Rex Stout (16 page)

“What phonograph record?”

“My wife’s voice. It begins, ‘Good lord, let me sit down and gasp a while! I know I’m late but I had an awful time getting here I never saw such traffic.’ That’s how it begins—”

“You’re dreaming,” Hicks said curtly.

“Oh, no. I’m through dreaming.”

“Then you’re batty. It is conceivable that I might have swiped your hat. But where and how and why did I swipe a phonograph record of your wife’s voice?”

“You’re lying,” Cooper said, but not with conviction.

“Not at present.” Hicks crossed to him and took his arm. “Listen, brother. You’re hearing things. I would advise you—”

“I don’t need any advice.” Cooper pulled his arm loose. “And I’ll tell you something, I know what happened, don’t think I don’t. I haven’t got it straightened out, but I’m going to. I’m
going up there and I’m going to straighten it out.” He was frowning in concentration. “If it’s the last thing I do on earth, and maybe it will be.”

He turned and was gone. Hicks stepped to the threshold and saw his head descend out of sight, down the stairs, then closed the door and went back to his chair. He looked at Vail, and saw that Vail’s lids were so narrowed as to make his eyes tiny colorless beads, the eyes of a wary and malevolent pig.

Hicks asked softly, “You know him, do you?”

Vail’s head moved just perceptibly for a negative shake. “No. But I recognized him. From his picture in the paper.”

“Oh. Of course.”

“Is it customary for a murderer to drop in and ask you for his hat?”

Hicks smiled. “It is a bit rococo, isn’t it? The poor guy’s brain is curdled. Looking for a phonograph record of his wife’s voice! Can you beat that?”

“I am a little curdled myself. He is a fugitive from the law. You made no effort to detain him.”

“Neither did you.” Hicks was smiling at him. “But take it from me, his trade-in value is way down. It isn’t worth the effort. Not in the same class with the offer you were making when he popped in. I wish I could accept that. I sure do.”

“I trust you have the good sense to accept it.”

“I haven’t.” Hicks continued to smile. “If you knew me better you would be going. It takes a while for an idea to work its way into my chest. When that happens, say in another half a minute, with the idea that you had the gall to try to bid me in, belly, guts and all, for a measly ten thousand bucks, I shall start operating on you.” The smile had gone and Hicks’s eyes were glittering. “If you knew me better you would know that.”

“My offer was merely—”

Hicks stood up.

“—a business proposal—”

Hicks moved.

To do Vail justice, his departure was more of a withdrawal in order than a flight. He moved with expedition, but not precipitately, in getting his hat, opening the door, and passing through.

Hicks shut the door again, crossed to a window and stuck his head out, and looked up and down the street. There was no sign of Cooper. In a moment Vail appeared on the sidewalk below
and strode off in the direction of Second Avenue. There was determination and purpose in his stride.

“Healthy and happy,” Hicks muttered. “Not a mark on him. I sure am developing a remarkable self-control.”

He left the window, went to the bureau and opened the bottom drawer, and from underneath a pile of pajamas took out the sonograph plates and counted them. Eight. Near the center of the one on top was a deep scratch in the form of a V which he had put there himself with his new pocket knife. Getting his hat from a hook on the wall, he went down to the restaurant, asked Rosario for paper and string, and made a package.

“He went out,” Rosario said. “You know?”

“Yeah, I know. How much do I owe you?”

“You owe nothing. He paid.”

“The dickens he did.”

“And here is eighty cents change he didn’t take.”

“Keep it.”

Rosario dropped the silver into his pocket, glanced around to make sure that the room was empty, and whispered hoarsely, “I saw his picture in the paper.”

“Okay, he probably won’t get far.” Hicks got the string tied, took another look at the disk he had kept out to make sure it was the one with the V on it, and handed the package to Rosario. “Here, will you keep this in a safe place for me?”

“Sure.”

“You are a great man, Rosy. You don’t ask questions. A great man.”

“Great enough,” Rosario agreed. “Except too fat. God above, if you catch me eating!”

Hicks left him. At the curb he climbed into the company car. At the corner of Second Avenue he halted at a newsstand for an evening paper and slipped the sonograph plate in its folds. At 31st Street he stopped in front of a drugstore, entered and found the phone booth, and called the Dundee number at Katonah. Heather Gladd’s voice answered.

