Rex Stout - Double for Death

“Fox! Mis-ter Fo-o-ox! Fox!”

Fox bellowed, “Here!” and stood up.

A trooper came on the trot. “Mr. Derwin wants to see you at once!”

Fox made a disrespectful face and the noise that goes with it. “Excuse me, Mrs. Pemberton. I’m taking the whole dose, at least on trial. Don’t go monkeying around that piano. I’ll attend to it. Thank you for hiring me. If I feel like resigning, I’ll let you know.”

“Mr. Fox!”

“Coming!”

He went up the grassy slope, nodded to the trooper’s information that Derwin was in the library, and when he got to the house, entered by the French windows. In addition to the four who had been there previously, Colonel Brissenden and another trooper were standing beside the desk. Fox had guessed that he was being summoned for the purpose of ejection, but he abandoned that notion with his first glance at Derwin’s face. It bore the expression of a novice gambler who has been dealt a full house pat, and Fox’s nerves tightened into wariness all over his body as he dropped into the chair that was indicated for him.

Derwin’s eyes met his. “I’m sorry to interrupt your talk with Mrs. Pemberton.”

“That’s all right. We were through.”

“That’s good. A while ago you advised me not to waste time in a sparring match. So I won’t. I’ve found out what the job was that Thorpe paid you for. I’ve found what you got for him.”

“Have you?” Fox looked interested. “Where did you find it?”

“Here in a drawer in the safe. It was found hours ago, before I got here, but we’ve just learned the part it played. Would you like to look at it again?” Derwin opened the flap of a canvas case that was before him on the desk, took from it an object and extended his hand.

Fox took it and inspected it. It was a revolver, old but in good condition, of a make he had seen only once before in all his experience, a German Zimmerman. He frowned. “You found this in a drawer of Thorpe’s safe?” He held the muzzle to his nostril and sniffed. “It’s been fired quite recently.”

“Yes. We did that in our tests.”

“What did you test it for? If it was found in the safe it can’t be the gun that killed Thorpe.”

Colonel Brissenden made a noise of impatience. Derwin snapped, “It isn’t. As you damn well know, it’s the gun that killed Corey Arnold at the bungalow Sunday night.”

Fox gazed at the district attorney through an extended silence. Without saying anything, he inspected the revolver again, carefully on both sides, and then leaned forward to place it gently on the desk so as not to mar the polished surface.

He leaned back and folded his arms. “This is beautiful,” he declared. “Perfectly magnificent. The gun that killed Arnold found in Thorpe’s safe! I appreciate your telling me this. I take it that the tests were conclusive?”

Brissenden said succinctly, “Yes.” Derwin merely nodded.

Fox glanced around at the faces. They had their eyes on him like a circle of hungry cats surrounding a robin. “It’s an amazing find,” he declared. “Simply amazing. I congratulate you. What are we going to say next?”

“We’re waiting,” said Derwin, “for you to tell us where and how and when you got the gun and delivered it to Thorpe. If you want to gab a little to work yourself up to it, go ahead, we’re in no great hurry.” He clamped his jaw. “But you’re going to tell us.”

“Let’s see.” Fox pursed his lips. “How would you figure it? You wouldn’t figure it was Kester who killed Arnold, because Kester probably had access to the safe, and so Thorpe wouldn’t have put the gun there after I got it and delivered it to him. You wouldn’t figure it was Thorpe himself who killed Arnold, since in that case he would have been in possession of the gun already without hiring me to dig it up for him. We’ll count Luke out on sentimental grounds. Of course there are Thorpe’s business associates, but I doubt if you figured it was one of them, for it isn’t likely that I would have been able to work so fast in that quarter. Also it must have been someone whom Thorpe didn’t want to denounce to the police, for he had a chance to do so with the colonel this morning and didn’t do it. That not only narrows it down, it makes it obvious. It was the son or daughter. Jeffrey or Miranda. So the only question is which? What do you think, Colonel?”

“I think,” said Brissenden curtly, “that it isn’t necessary to let you go on shooting off your mouth. You must have known that we would find that gun and that, as a matter of routine, we would fire bullets from it and compare them with the bullet that killed Arnold. Therefore you must have invented an explanation for it, to be ready for us. We’re going to get the right one before we’re through, but if you want to give us the phoney one first, go ahead and get it over with.”

Fox shook his head. “I don’t get it, I swear I don’t. You find a gun in Thorpe’s safe that was used for a murder. Granted that he didn’t just find it under a stone or receive it in the mail, why pick on me among all the possibilities? Let’s get down to cases. I hereby state that I never saw or heard of that gun before, didn’t know it was in existence, didn’t know it was in Thorpe’s possession, didn’t know it was in his safe. Now what?”

“You’re lying,” Brissenden snapped.

“No, I’m not lying. My unqualified denial gives you the ball. Put up or shut up.”

“We’re giving you a chance—”

“I’m done. Put up or shut up.”

“Let me put it this way,” Derwin suggested. “We find this gun here in the safe and learn that it’s the one that killed Arnold. We consider all the various suppositions that might conceivably explain its presence here. We know that you met Thorpe yesterday evening for the first time and that since then you have done something for which he paid you fifty thousand dollars. It must have been something important, because that’s a lot of money. We know that you lied to me about getting money from Thorpe and that you refuse to tell what you did to earn it. We look at our facts and we draw an inference. On the strength of that inference we demand an explanation from you.” Derwin laid a fist on the desk but his voice stayed calm. “You are not a member of the bar and you can’t plead privileged communication. You say Thorpe pledged you to secrecy, but he’s dead now himself and you don’t need me to tell you that a pledge of secrecy to a murdered man is no valid excuse for shielding his murderer, no matter who it is. Even, for instance, if it should be the man’s own son. As Colonel Brissenden said, we’re giving you a chance—”

“Returned with thanks,” Fox broke in. “I simply haven’t got it in stock. You might as well give me a chance to tell you how long is a piece of string.”

“You refuse to tell us where and how and from whom you got this gun?”

“I deny that I know anything about it.”

“You stick to that?”

“I do. And I warn you that you’re wasting your time again. By the way, I should inform you that I won’t be able to leave this place within an hour as you requested. Mrs. Pemberton has engaged me to carry on an investigation—”

“That’s all right,” Derwin said quietly. “Developments have made it desirable for you to stay, anyhow.”

Fox didn’t like it. By their character as he knew them, they should have been furious. Brissenden should have been barking and Derwin should have been pounding the desk. Instead of which, he was calmly replacing the revolver in the canvas case, closing the flap and pushing the case aside, and reaching across the desk for a similar case that was lying there.

Fox didn’t like it at all. He said, “You spoke of an inference, Mr. Derwin, and on the strength of it you demanded an explanation. I want to say, meaning no offence, that it’s neither good logic nor good tactics—”