Аврам Дэвидсон - Ellery Queen’s Double Dozen

Jerry sat there just inside it, with the sweat pouring off in rivers. Until this very moment, he had been quite sure that no one out there in the bright sunlight could make out anything in the dark apartment through that crack in the blind. But when he beheld Mr. Fox’s pale, malevolent eye at the crack, he wondered how he could have been such a fool. Mr. Fox was staring straight at him.

“Damn!” they heard Mr. Fox cut loose. “The little whelp did run, after all. Well, he’d better show up tonight, that’s all I’ve got to say!”

The eye was withdrawn. Jerry breathed again.

He ran the tape over and over, scribbling and listening at the same time. A little later Mr. Fox made two more attempts to get into the apartment. The second time, a man was waiting in the back seat of the cab. It might not have been Mr. Barney Cupp; on the other hand, it was about the same size man as Mr. Cupp, and he filled the cab with the same blue, rich-looking cigar smoke that continually surrounded Mr. Cupp.

This time, Mr. Fox tried to get in the back door too, but the landlady caught him and threatened to call the police. Mr. Fox beat a hasty retreat.

Meanwhile, Mort remained busy in the kitchenette, “rectifying” the tape, whatever that meant. They finished with their separate jobs about the same time. Then came the job of rerecording. Their hair stood on end while this was going on, because Jerry had to speak in a normal tone of voice, and sometimes louder than normal. But it did not take long and they were not interrupted.

From about five thirty on, they discovered, the phone rang regularly every ten minutes. The calls which they had to make, they spaced in between the calls from the outside. Several times, they had to call their party back, so Mr. Fox would not get a busy signal when he rang their number. It was imperative that he be convinced that they were away, and a busy signal would have told him that they — or at least someone — was using the phone in their apartment.

At eight o’clock — not a minute before and not a minute after — Mr. Barney Cupp and Mr. Wilfred Fox rang the front doorbell. Mort had moved his electronic gear back to the service hall; so Jerry admitted the two guests.

Mr. Cupp was impatiently affable. He was also smoking a big dollar cigar as usual. He did not wait to be asked to sit down. He made himself at home in the only comfortable chair in the room, leaned back, and crossed his legs.

“Bill tells me he pulled a silly sort of stunt and got you in trouble, Jerry,” he said. “Now, I don’t know what I can do to help you out, but if a few hundred bucks will do you any good, you know Bill’s not a tightwad.”

Mr. Fox smiled his pale-eyed smile. His freckles seemed to be a little pale, too. “That’s what I tried to tell Jerry-boy, Barney,” he said, exposing most of his pale gums. “But he seems to be greatly attached to you, and I can’t blame him for that, can I? The main thing is for me to get that stuff from the camera.”

“Exactly!” said Mr. Cupp. “Get the stuff back, give our pal Jerry a few hundred bucks to make life pleasanter for him, and get out of his hair, eh? Exactly!”

“First, Mr. Cupp,” said Jerry, “there’s something I think you should know. My conversation with Mr. Fox was recorded this afternoon.”

“What? Why, you idiot, you smart-aleck!” Mr. Cupp shouted. He half rose out of his chair. “Bill, you’re a worse idiot than he is!” he said, brandishing his cigar at Mr. Fox. “How much did you say over the phone?”

Mr. Fox blanched a little, but he said, “Nothing to worry about, Barney. They already knew the rocks were coming through, didn’t they? That’s why they held you so long this afternoon. And they can’t use wiretap evidence! The mere fact that a phone conversation of mine was recorded without a beeper makes it inadmissible in court.”

Slowly, Mr. Cupp settled back in his chair. He did not look happy — only relieved, and not very much of that. Before he had entirely assimilated Mr. Fox’s legal advice, Jerry addressed him again.

“Anyway, Mr. Cupp, I think you ought to hear the recording. It’ll only take a couple of minutes,” he said. “Okay, Mort, turn it on!”

From the six speakers of their hi-fi set the two voices, Jerry’s and Mr. Fox’s, came booming out clearly. Mr. Fox listened with a contemptuous little smile that soon turned to an expression of frozen, incredulous horror. He recognized his own voice. He even recognized some of the words. But these were only fugitive, phantom recollections of a call that he could have made only in his bad dreams:

Mr. Fox: Oh, I see! You say you already looked in the camera?

Jerry: Yes, and there is only half as much as you said there would be. Only four diamonds and four emeralds, and both rubies are missing. What are you trying to do — cheat Mr. Cupp?

Mr. Fox: Jerry-boy, Mr. Cupp was detained by the customs officers, so it will probably be a little while before-

Jerry: You mean arrested? You turned him in, like you said?

Mr. Fox: I’ll admit frankly that I played a dirty trick, but I’m going to make up for it.

Jerry: Don’t you go offering me any of those thousand-dollar bills again, to help double-cross Mr. Cupp!

Mr. Fox: Jerry-boy, I’m going to bring you two of the fattest bills you ever saw.

Jerry: Mr. Cupp’s thousand-dollar bills, you mean. After you ratted on him to the customs inspectors, too!

Mr. Fox: Jerry-boy, Barney Cupp is a dirty, rotten, double-crossing heel, an ignorant slob, a thief besides!

Jerry: If Mr. Cupp is in trouble, I’m going to the customs inspectors and tell them that I’ve got the jewels.

Mr. Fox: Jerry-boy, it would be about the most dangerous dung you can do.

Jerry: But it makes me nervous, sitting here with the jewels while he’s under arrest. Why, I wouldn’t go through with this for three thousand dollars!

Mr. Fox: How about five? I’m sure we can get together, keed, but Barney Cupp is a dirty, cowardly rat. Now, why can’t you and I get together on a friendly basis, without bothering him?

At this point, Mr. Fox found his voice. At any rate, he found somebody’s voice, because the strangled scream that issued from his throat sounded like no noise that he had ever made before.

“It’s a phony! I didn’t say that stuff, Barney,” he shrieked. “You’ve got to believe me!”

Mr. Cupp stood up. “So only four diamonds and four emeralds are left, hey?” he said. “And both of those lovely rubies are gone! You pinch them and then turn me in to customs, do you?”

“Barney, please, it’s phony, I tell you!”

“Do you think I don’t know your own voice? Ha! Maybe they can’t use a tape in court, but I’m not so particular. So I’m a slob and a coward and a rat, am I? And you’re going to pay Jerry off to shut up about it with five thousand of my money, are you?”

Mr. Cupp lumbered swiftly across the small living-dining room toward Mr. Fox, who leaped up on the shabby old couch. There he stood, with his back to the wall, quavering, “Barney, if you’ll only listen! Please, you’ve got to believe me!”

“I’ll believe my own ears,” said Mr. Cupp. He took Mr. Fox’s knees in one of his arms. “Tell me, Wilfred, where you put my beautiful diamonds and emeralds and rubies that I brought all the way from France to Mexico. Where are my jewels? Where are they?”

For a flabby Beverly Hills investor, Mr. Cupp was very strong indeed. Holding Mr. Fox by the knees with one arm, Mr. Cupp turned him upside down and bumped his head rhythmically against the floor. Jerry watched interestedly, regretting that he had neglected to have paper and pencil handy, so he could make notes.

Nothing he had ever seen on the stage equaled the scene before him for sheer drama — especially the point where the two customs inspectors stepped out and placed both Mr. Cupp and Mr. Fox under arrest. Mr. Fox remembered that he was a lawyer. He began shouting, “Entrapment, entrapment! And you can’t use any of that tape! In addition to being an illegal wiretap, there’s something phony about it.”