Rex Stout_Tecumseh Fox 01 (11 page)

“It’s strange that the gloves are both for the right hand. Do you suppose there could have been two women, wearing the same kind of gloves, and each happened to lose the right one?”

“No. It’s possible, but very unlikely. If one of them was Nancy Grant and she lost hers on the running board of her car, why should she deny knowledge of it? If she lost it by that shrub outside the window, she’s lying about her movements. And to suppose there were two women there besides her—that’s a little too much, since there’s no evidence that there was even one. It is more likely that both gloves belong to a woman who had taken two right-hand ones by mistake.”

Derwin picked up his handkerchief and mopped his face. “But that’s a police job, tracing those gloves. I mentioned them and the photograph only—for the purpose I stated. There’s another subject I have to ask you to discuss with me: your father’s will. Won’t you sit down, Mr. Thorpe? Thank you. You know, of course, that you two are the residuary legatees. There are various bequests: Luke Wheer gets a life annuity of three thousand dollars …”

They discussed that at some length. Then Derwin wanted to know more about their meeting with Vaughn Kester on Sunday evening, for dinner at the Green Meadow Club. He was suave and deferential again on that subject—as suave, at least, as a man can manage with sweat trickling down his neck two minutes
after he has wiped it off. The discussion of Kester eventually brought him back to the will again, to that clause in it which left the confidential secretary a handsome legacy, and the possible ramifications of that were being considered when there was a tap at the door and a man entered. It was Ben Cook, the chief of police, with his mind too engaged to take notice of the presence of the Thorpes.

“Something new?” Derwin demanded.

“I don’t know how new it is,” Cook said, “but it’s worse than a horsefly. It’s that specimen that they brought over from Port Jefferson that says he’s Ridley Thorpe—”

“I gave instructions for you to take care of him.”

“I know you did, but you ought to hear him. He sure
thinks
he’s Ridley Thorpe. I thought the easiest way to get rid of him would be to bring him in here and let the son and daughter see him—”

“Nonsense! Lock him up and find out who he is.”

“But I tell you …” Cook stood his ground. “It’d only take a second. Would you mind, Mrs. Pemberton?”

“Not at all.”

“Would you, Mr. Thorpe?”

“No.”

“Okay, Phil?”

Derwin growled assent. Cook lost no time going and very little coming back. The door opened again and he marched in, standing aside to make passage for two men, both around sixty, one small but not puny and as brown as leather, the other bigger, more deliberate, more commanding. The latter stopped in the middle of the room and boomed:

“Well children?”

Miranda was slowly rising from her chair and gazing
at him with wide and startled eyes. Jeffrey sat transfixed, staring, the color drained from his face.

“Well?” he boomed again.

Without moving her eyes, Miranda approached, unhurried, got within three feet of him, gazing another five seconds and said in a tight, thin, quiet voice, “We were just discussing your will with Mr. Derwin.”

“What—” Derwin came bounding. “What the—what do you—”

“This is my father, Mr. Derwin. Or his ghost.”

“Ghost—”

Jeffrey, with his white face, was there. He looked directly into the big man’s eyes and said harshly, “Yes. It’s you.”

“Yes, my boy, it is.”

“Ghost! I … what …” The district attorney was incoherent. He appealed to Miranda. “You’re mistaken … this is some—”

“They are not mistaken,” the big man declared. “I am Ridley Thorpe. This is my friend, Henry Jordan. Henry, I believe you’ve never met my son and daughter. Shake hands with them; Miranda; Jeffrey. I’m tired and I want to sit down.”

T
hey sat around the desk, except Ben Cook who was against the wall with his chair tilted back and Derwin who was standing, wary and incredulous; and Ridley Thorpe was in command. Unshaven and disheveled and battered as he was, he had not dominated stormy directors’ meetings for twenty years for nothing.

“First,” he told Derwin, “get on the phone and stop meddling at once. Everyone prying into my papers and affairs and belongings. Call them off.”