“This is Hicks. How are you?”

“Oh—I’m all right.”

“Where are you, at the house?”

“No, at the office. I’m trying to clean up some work. I wasn’t—I couldn’t just sit any more. Where did you—”

“Are there any cops around?”

“I think not. Two of them left about an hour ago—”

“Well, here’s some exercise for you. Mental. One of them may be listening in at the house, or they may even have the wire tapped. If so, they don’t need to know your private affairs. You will probably have a visitor in an hour or so, the gentleman who was present at the reading of your love letters. He is no longer in a fog. He intends to straighten things out, which he is not competent to do, and among other things he will want to know about the one that was not a love letter. I have told him he is dreaming. You will tell him the same. You will discuss nothing with anyone whatever. Have you kept your promise?”

A silence.

“Have you?”

“Yes. But I want those—”

“Don’t use any words that a third-rate intelligence would understand. You’re in danger. Your life is in danger. I’ll be up there later, or I may phone you. You shouldn’t be around in the open. You could come to New York—”

“Nonsense. Nobody has any reason to do anything to me.” Heather’s voice was scornful. “But if he comes—the police—”

“Forget it. He’s out of it.”

“How do you know—”

“I know everything. Up to a certain point. You be a good girl and hold everything until you hear from me, and drink plenty of water and keep your feet warm.”

Hicks rang off, and dialed another number. The second conversation was much briefer. He asked to speak to Mrs. Dundee, and after a wait her voice was in his ear.

“This is Hicks. I’m coming to see you. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“I don’t know …” She hesitated. “My husband is here—”

“Good! Keep him! Fifteen minutes.”

It could not have been called a happy family scene.

A man habitually careless in apparel and grooming may yet be quite personable, and often is, but when one who is ordinarily well combed and brushed and closely shaven, and impeccably dressed, becomes temporarily unkempt, the effect is deplorable. R. I. Dundee, seated on a Louis Quinze chair in his wife’s dressing room, presented the appearance, if not exactly of a bum, of a man who had been bumming. By contrast, his wife, even with visible puffs under her eyes and a sag to her shoulders, was dainty and fresh and congruous in the daintily furnished and decorated room.

She was standing when Hicks was ushered in, and shook hands with him. Dundee stayed in his chair and offered no hand. Hicks, invited, took a seat when Mrs. Dundee did, covering his lap with a newspaper folded only twice—not a common way to carry a newspaper.

“You were here last night,” Dundee said irritably.

Hicks nodded. “I’m working for your wife.”

“Damn little work you seem to be doing for anyone.” Dundee’s tone was a sneer. “For her or me or anyone. I came here to try to get her out of this mess and keep her out. She has betrayed me, she has half ruined my business that I’ve spent my life building up, but she still bears my name, she is my wife, and I don’t intend to have her involved in that idiotic murder!”

“I’m not trying to involve her,” Hicks declared mildly.

“You might as well be!” A fleck of moisture came from between Dundee’s lips, sailing into the air. “Excuse me,” he said bitterly. “I even spit when I talk! You advised her to tell that detective she wasn’t there yesterday! You told her to deny it!”

“You’re insane, Dick,” his wife said quietly. “I denied it because it wasn’t true. I mean it literally, you’re insane.”

“You’re damn right I’m insane!” His chin trembled. “You’re damn right I am!”

“Even so,” Hicks put in, “you might help us to clear up a point. Calm down a little. What makes you so sure your wife was there yesterday?”

“I’ve told her!”

“Tell me.”

“It’s perfectly absurd,” Mrs. Dundee said. “The same thing that man said last night. Ross heard me talking. Of course he didn’t.”

Hicks’s eyes stayed on Dundee. “The chief trouble with you,” he stated, “is that your blood goes to your head too easy. You need a valve fixed. It makes you assume that everyone but you is a fool. I’m not a fool. About that murder, they’re trying to involve your wife because they’ve learned that Cooper, the husband, didn’t do it, and they think they’ve caught your wife in a lie.”

“He was here again this morning,” Mrs. Dundee said.

