Rex Stout - Double for Death

“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?”

“Yes, at Port Jefferson. And saw a headline — good gracious, what’s that?”

They all jerked around, startled; and as they jerked, it was over. A noise at one of the open windows, a face leering at them, a man’s arm thrust within the room, the hand clutching something that flashed and glittered like a reflection from polished glass — and then the explosion and the blinding glare. Miranda stifled a scream. Luke bounded towards the window. Tecumseh Fox laughed. Derwin shouted at the trooper in fury, “Go out and catch him! Put a man out there! By God, news photographers climbing up the sides of the building like monkeys! Or maybe the fire department lent him a ladder!”

“You’re nervous,” said Fox sympathetically. “You jumped three feet—”

“Oh, I am? I’m nervous, am I?”

“You are and I don’t blame you. You’re going to get a universal horse laugh because you were busy investigating a murder and the murdered man walks into your office. Think how much happier you’d be if you hadn’t got me sore yesterday. Where’s the man I’m working for, Andrew Grant? This frees him doesn’t it?”

“He’s free already. He’s out on bond.” Derwin circled his desk, seated himself, surveyed the group of faces and settled his regard on the perturbed visage of Ridley Thorpe. His jaw muscles twitched; he controlled it. “Mr. Thorpe,” he said, “you are a man of large affairs, of nation-wide — uh — renown. I don’t need to say that I have full respect for your position, your — elevated position. Your sudden appearance here has created an unprecedented situation — as you yourself said, a fantastic mess, but you cannot be held accountable for that. In engaging a man to impersonate you at your bungalow, and yourself seeking privacy and diversion elsewhere as you saw fit, certainly you committed no wrong. I want you to understand that I take full cognizance of your rights and of your eminence in the community. But though I am glad — I am delighted — that you are alive and unharmed, the fact remains that a man has been murdered in the county under my jurisdiction, and as it stands now, I don’t even know the man’s name.”

Thorpe was frowning. “His name was Corey Arnold.”

“Who was he?”

“He was an architect.” Thorpe glanced at the stenographer who had been shorthanding his statement. “You’d better take this down. I investigated Arnold thoroughly when I engaged him three years ago. He was fifty-eight, two years older than me. Born in Zanesville, Ohio. Graduate of Stevens. Father and mother dead. Two brothers, one a druggist in Columbus, Ohio, the other an insurance man in San Francisco. No sisters. Married in Boston in 1909; wife died in 1932. One daughter, married and living in Atlanta; no sons. He lived in a boardinghouse at 643 Archer Street, Brooklyn, when I found him; I paid him well, and for two years he has been living in an apartment at 406 East 38th Street, Manhattan. I got him by advertising for a man to sit for a bust of Gladstone; my skull and facial structure bear a strong resemblance to Gladstone’s. Apparently he was a pretty good architect, but he had had one little job in two years and he needed the money. He was down in weight when I found him, but after a month of proper diet my clothes fitted him almost perfectly. He smoked cigarettes but changed to cigars when impersonating me, drank moderately, was sober-minded, read a great deal of biography and American history — do you want any more?”

“That will do for the moment, thank you.” Derwin screwed up his lips. “What did he do when he wasn’t impersonating you?”

“Enjoyed himself. As I say, I paid him well. He gave me a report each week detailing his activities — naturally I wanted to keep tabs on him. Music and plays in the winter, golf in the summer—”

“Thank you.” Derwin screwed up his lips again. “You see, of course, the first knot in this tangle to be untied. If not the first one, at least a vital one. The person who fired a gun through the window of that bungalow Sunday night — who did he think he was shooting at, Ridley Thorpe or Corey Arnold?”

Thorpe stared. “Why, he thought it was me.”

“I hope so. In that case we have the enormous advantage of being able to consult with the man who was murdered. You realize, Mr. Thorpe, that what I am concerned with, as the district attorney of this county, is the murder. Though naturally you regret the tragic fate of Corey Arnold, with you, and possibly with everyone in this room except me, other aspects of this sensational affair may be paramount — since the victim was only an unsuccessful architect hired by you as a stand-in — but I am chiefly, and in fact exclusively, concerned with the murder. I want to find the guilty man and bring him to justice.”

“Good gracious, so do I.”

“Of course you do. I appreciate — excuse me.” He reached for the phone to answer it. It was a long conversation, his part consisting mostly of grunts, and during it there was talk among the others in low tones. It was continuing after Derwin hung up, but he stopped it:

“Please! I was saying, what I want is the murderer. That’s my job. I want to question your valet,

Luke Wheer—”

“So do I,” Thorpe declared. “I read a paper on the way over here and that’s all I know about it. What in the name of heaven — what happened, Luke?”

“No,” Derwin snapped. “I’ll do the questioning, Mr. Thorpe.” He fastened his eyes on the colored man. “Where were you when the shots were fired?”

Luke sat, stiff and erect, on a chair back of his employer’s shoulder making faint sucking noises with his tongue and teeth.

“Move your chair over,” said Derwin irritably, “so I can see you better. Where were you when the shots were fired?”

Luke lifted himself an inch, moved his chair six inches, and went on making the noises.

“Are you dumb?” Derwin demanded.

Luke shook his head. “No, sir,” he said in a low but firm tone. “I am not dumb in the vocal sense. I am being careful what I say because I realize the preponderance—”

“Oh, spill it, Luke,” Jeffrey blurted.

“Yes, Mr. Jeffrey. At the time the shots were fired I was in my room writing a letter to the editor of the Harlem Courier.”

Derwin nodded. “I’ve read it. You left it there. Your room is the one at the right of the kitchen?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did you do when you heard the shots? How many did you hear?”