Rex Stout - Double for Death

“Well, that’s two of you. Now for the son and daughter. Or rather, their mother first. Was she an American, do you know?”

“Yes. You understand, Fox, this is simply ridiculous. By no stretch of the imagination—”

“Don’t try it. Take my word for it, I’m being practical and sticking to the point. Mrs. Thorpe was born in this country?”

“Yes. I prepared a biographical sketch of her. You seem to be interested in Great Britain. She was there only once or twice. She didn’t go abroad much, and when she did she spent her time in France or Italy.”

“How about the children’s governess — Jandorf who took Jeffrey to the zoo, and Lefcourt who took him to the aquarium? Do you know anything about them?”

“Not a thing. That was before my time.”

“Where did they go to school?”

“Private schools here in the east and preps. Miranda graduated from Sarah Lawrence and Jeffrey went to Harvard for three years but didn’t graduate.”

“Have they been to England much?”

“Miranda never, I’m sure, and Jeffrey, I think, twice.”

“Thank you very much.” Fox leaned forward and grimaced as he felt his shirt sticking to his back. “Now here’s something I can’t do because I’m incommunicado. I could bust loose by getting arrested and arranging bond, but that takes time. About these business associates that were here today, we need to know whether any of them is or was English, or was educated in England or Canada or Australia, or has spent a considerable amount of time there.”

“Maybe you need to know that. I don’t.”

“I do. Will you get on the phone and find out? You shouldn’t have much trouble; they’re all prominent men. There’s no concealment about it; it doesn’t matter if Derwin’s sitting at your elbow.” Fox stood up. “Will you do it?”

“The whole thing sounds preposterous.”

“Sure it does. Will you do it?”

“Yes.”

“Good. One other thing, have you had, or do you have, any definite suspicion about the writer of that letter?”

“No. Mr. Thorpe was an able and realistic businessman and financier. I suppose there are thousands of men who could persuade themselves that they are his victims.”

“You put that very nicely.” Fox picked up his coat. “That inference I built up, don’t start worrying about it until I find out how you got hold of Miss Grant’s scarf and my gun.”

Bellows, still trying heroically to look like a bald well-fed butler in spite of the appalling combination of heat and sudden death, stood erect before the employer who would pay the current month’s wages and nodded to her questions.

“Yes, madame, I agree. An alfresco meal always has an air of festivity, or should have. I can put fans in the dining room.”

“I think that will be better,” Miranda said. “I have spoken with Mr. Derwin. There will be four to serve in the library: Mr. Derwin and his assistant, Colonel Brissenden and someone, I think a police inspector, who just arrived from New York. There will be ten or more who will eat in your quarters; you can learn the exact number from Colonel Brissenden. Since Mr. McElroy is staying, nine will be at table. My father’s chair will be placed as always and will be left vacant; my brother will sit at his usual place.”

“Yes, madame. Shall I serve at eight o’clock?”

“You might as well.” Miranda glanced at her wrist. “That will be in forty minutes. It must be a comfort to you to know that there will be no late arrivals; the guests are already here.”

“Yes, madame. If you will please allow me to request you in advance to make allowances for any irregularities. I just overheard Redmond telling Folsom that she was sure she would drop something on account of one of the persons at table being a murderer.”

“I promise in advance to overlook it. I may even drop something myself.”

“Yes, madame.”

Miranda left him. Her passage through the dining room interrupted a conversation through an open window between Redmond on the inside and a gardener without. In the west hall a muscular giant seated on a newspaper which he had spread on a Persian musnud hastily covered a yawn with a gigantic paw at the sight of her. Through the screened entrance she could see a trooper standing at the edge of the terrace in the shade of a trellis, talking with Henry Jordan, her father’s boating friend whom she had never heard of before. She went on to the drawing room, saw Andrew Grant and Tecumseh Fox there in a corner, stood hesitant a moment with her lips compressed and went over to them.

She addressed Fox: “We can finish that talk now if you want to.”

He regarded her a moment and shook his head. “No, thank you. With that expression of hardihood in your eyes it wouldn’t do any good. Anyhow, I’m starting for that gun from the other end.”

“You were mistaken when—”

“No, I wasn’t. Excuse me. I have a little errand—”

He started off, but turned to her voice behind him:

“You are invited to dinner. We’ll eat at eight o’clock in the dining room. Bellows will show you to a room upstairs if you want to comb your hair.”

“Thank you very much.”

Fox went. Miranda slanted her eyes up at Grant and said, “If he ever gets married I pity his wife. One look at her eyes and he’ll know to a cent how much she’s chiseling on the household allowance. You’re an old friend of his, aren’t you?”

Grant nodded. “Using friend as a euphemism, yes. I lived at his place for several months about three years ago. A sort of charity guest. I was intending to get started on the beginning of a tentative synopsis for a book.”

“Oh. Are you a writer?”

“I am a delitescent writer.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I didn’t start the book. I have made a living writing advertising for the past three years, but as some forty million people are now aware, I lost my job.”

“I’m trying to talk about something else for five minutes. At least you aren’t wandering around your own house, seeing district attorneys and policemen and detectives wherever you look. It’s impossible for me to know what it means to lose a job, to have any idea what the feeling is like, because I never had a job. What are you going to do now? When this is over?”

He shrugged. “Look for another one. This time, if I can get it, in a publisher’s office. I ought to be a publisher.”

She stared. “What for? To make a man of yourself?”

“Lord no. Where did you get that idea?”

“From my brother. Why should you be a publisher?”

“To make money. To mount the ladder of success. The best and most successful publishers are writers who are too lazy to write. That’s me.”

“Would you be a good publisher?”

“Marvelous. If I ever got started at it — and if I got out of this beastly mess — I beg your pardon...”

“For what? I would call it worse than beastly. I have done something fairly beastly myself. When I came up just now was your friend Mr. Fox telling you about the gloves?”

“Gloves? No.” Grant frowned down at her. “What gloves?”

“I supposed he was.” Miranda frowned back. “I have a confession to make to you and your niece, but not right now. I played a dirty trick on her, only at the time I didn’t know it was her. I’m hoping for forgiveness and that’s why I’m trying to make a good impression on you, which under the circumstances is darned difficult. I’m not a glamour girl, but I can fry eggs, and once when I was in a bathing suit at Palm Beach a man looked at me twice.”

“I don’t like eggs much.”

“Then I can fry potatoes. If you’d like a room and a shower, come along upstairs.”