Rex Stout - Double for Death

“Hello, when did you get here?” Then he started laughing again.

The bulk of a broad-shouldered man emerged from the luxuriant thorniness of a golden climber and Dan Pavey’s rumble announced aggressively, “Something is funny.”

“Yes,” Fox agreed.

“You saw me as you went by.”

“Yes. I wondered what you were watching from ambush. I went on and saw them. It struck me as funny. It also struck me as funny when I saw you were blushing. I never saw you blush before. So that’s why you volunteered that advice to Miss Grant last night; you were covering up. I didn’t get it at the time.”

Dan, scowling, uttered a sound that was half growl and half grunt. “What do you mean, covering up?” he demanded. “Covering what up?”

“Nothing.” Fox waved a hand. “I apologize. None of my business. How long have you been here?”

“I got here at 10:47,” said Dan stiffly. “Jordan wasn’t around his boat. Nobody was. I phoned Thorpe’s office and got your message to come here, and I came. They told me you were in with Thorpe. The first thing I see is Jordan sitting on a terrace. I didn’t know whether you knew he was here, so I—”

“You’re going to tell me it was him you were watching?”

“I am.”

“Don’t do it. I’d have to laugh again. The first time I ever saw you blush. I have to stick around here for a talk with Thorpe. You might as well go on home.”

“You mean now?”

“Yes. There are enough complications as it is. Go home and look at yourself in a mirror. If I need you I’ll let you know.”

Dan, with his jaw set square, with no protest or comment, without even any attempt to propose a superior alternative, tramped off down the trellis path. Fox, watching the broad back receding through the bower of roses, waited till it had disappeared at the far end before muttering to himself, “I shouldn’t have laughed, I handled that wrong.”

Leaving the trellis by a transverse path, he wandered across the lawn, back past the scale-infested dogwood in the direction of the east side terrace. Jordan was still there, with his chin gloomily on his chest, and Fox veered to the left. Continuing, he heard voices and, proceeding around a corner of the house, he came to a much larger and more elaborate terrace and saw two people standing at the edge of it, talking. He approached.

“Good morning, Mrs. Pemberton. Hello, Andy.”

They returned his greeting. Miranda looked slim, cool and informally impeccable in a white blouse and yellow slacks. Grant asked Fox, “Have you seen my niece around anywhere?”

Fox waved a hand. “Off in that direction being stalked by young Mr. Thorpe. Mrs. Pemberton, I may have to ask you to change that dinner invitation to a lunch. I’m waiting around for a talk with your father and it may be a long wait.”

“I’ll be glad to feed you,” she declared, “but it won’t cancel the dinner. I’m trying to persuade Mr. Grant to stay.”

“And I interrupted. I apologize. May I wander around a little and look at things?”

She said yes but didn’t offer to accompany him, so he strolled off. Around on the third side of the home he chatted a little with a man who was removing the unsightly tops of oriental poppies and learned, among other things, that they did not use miscible oil as a dormant spray on dogwoods. Stopping to inspect various objects on the way, such as a mole trap of a construction he had not seen and a new kind of border sprinkler, he came to a drive which headed in the direction of a group of outbuildings and followed it. In front of a stone garage which would have held at least six cars, with living quarters above, a man was jacking up a wheel of a limousine. Fox passed the time of day and wandered on. On the other side of an extensive plot of grass was a large greenhouse and he gave that thirty minutes or more. He always found a greenhouse fascinating, but of course there were very few things that he did not find fascinating. There seemed to be no one around, but as he emerged at the far end he heard a voice and, circling a bed of asparagus, he saw whose it was. A little girl sat on the steps of the porch of a little stone cottage, talking to Mrs. Simmons. He saw her affected gestures with her hands and heard her affected mincing tones:

“You know, Mrs. Simmons, it’s really frightful! Would you believe it, they go to the movies every day! Oh, Mrs. Simmons, I don’t know what to do! My children say to me and my husband, they say if they can go to the movies every day, why can’t they go too and my nerves just get all out of my control — Ooh! Who are you?”

“Excuse me,” said Fox, smiling down at her. “I apologize.” He bowed politely to empty space at the left. “How do you do, Mrs. Simmons? I guess I frightened you too. I apologize.” He turned to the other lady. “I’m just a man who came to see Mr. Thorpe and he told me I could walk around. My name is Fox. Do you live here?”

“Yes. You scared me.”

“I’m sorry. I said excuse me. I suppose you know who Mr. Thorpe is?”

“Of course I do.” She was scornful. “He owns my daddy. Anyway my mommie says he does. I heard her. Does he own you too?”

“No, he doesn’t own me, he just rents me.”

She shrieked in derision. “Aw, go on! You can’t rent a man!”

“Well you can’t own one either, or at least you shouldn’t. Is your daddy the gardener?”

“No, he isn’t. He’s the head gardener. My name is Helen Gustava Flanders.”

“Thank you very much. I’ll call you Helen. You can call me Mr. Fox. Those are very beautiful gloves you have on, but they look as if they’re too big for you.”

She looked complacently at the yellow cotton gloves baggy on her little hands, with the fingers flopping. “They’re streemly nice,” she declared.

“Sure,” Fox admitted, “they’re nice enough, but they’re a little too big. Besides, they’re not mates. They’re both for the left hand. See how that thumb’s in the wrong place? Would you mind telling me where you got them?”

“Why, of course, Mr. Fox.” She giggled. “I went shopping in the stores and I bought them. I paid sixty dollars.”

“No, Helen, I mean really. No faking.”

“Oh.” Her eyes looked at his. “If you mean no faking, Miss Knudsen gave them to me.”

“When did she give them to you?”

“Oh, about a year ago.”

He abandoned that detail. “Do you mean Miss Knudsen the cook?”

“She’s not a cook.” She was scornfully derisive again. “She’s Mrs. Pemberton’s maid. Mrs. Pemberton is Miss Miranda. She swims naked. I saw her.”

“Did Miss Knudsen give you the gloves yesterday? Or Monday?”

“Yes,” said Helen firmly.

“Well,” said Fox, “I think she was nice to give them to you, but I tell you what. Those are both for the left hand. You give them to me and I’ll bring you another pair that will—”

“No,” said Helen firmly.

“I’ll bring you two pairs, one yellow and one red—”

“No.”

It took time, tact, patience and guile; so much time, in fact, that Fox’s wristwatch told him it was 12:35 when, having circled back around the greenhouse, he stepped behind a shrub for a strictly private inspection of his loot and satisfied himself on these details; the gloves were yellow cotton of good quality, soiled now but little worn, were exactly alike, both for the left hand, and bore the Hartlespoon label. He put them in his pocket, left the shelter of the shrub and cut across towards the garage, thinking to follow the drive back to the house as he had come. The limousine was still there in front of the garage, but not the man. He went back up the drive frowning, paying no attention to objects that had been worthy of keen interest an hour before. Suddenly he stopped dead still, jerked his chin up and stood motionless. From somewhere ahead of him a car had backfired. Or someone had shot a gun.