Derwin shook his head. “Oh, no. That’s not first. First you satisfy me. Do you think I’m going—”

“All right. I’ll satisfy you. I’m Ridley Thorpe. My son and daughter—”

“Your son recognized the remains—”

“Quit interrupting me! My son and daughter recognize me. I used to spend weekends at that bungalow in order to get some privacy, but it became too widely known that I did so and I was annoyed. Three years ago I found a man who closely resembled me and hired him to spend weekends at the bungalow, impersonating me, leaving me free to enjoy genuine privacy at such places and in such activities as might
appeal to me. I have done so. I have devoted my weekends to various relaxations and mild amusements, my identity never suspected because it was generally believed that I was at the bungalow—and thanks to my stand-in, I was. Frequently I have taken little trips with my friend Henry Jordan on his boat. I did so last Friday evening. Ordinarily I return Sunday evening or Monday morning, but this time I was worn out and it was hot and I stayed on the water. We anchored at various spots on the sound, fishing, talking, sleeping—”

“Didn’t you go ashore?”

“No. On that boat I can forget the world and give my nerves a rest. We didn’t leave the boat until this afternoon, after the thunderstorm. We were anchored in a little cove on Long Island. When the storm was over we chugged down to Port Jefferson and went ashore—I was intending to get back to business—and the first thing I saw was big headlines about the investigation of my murder. I would have had to wait an hour for a train, so I got the police and told them I wanted a fast car. They didn’t want to believe me and I suppose I can’t blame them. Here I am.”

He looked at his children. “I’m sorry you had this shock, Miranda. You too, Jeffrey. But you’ve had the advantage of reading my will. It treats you fairly, doesn’t it?”

“Perfectly.” Miranda’s gaze hadn’t left him once. “But I knew it would. More than one shock, though. Two. The first one was—shocking. This is shattering.”

“Of course it is. You were a multimillionaire in your own right. Now you have to go back to pestering Vaughn to watch for a good moment to get my consent to an extra twenty thous—”

“I didn’t mean that, Father. I only meant it’s a shattering surprise.”

“It is. Yes,” Jeffrey muttered.

“Yes, my boy, you too. Shattering. Well, I’m not dead. By the way, where in the name of heaven is Vaughn? I read a paper on the way here. And you’re District Attorney Derwin, investigating my murder. Good gracious, it’s a fantastic mess! Have the meddling stopped at once. I don’t want an army of people—Here, give me that phone.”

“Just a minute.” Derwin dropped into his chair and got his hand on the phone. He turned: “Is your name Henry Jordan?”

“Yes, sir.” Jordan’s deep-set grey eyes were level and his tone quiet and composed.

“What’s your occupation?”

“I’m a retired ship’s officer.”

“Where do you live?”

“914 Island Street, City Island.”

“How long have you lived there?”

“Five years. Ever since I retired.”

“Do you corroborate what this man has said?”

“I do.”

“Is he Ridley Thorpe, the financier and corporation executive?”

“He is.”

“How long have you known him?”

“Seven years. I first met him when I was purser on the
Cedric
and he was a passenger.”

Derwin snapped at Ben Cook, “Send a man to City Island to check it. Got the address?” Cook nodded and tramped out. Derwin turned to Miranda:

“How sure are you that this man is your father?”

“Completely. Of course he is.”

He shifted to Jeffrey. “Are you sure too?”

Jeffrey nodded without taking his eyes from the ghost.

“You are?” Derwin insisted.

“Certainly I am. Wouldn’t I be?”

“I’m asking. You were sure that the body you saw was your father’s.”

“I wasn’t asked if I was sure. I didn’t—there was no reason to doubt it. It looked like him—only—it was a body. This is my father, alive.”

The district attorney regarded him glumly, then slowly transferred the regard, first to his sister, then to Henry Jordan and last to his ghost.

“I would say,” he growled, “that fantastic mess is a damn mild term for it. I’ll want a signed statement from you, Mr. Thorpe, and copies of it will be furnished to the press. From you also, Mr. Jordan. God, what an uproar—” He looked at the phone, his hand still clutching it, in sour distaste, lifted it and clapped it to his ear, and told the transmitter:

“Get Colonel Brissenden. He’s somewhere in New York, probably at the Thorpe residence. Find him. Send in a couple of men, whoever’s out there. As soon as I’m through with Colonel Brissenden I want Joe Bradley….”

Nine minutes later the radio had it. Long waves, short waves, old-fashioned sound waves, undulated and quivering with it. City editors shouted it and telephone wires let it pass, and swift rumor distorted it. From different spots in New York, three newsreel trucks headed north almost simultaneously. At a water-front dock at Port Jefferson a policeman on guard arrested a man for swiping a cushion from the cockpit of the
Armada
for a souvenir….

