn’t for Diego I would. I like Diego. I might even say I love him if I hadn’t quit loving anybody whatever some years ago. I’ve been hired by Mrs. Pomfret to investigate the murder of her son. At the time I took the job I didn’t think Diego could possibly have been sneak enough to poison a man, but since then I’ve learned about his infatuation for you, God help him, and also about that vase. He won’t tell me anything about the vase. I ask you about it, because if it had nothing to do with the death of Perry Dunham I can forget the damn thing and go on with the job I was hired for.”

He pressed his hand harder on her shoulder, the fingers through the soft flesh to the bone. “Quit wriggling! I still can’t believe that Diego poisoned Dunham, but it’s possible. To protect you he might have done anything. If what you tell me about the vase makes it seem probable that he did, I’m out of it. If the police get him, then they do. I hope they don’t. I’m not going to. You can take my word for that. So that’s why I’ve got to know about the vase. Quit wriggling! If you have any sense—”

“Frida! Frida!”

Fox straightened up and folded his arms. From the other side of a door steps were heard, a little hurried but not precipitate; the door opened, and from the threshold the maid looked across at them, her phlegmatic facial geometry perfectly composed.

“Phone downstairs,” Garda told her in a voice that was not quite steady, “and tell Mr. Thorne a man is here annoying me. Or — wait a minute — or get Mr. Fox’s hat and coat.” Her eyes darted to Fox. “Which would you prefer?”

“You’re making a mistake. Perhaps a fatal one. If it’s like this I’m going through with it.”

Their eyes met. His were cold and hard; hers were hot, defiant, contemptuous.

“The hat and coat, Frida,” she said.

“Then take what you get,” Fox said with pale ferocity, and left her.