Rex Stout: Bad for Business

“Fox.”

“Fox?”

“Fox.”

“Oh.” She regarded his profile, and saw that from the side his nose looked more pointed and his chin less. “That might account for the cop’s being pleased to meet you. I’d better look at your license.”

Without glancing aside, he got the little leather folder from his pocket and handed it to her. She opened it and saw the name neatly printed in accordance with instructions: TECUMSEH FOX.

“The sword of justice and the scourge of crime,” said Pokorny. “Do you know who he is?”

“Certainly.” Amy returned the license. “I would anyway, only it happens that I’m a detective too, though of course infinitely obscure compared to him.”

“Now who’s being whimsical?” Fox demanded.

“Not me. Really. I’m an operative for a private agency. I may not be tomorrow, but I am today — it’s farther down, there just the other side of the awning—”

The car rolled to a stop at the curb in front of Number 320, and Pokorny emerged from the back and opened the front door on her side.

“I’m glad no bones were broken,” said Fox.

“So am I.” Amy didn’t move. “I walked right into you. If I felt like laughing, that would be especially funny.”

“Why?”

“Oh—” She fluttered a hand. “Reasons. You were very nice not to run over me.” She looked at him, full face now, hesitated, and then went on. “I’ve just made a decision. I’m not usually so impulsive—” She stopped.

“Go ahead.”

“But I’m in a jam, and if by pure luck I find myself on speaking terms with Tecumseh Fox — of course I don’t know whether detectives exchange professional courtesies the way doctors do — you know a doctor never charges another doctor for treatment or advice — and you have a reputation for a heart as warm as your head is cool—”

“And your fingers are short,” said Pokorny from the sidewalk.

Fox was frowning at her. “Which do you need, treatment or advice?”

“Advice. I’ll make it as brief as I can — but there’s no use sitting out here in the cold—”

“All right, climb out.” Fox followed her to the sidewalk, and turned to Pokorny: “There’s a drugstore at the corner. Would you mind phoning Stratton we’ll be late and waiting here in the car?”

“I would,” Pokorny declared. “I’m fairly cold myself.”

“Then you can wait in the drugstore and drink chocolate. If you heard Miss Duncan’s story you’d base a new theory of human conduct on it, and you have too many already.”

Pokorny took it with a cheerful nod and another wink at Amy, and they left him. She limped a little, but declined assistance mounting the stairs. In the living room of her apartment, Fox insisted that she should first go and take a look at herself, so she hobbled to the bedroom and made enough of an examination to establish that except for soiled clothing, ruined stockings, and a bruised knee, the damage was slight. Then she returned and sat on the sofa with him on a chair facing her, and told him:

“The chief trouble is: I think I have to quit my job, and I can’t afford to and don’t want to.”

“Who do you work for?”

“Bonner & Raffray. They have an office on Madison Avenue—”

Fox nodded. “I know. Run by Dol Bonner. Based on the fact that most men get careless sooner or later when they’re talking to a pretty woman, especially if the woman is also clever and can guide a conversation. But I should think your eyes would put a man on guard.”

“What’s wrong with my eyes?”

“Nothing. They’re very interesting. Excuse me. Go ahead.”

“Well, I’ve been working there about a year. I lived in Nebraska with my parents, and five years ago, when I was twenty, my mother died, and soon afterwards I came to New York and my uncle gave me a job in his office. I didn’t like it much, mostly on account of my uncle, but I stayed nearly a year and then left and got a job in a law office.”

“If your incompatibility with your uncle is important, tell me about it.”

“I don’t know that it’s important, but it has a bearing — that’s why I mentioned it. He’s ill-mannered and quick-tempered and generally disagreeable, but the quarrel — what brought it to a head was his attitude about unmarried mothers.”

“Oh.” Fox nodded.

“Oh, no.” Amy shook her head. “Not me. It was a girl who worked in the canning department, but I learned that it had happened twice before in previous years. He simply fired her, and you should have heard him. I got mad and told him what I thought of him, and quit before he could fire me too. I had been working in the law office for three years, and was the secretary of a member of the firm, when I met Miss Bonner and she offered me a job and I took it. Do you know her?”

“Never met her.”

“Well — talk about clever women.” Amy, without thinking, started to cross her knees, grimaced, and forbore. “You ought to hear her coaching me on a job. I’m the youngest of the four women on what she calls her siren squad. When I’m on a case I’m not allowed to go to the office and if I meet her accidentally I’m not supposed to speak to her. Last spring I got evidence for — but I guess I shouldn’t tell you that.”

“Are you on a case now?”

“Yes. Have you ever heard of Tingley’s Titbits?”

“Certainly. Appetizers in glass jars with a red label showing a goat eating a peacock’s tail. Lots of different varieties. Expensive but good.”

“They’re better than good, they’re the best you can buy. I admit that. But a month ago they began to have quinine in them.”

Fox cocked a surprised eye at her. “I beg your pardon?”

“Yes, they did. Complaints began to come in that they tasted bitter, couldn’t be eaten, and thousands of jars were returned by dealers, and when they were analyzed some of them were found to contain quantities of quinine. Tingley — Mr. Arthur Tingley, the present head of the firm — engaged Dol Bonner to investigate.”

“Do you know how he happened to pick Miss Bonner?”

Amy nodded. “For quite a while P. & B. has been trying to buy the Tingley business—”

“Do you mean the Provisions & Beverages Corporation?”

“That’s it. The food octopus. They offered three hundred thousand dollars for the business. One of their vice-presidents has been working on it quite a while, but Tingley refused to sell. He said the name alone, with the prestige it has established over seventy years, was worth half a million. So when this trouble occurred, the only thing they could think of was that P. & B. had bribed someone in the factory to put in the quinine, to give Tingley such a headache that he would be glad to sell and get out. They started their own investigation among the employees, but they thought something might be done from the other end.”

“And they set Bonner on the P. & B.”

“Yes. A woman named Yates is in charge of production at the Tingley factory, which is up on Twenty-sixth Street. She knew of Miss Bonner because they are both members of the Manhattan Business Women’s League. At her suggestion Tingley engaged Dol Bonner, and I was assigned to work on the P. & B. vice-president who had been trying to make a deal with Tingley. I told Miss Bonner that Arthur Tingley was my uncle and that I had once worked for him, and had quarreled with him and quit, but she said that shouldn’t disqualify me for the job and the rest of the squad were busy.”

“Was it agreeable to Tingley?”

“He didn’t know about it. I hadn’t seen him for a long time, and he didn’t even know I was working for Bonner & Raffray. At least I don’t suppose he did. But he told me this afternoon that he had learned this morning that I was working on his case, and he had told Miss Bonner that he didn’t trust me and he wouldn’t have it.”