Rex Stout - Double for Death

When, two seconds later, men came running in from the west hall, Redmond was sitting on the floor in a puddle of iced tea and broken glass, still screaming, every one had got to their feet, Jeffrey overturning his chair, Henry Jordan was white and trembling all over, Miranda was clutching Andrew Grant’s arm, McElroy the multiple director was backing to the wall...

“What... who—” Colonel Brissenden was yelling.

Fox yelled back, to top the screams, “Outdoors! Nobody’s hurt in here! Outdoors!”

Brissenden barked an order and two troopers whirled and disappeared. He barked again and the muscular giant from the hall picked up Redmond, still screaming hysterically, like a bag of cotton, and carried her out. Derwin was gesticulating and trying to say something to a man with a prize-fighter’s jaw and the morose eyes of a pessimistic poet, who, instead of listening, was looking. He strode across:

“Hello, Fox. Shot fired outdoors?”

“Hello, Inspector. Yes.”

“Bullet didn’t come in here?”

“Nobody saw it or felt it.”

Inspector Damon nodded. “We were in the library, the other side of the house, and couldn’t tell.” He turned. “Here’s something coming—”

The something was bellicose voices, upraised, from the darkness outdoors. They became fainter rounding the corner of the house. Brissenden trotted out. The voices, mingling with others, were heard again from the hall and at the sound of one of them Tecumseh Fox started for the door. But before he reached it the influx arrived. Two troopers entered, one on each side of a broad-shouldered square-faced man who was holding his left arm tight against his side and with his right hand grasping it above the elbow. He saw Fox, faced him and announced in a bass rumble that quivered without raged indignation:

“The double-breasted bastard shot me!”

Fox was by him. “Where, Dan? Let’s see. Better sit down. Thanks, Inspector. Take your hand away so I can slit the sleeve—”

“Wouldn’t it be better to—”

“No. Hold still. There. You’re nice and bloody. Hold still, you don’t have to look at it! No, thank you, Mrs. Pemberton. I won’t need a tourniquet. Please stand back, Miss Grant.” Fox glanced sharply at Nancy’s white face. “You’d better sit down — put her in a chair, Andy. It’s only flesh and skin... we ought to move into a bathroom—”

“I want to get you something first.”

“Go ahead. Hold still.”

“I’ve been trying to reach you all afternoon. They wouldn’t let me in. They wouldn’t call you on the phone. I had to get to you because I know who murdered Thorpe.”

“You do?”

“Yes. As soon as it got dark enough, or I thought it was, I climbed the wall and started for the house. Who would have thought one of those apes would actually shoot? And not only that, he hit me.”

“It’s not bad. Thank you, Inspector. Go on and tell us who killed Thorpe.”

“His son did. Jeffrey.”

“Did he?” Fox disregarded movements and ejaculations. “How could you see him from that distance?”

“I didn’t see him. But I know the double-breasted—”

“Save that one till we get to the bathroom. I don’t think I ever saw you this mad before— Don’t push, Colonel, you’ll get it. Two double-breasted’s in three minutes. What is it you know?”

“I know he had my gun, because I gave it to him last night and if it’s the one that shot Thorpe—”

“You mean my gun? One of my Dowseys?”

“All right, your gun. The one I was carrying.”

Fox’s eyes blazed. “You gave that gun to Jeffrey Thorpe?”

“I lent it to him. When he was there last night — when he came downstairs to go home. I was sitting on the porch aiming with it—”

“What were you aiming at?”

“At the bug lamp.”

“Do you mean the insect trap?”

“Yes. I was showing Wallenstein how to pull it down and allow for the jump. The young ape came out and saw me and said he was going to buy a gun and wished he had one, but he couldn’t buy one until morning. I asked him what for and he said for protection. Pokorny overheard it and suggested I should lend him mine—”

“I’ve told you a thousand times to ignore Pokorny’s suggestions.”

“Right. So Thorpe asked to borrow it until he could buy one, and since he had been riding around chinning with you and Miss Grant—”

“And you let him have it.”

“Right. Hey, that hurts!”

“I’m squeezing out the juice. I won’t mention what I’d like to do.” Fox turned to Derwin at his elbow. “Do you want to ask him anything before I take him somewhere and clean him up?”

“I do.” Derwin was grim. “I want him to identify that gun and to sign a statement—”

“You can have that when I get through with him. It’s the gun, all right. I mean any detail as—”

“Yes.” Derwin faced Dan. “Was the gun loaded when you gave it to Thorpe?”

“Certainly it was loaded!” The answer came not from Dan, but from Jeffrey Thorpe, who was there confronting Derwin. “I borrowed it from him and it was loaded, and I put it in my pocket and brought it home with me!”

“You admit that?”

“Yes!”

“Come on, let’s get it bandaged,” Fox said to Dan and, as they left the room, no one offered to interfere, or even paid any attention to them, for all eyes were focused on Jeffrey. Miranda had moved and was beside him, her face pale and her jaw set. A trooper had sidled over and was directly behind him.

Brissenden snapped, “Get him out of here. Bring him to the library, Hardy.”

The trooper put a hand on Jeffrey’s arm, but he, ignoring that, spoke to Derwin:

“You want to run me through the wringer and that’s all right, but I want to ask a question. My sister told me that the gun that killed my father has been identified as one belonging to Tecumseh Fox. Is that correct?”

“It is. And therefore it’s the gun—”

“Yes. I can count that far myself. It’s the gun I brought here and that makes it my turn to talk. But you’re not taking me to the library or anywhere else. I’ll talk right here. The people who have heard this much will hear the rest. Tell your stenographer to go get his notebook. When I got home last night—”

“Wait a minute, Jeffrey!” It was Fuller, of the law firm of Buchanan, Fuller, McPartland and Jones, stepping forward. His hard non-committal eyes were aimed at the district attorney. “It is advisable, I think, that I should have a talk with Mr. Thorpe first.”

“Tchah!” snorted Brissenden.

“I think not,” said Derwin curtly.

“I think yes.” Fuller’s tone was acid. “Otherwise it will be my duty to advise him to answer no questions and give no information—”

“You can keep your advice,” Jeffrey blurted. “I’ve been afraid all the time—”

“Jeffrey! I order you, as your attorney, to keep silent! You flouted your father’s authority when he was alive; now—”

“He did not,” Miranda denied quietly. She was on the other side of her brother from the trooper, her hand on his sleeve. “But, Jeff, I think Mr. Fuller’s right. I think you ought to speak with him before you let them try to... to...” She faltered.

He looked down at her. “Much obliged, Sis,” he said bitterly. “You think I shot him. Don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You think maybe I did. She doesn’t, but you do. I’ve been thinking you did all afternoon and when you couldn’t look at me when you were telling me about them identifying the gun — and you knowing I had borrowed it myself last night—”

Brissenden barked, “I say get him out of here!”