In the district attorney’s office at White Plains, Derwin was desperately mopping his face with a wet
handkerchief and trying to handle with official calm an utterly preposterous situation, Ridley Thorpe, with his friend Henry Jordan at his elbow, was carefully dictating a statement to a stenographer whose hand was trembling with excitement, Miranda was deliberately and effectively using a compact, and Jeffrey was sunk in his chair, scowling with compressed lips, when the door opened for a state trooper to usher in three men. Vaughn Kester, in front, looked pale, exhausted and tense; Luke Wheer’s eyes were threatening to pop entirely out; Tecumseh Fox’s apparel was untidy and his face exasperated, but his step was still quick and light and might even have been called jaunty.

Derwin jumped up and started to bark at the trooper, “Didn’t I tell—take them outside and—”

But that was beyond his handling too. Bedlam intervened, everyone joining in. Luke and Kester saw their employer and made for him. Miranda exclaimed something at Kester. Jeffrey leaped for Luke and got him by the arm and shouted at him. Fox stood aside, taking it in. Derwin abandoned official calm completely and barked helplessly.

Ridley Thorpe’s voice finally emerged from the confusion: “I tell you we were on the Long Island shore all the time! You should have found us Monday! Inexcusable incompetence—”

Miranda: “But Vaughn, why didn’t you—”

Jeffrey: “What happened, Luke, damn it?

What—”

Kester: “I did my very best, sir—”

Luke: “I told Mr. Kester we ought—”

Derwin: “I tell you I want—”

A baritone claimed the air and got it: “Everybody,
please!” Tecumseh Fox, among them, got Kester’s arm and turned him. “Is this Mr. Thorpe?”

“Yes, I’m trying to tell him—”

“Quiet, Vaughn. Who are you?”

“I’m Tecumseh Fox. Kester hired me to help him find you. The district attorney—”

“I want—”

“I know you do, Mr. Derwin. You’ll have to take what you get. From me would be the quickest. Did you take my tip and buy Thorpe Control on the drop?”

“What the devil—”

“All right, I’ll rub it in some other time. Andrew Grant’s statement that he saw Ridley Thorpe listening to band music on the radio at the Dick Barry hour suggested to you that Grant was lying. To me it suggested that it wasn’t Ridley Thorpe he saw, neither then alive nor later dead. I got an item relayed to Dick Barry for his broadcast last night, as bait. I got a nibble from Vaughn Kester. Has Mr. Thorpe explained to you where he was and about his stand-in?”

“I have,” Thorpe cut in, “and you’re not—”

“I’m at bat, Mr. Thorpe—Kester phoned me at three o’clock this morning and I met him, and Luke Wheer was with him. Luke, entrusted with guarding the secret that the man at the bungalow was not really Thorpe, got panicky when the man was murdered and ran. He didn’t even know where Thorpe was. He got in touch with Kester and they hid out to get time to consider the situation. Kester did know that Thorpe was supposed to be somewhere, probably on Long Island Sound, with Henry Jordan in his boat. But he didn’t know precisely where. He didn’t even know positively that it wasn’t Thorpe who had been killed, in spite of Luke’s assurance that it was the
stand-in; Kester wasn’t absolutely sure of what had happened and couldn’t be sure until he found Thorpe. He and Luke tried it; they were afraid to hire a boat, so they worked along the shore. Late last night they were on a pier at Huntington when they heard, on a radio on a boat anchored nearby, Dick Barry broadcasting the item I had got to him. That scared them and Kester phoned me, and I met them.”

“All the time—”

“I’ll finish first, Mr. Thorpe. Kester engaged me to help in the search. I hired a boat from Don Carter in South Norwalk and took Luke and Kester on board from a strip of deserted beach. That was around eleven o’clock this morning. All day long we searched the sound, both shores—”

Thorpe snorted. “All afternoon we were anchored in a little cove not far east of Port Jefferson, in plain view—”

“Then we must have missed you in the storm. I apologize. The storm nearly sank us. At six-thirty we tied up at a dock at Southport because I wanted to phone a man who was waiting with my car at South Norwalk. By bad luck a cop spotted me, and then Luke and Kester, and took us.”

“Took you,” Derwin rasped, “in the act of concealing and harboring fugitives from justice!”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Fox, disgusted. “Gathering sea shells with a tidal wave headed for you. Luke and Kester are not fugitives from justice. They were frantically trying to find Thorpe, which you might have been doing yourself if you had made a good guess about the radio instead of a bum one. I only wish I had found him myself and brought him here to you; that would have been a real pleasure. But apparently—what
did you do, Mr. Thorpe, go ashore somewhere?”