“And he’ll keep on coming. Whereas the only ones who have lied to them, to my knowledge, are you and me.” Hicks was looking at Dundee. “What if I decide to protect myself by telling the truth? Wouldn’t that be nice? I want to know where Ross was when he heard his mother’s voice.”

Dundee was scowling, with his lips compressed. He opened them enough to say, “He was on the terrace.”

“What time was it?”

“About three o’clock. When he got to the house. Just after he met you by the bridge.”

“Where did the voice come from?”

“Through the open window. From inside the living room.”

“Didn’t he go in?”

“No. He went around to the rear and up the back stairs to his room. He didn’t want to meet his mother just then. He knew I was coming out to have a talk with him, and he wanted to talk with me first. He thought she had come with me. Later, out of his window, when he saw me drive in, he thought she had come with you. He called to me from the window and I went up to his room, and we had a talk, but he didn’t tell me his mother was there. After I left to go to the laboratory he went downstairs to
see her, and she wasn’t there. Of course she did go with you, and when she saw me drive in she left.”

“You say. Did Ross go to the terrace?”

“No. The house was empty. Mrs. Powell had gone to the village. He called his mother and got no answer.”

“What was it he heard her saying through the living room window?”

“She said, ‘Then I’ll wait here for you.’ ”

“Just that?”

“Just that. Then he heard her hanging up. The phone. He thought she might be coming to the terrace, so he hurried off.” Dundee was glaring at Hicks. “Later, after the dead woman was found, he got worried, and the damn fool phoned here to ask his mother about her being there, and discovered he was being overheard. Then when that detective came here you and she made it worse by denying that she was there. You should have admitted that she went out there with you and came back alone. You can’t lie about things like that when a murder is being investigated. Maybe she couldn’t be expected to have better sense, but by heaven, you could!”

“Then you and Ross are both convinced she was there?”

“Certainly we are!”

“On account of that one short sentence he heard through a window?”

“He knows his mother’s voice, doesn’t he?”

“I suppose he thinks he does.” The glint was in Hicks’s eyes. “And rather than assume he was mistaken, which is not beyond possibility, you prefer to think that your wife is lying about it—not to mention me?”

“She has been lying to me for God knows how long,” Dundee said bitterly. “Living a lie!”

“You can’t reason with him,” Judith Dundee said wearily. “It’s no use. Either he’s mad, absolutely mad, or something has happened that I wouldn’t have believed—he wants to finish with me—”

Husband and wife stared at each other, as only a husband and a wife can stare when, after a quarter of a century of the little explosions that punctuate married life, a bomb has utterly destroyed all bonds of communication and understanding.

Hicks said, “Let’s drop that for the moment. I want to try something more interesting and possibly more helpful. Have you got a phonograph here?”

The stares went to him.

“What?” Judith asked in astonishment.

“A phonograph. I’ve got a record I want you to hear.” Hicks slipped the plate out of the newspaper. “If you—”

“What is that?” Dundee was on his feet, reaching, demanding. “Let me see that!”

Hicks held him off. Judith was on her feet too. “Is that—” She stopped, went to a large console against the wall which had been designed and decorated to match the furniture, and opened a lid. “This radio has a record player. Here …”

She turned dials. “This is the volume, this is tone control.” She made way for Hicks. He fixed the plate in position, turning the switch, saw that the pick-up arm was automatic, and stood there, leaning on a corner of the cabinet. A voice came from the loud-speaker:

“By God!” Dundee blurted. “That’s it! Where—”

“Shut up,” Hicks commanded him sharply. “Your wife wants to hear it.”

Judith Dundee stood motionless three paces off from the cabinet, facing it, looking at the loud-speaker grill. Hicks watched her face. At the beginning it was intensely interested and faintly contemptuous, but at the first sound of Jimmie Vail’s voice she started with amazement and gaped incredulously. Then she was rigid again, her chin uptilted, her lips apart, and stood without moving a muscle right to the end. The automatic switch clicked and the disk stopped turning.

The effect on Dundee was pronounced. He had sat down and gazed as if hypnotized at the back of his wife’s head. Now he said, not with heat, not in triumph, but in a tone of gloomy and harsh finality: