Rex Stout - Double for Death

Damon nodded. “Too often for comfort.”

“What’s your request?” Derwin demanded.

“Nothing very momentous,” Fox assured him.

“I agree with the colonel that it’s sort of crowded in here and I suppose, with this snag you’ve struck, you’ll be starting another series of interviews. Won’t you?”

“If I’m here all night—” Derwin began grimly.

“Sure.” Fox nodded sympathetically. “But before you begin, I request permission to finish a little game I was proposing when that shot interrupted us. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

“What kind of a game?”

“I’ll show you. Just a foolish idea of mine.” Fox turned brusquely. “Have you got the pads and pencils, Bellows? There, on the table. Pass them around — here, give me some. Only those who were in here at the time— Here, Mrs. Pemberton, Miss Grant— Take it, Mr. Fuller, you won’t have to write what I say if you don’t like it—”

“Write what?” Brissenden spluttered. “What are you trying to get away with? Let me see one of those pads!”

“I can’t allow this, Fox—” Derwin began; but Inspector Damon muttered at him, “Let him alone, I would. With him you never know.”

Fox tossed him a smile. “Thanks, Inspector. I didn’t know either, but it’s a bright idea.” His eyes swept the group. “For Mr. Jordan, Bellows. That’s right. Now. Each one of you will write what I dictate and put your name beneath it, or your initials will do. As I have said before, it will be a sentence from the Declaration of Independence.”

“Tschah!” Brissenden snorted.

“Certainly,” Fox went on, “there is no compulsion on any of you to humor me, but Mrs. Pemberton kindly consented, so I hope you will. Here’s the sentence—”

“Print it or write it?” Kester inquired.

“Either one, whichever you please. Writing would be faster. Here it is: ‘We mutually pledge to each other our lives...’” He paused. A glance showed him that all eight of the pencils had started to move. He waited a moment. “Got that? ‘We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.’” He waited again. The last of the pencils to stop movement was Luke Wheer’s. “That’s all. Now please put your name or initials at the bottom — what’s that, Mr. Fuller? That’s all right, here, give it to me, I’ll initial it for you.”

“Give me that pad!” Derwin was at his elbow. “Give me all of them!”

“You won’t know what to do with it, Mr. Derwin,” Fox objected; but after one swift glance at the chirography of Mr. Fuller, he surrendered the pad; and then did the same with each of the others. He moved so swiftly and glanced so briefly at each pad as he handed it over to the district attorney, that before Derwin knew it he was standing there with the stack of pads in his hand and Fox was telling him with a smile:

“You’d better take care of them; they may be needed as evidence.” He encompassed the group with a glance: “Thank you very much.” He spoke again to Derwin, “I’ll be out on the terrace if you want me,” turned on his heel and marched from the room with twenty pairs of eyes staring at him.

Brissenden growled to Inspector Damon, “He’s plain batty.”

Damon shook his head. “Not plain. Very fancy, Fox is. Listen to him.”

As Fox was crossing the hall, his baritone could be heard, just loud enough to reach them: “Lah-de-dah, dum dum, lah-de-dah, dum dum...”

An hour later, halfway between eleven and midnight, Dan Pavey emerged from the library and favored the two troopers in the side hall with a ferocious scowl. All he got in return was a pair of yawns. He adjusted his left arm to a more comfortable position in its support, a makeshift sling contrived of a folded strip of white muslin, and passed into the music room. Several persons were seated there, but not Tecumseh Fox, so he proceeded towards the main hall. As he entered it, Bellows appeared from somewhere and informed him that Mr. Fox would like to see him upstairs — if he would please follow—

“I’ll show him, Bellows.”

It was Nancy Grant, somehow there. Bellows thanked her and made off. Nancy led the way, with Dan following, up the broad winding stair, down half the length of the wide carpeted corridor, and indicated a door.

“In there,” she said.

“Thanks.”

Nancy stood. He stood. Her mouth opened and closed again.

Dan asked, “What is it?”

“Your arm.”

“What about it?”

Her finger nearly touched it. “Does it hurt?”

“Nothing to brag about.”

They stood. Dan’s mouth opened and closed again.

Nancy asked, “What is it?”

“Something I might as well say,” Dan rumbled, his bass pitched lower even than usual. “I’ll get it out. That playboy of yours. I really did think he had shot his father. Since I understand you have alibied him, I was wrong. Congrat—”

“He is not my playboy.”

“Well, your whatever you want to call him. Anyhow, what I want to say, on account of my accusing him in public of being a murderer, I owe you a laugh. I dreamed about you yesterday. I dreamed I was picking flowers for you. Red flowers. With these hands — ouch. Draw any conclusion you want to and you’ll probably be right.”

“But I—” Nancy stopped, then went on, “Whatever conclusion did you draw?”

“I didn’t draw any. I didn’t have to. You wouldn’t either, if you had a dream like that. Picking red flowers and arranging them to look nice. Kindly postpone the laugh until you are out of hearing.”

He strode to the door she had indicated, opened it without knocking, passed through and closed it.

Tecumseh Fox, there alone, faced him and inquired:

“Well?”

The vice-president nodded. “Okay,” he declared. “They wanted me to sign a statement and identify the gun, that’s all. It’s my gun all right. You know, it kind of gives you the creeps to realize that your own gun was used to shoot—”

“It’s not your gun, it’s mine.” Fox compressed his lips. “You know, Dan, this is past the limit. We won’t discuss it now—”

“We might as well. That is, if we’ve got to discuss it at all. It won’t do any good. We’ve been over it all before and what good does it do? You have your ideas and I have mine.”

“It might do some good if I made it impossible for you to put your ideas in practice in my business and with my property.”

Dan shook his head. “You mean kick me out?” He extended an enormous paw in an appeal to reason. “What do you say things like that for? To begin with, you couldn’t kick anybody out. Particularly not me. Six years ago last May, you saved my life. If you hadn’t butted in, that Arizona jury would have hung me higher than a kite, as sure as a duck quacks. If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be here. Then in the last analysis, who’s responsible for my actions? You are— All right, I’ve admitted before that I got that argument from Pokorny, but that doesn’t keep it from being a good argument. You saved my life and here I am. Whatever I do, brilliant or the contrary as you seem to think, it’s up to you. As far as that gun is concerned, common sense ought to tell you that if that one hadn’t been handy—”

“I said we won’t discuss it now!”

“We might as well if we’re going to.”

“No. I’m busy.”

“I know you are. You’ve found out who murdered Thorpe. I can tell that by the way your eyes look. But if we’ve got to discuss my lending that gun — I don’t want to be worrying about it all night—”

“You never worried about anything for five minutes in your life. Please go downstairs and ask Vaughn Kester to come up here, and to bring Luke Wheer and Henry Jordan with him.”