Rex Stout - Double for Death

Inspector Damon shook his head and muttered, “Let ’em talk.”

Fuller tried to get in: “I must insist—”

“I want to get a refusal for the record,” said Derwin. “I’m going to question him and if he refuses to answer on the advice of counsel, he has that right. Previously questioned, he has said nothing about having a gun. I also wish to question Mrs. Pemberton. I presume it was Mr. Fox who informed her that the gun that shot her father had been identified as his property. Anyway, she has admitted that she knew that and she also knew that her brother had borrowed one of Fox’s guns, and has concealed that fact.”

He glanced aside, saw that the pimply young man had got his notebook and was on a chair busy with it, and turned to Jeffrey. “Mr. Thorpe,” he demanded, “what did you do with that gun which you had borrowed when you brought it home with you, to this house, last night?”

Fuller commanded, “Don’t answer!”

Jeffrey had opened his mouth but closed it again. He looked at the lawyer. “You mean well, Mr. Fuller,” he conceded. “It doesn’t seem to me that this was the time or place to charge me with flouting my father’s authority, but you have sons of your own and I suppose you had to get that dig in.” He looked at Derwin. “I’m willing to grant that you mean well too, since you’re the district attorney.” He looked at Brissenden. “You’re a pugnacious jackass, and if I get out of this alive I’m going to meet you unofficially and sock you one. Now if you’ll all stop yapping I’ll tell you about that gun.”

“Jiffy, I order you—”

“Let me alone. If the truth won’t do it, to hell with it. When I got home and went up to my room last night — oh, I’m glad you’re in time to hear it, Fox, since it was your gun. How’s the vice-president?”

“He’ll keep for a while.” Fox smiled at him. “I’m glad I’m in time to hear it.”

“So am I. When I got home and went up to my room last night I took the gun out of my pocket and put it on the bed table. When I dressed this morning I put it in my pocket again. It was still there when Miss Grant and her uncle arrived around nine o’clock this morning. I tried to get Miss Grant to talk to me and she wouldn’t. I got peeved, not with her, with myself, and decided that I was acting like a half-wit and that I would drive off somewhere and not come back until she was gone.”

He looked at Brissenden. “That was the mysterious errand in my car which I refused to tell you about because it was none of your damn business. A few miles down the road I nearly collided with a truck and realized that in the condition I was in I was a highway menace, but the real reason I came back was that I knew Miss Grant was here and I couldn’t stay away.”

He looked at Nancy. “I apologize for bringing your name in so often but if I’m telling it I might as well tell it. When I sat down in the car the gun in my hip pocket dug into my behind, and I had taken it out and laid it on the seat. I felt silly with it anyhow in broad daylight and besides—” He stopped. “No, I might as well tell that too. I knew Miss Grant and her uncle had seen it in my pocket, because I had overheard a remark he made to her. Of course they’ll now be asked to explain why they didn’t mention that I was carrying a gun, but you can’t put them in jail for that.The fact that I knew they had seen it made me feel sillier. Anyhow, when I got back here and left the car out in the circle, I forgot all about the gun. I didn’t even see it on the seat when I got out of the car, because my mind was on something else, but it must have been there, since I had put it there only fifteen minutes before, when I started out. That was the last time that I actually remember seeing it, when I put it on the seat. I haven’t seen it since.”

As he stopped, Fuller was at Nancy like a hawk after a chicken: “Miss Grant, you saw the gun in Jeffrey’s pocket before he left you to go for a ride?”

“Yes,” she said clearly and firmly. “Just a minute or two after we got here.”

“You the same, Mr. Grant?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see it in his pocket, or in his possession — did you see it at all — after he returned from his ride?”

“No. I didn’t know he had gone for a ride, but when he returned around ten o’clock after an absence of perhaps a quarter of an hour, I didn’t see the gun. Nor at any subsequent time.”

“Did you, Miss Grant?”

“No.”

The lawyer’s eyes swept that half of the room where the guests were scattered. “Did any of you see a gun in Jeffrey Thorpe’s possession after ten o’clock this morning?”

He had pushed the question through, raising his voice, in spite of an attempted interruption by Derwin, and, though the interruption forestalled vocal replies, apparently he was satisfied by the negative expression of the faces, for he turned to the district attorney and told him:

“Go ahead and ask him anything you want to.”

“Thanks,” said Derwin sarcastically. He glanced at the stenographer. “You have it that those questions were asked of Grant and his niece by Mr. Fuller?”

“Yes, sir.”

“With no attempt at interference by me.”

“Yes, sir.”

Derwin confronted Jeffrey. He looked sufficiently grim and determined, though not at all happy. “Mr. Thorpe,” he said gruffly, “you have a legal representative present. I think it would be proper for you to accept any advice he may give you. It is also proper for me to tell you that in my opinion, with the evidence now in my possession and the admissions you have yourself made, your indictment on a charge of first-degree murder would be procurable, but I am not at the moment making that charge. I don’t intend to be precipitate, but I do intend—”

“Don’t lecture him,” Fuller snapped. “And don’t threaten him. If you want to question him, do so.”

Derwin ignored it, kept his eyes at Jeffrey and finished his sentence. “I do intend to see that guilt is punished. Your statement is that you left the gun — the gun which was subsequently used for the commission of murder—”

“That was not his statement,” Fuller contradicted. “The identity of the weapon used.”

“Very well. Your statement is that you left the gun which you had borrowed from Tecumseh Fox — at his home from his employee — on the seat of your car when you returned from a ride about ten o’clock this morning?”

“That’s right,” said Jeffrey.

“And you haven’t seen it since?”

“That’s right.”

“Didn’t you see it lying on the library floor within a few feet of your father’s dead body?”

“No. I didn’t see the gun or anything else. I was looking at him.”

“You didn’t see the gun at all?”

“No.” Jeffrey was meeting the district attorney’s grim gaze with a scowl. “And since I knew that gun could be traced to me, if I had shot him and had left it there I would have been a bigger boob than I am.”

“If you did it, you had to leave it somewhere and there wasn’t much time. Then your contention is that the murderer got the gun from the seat of your car.”

“I’m not making any contention. I’m just telling where I left the gun.”

“Haven’t you returned to your car at all since ten o’clock this morning?”

“Yes. I went there this afternoon about four o’clock to see if the gun was still there and it wasn’t.”

“After Colonel Brissenden had finished his interview with you?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t mention that gun to Colonel Brissenden, did you?”

“No.”

“You didn’t mention that you had borrowed it, or that it was in your possession this morning, or that you had left it on the seat of your car?”