Rex Stout - Double for Death

Dan stared a second, grunted, rumbled, “I thought it was him all along,” and started for the door; and paused not for Fox’s challenge:

“Wait a minute, I’ll call that! Ten to one you can’t name him—”

The vice-president was gone. Fox made a face at the door, then crossed to an open window and leaned out for a breath of the cooler night air. Apparently Dan was having trouble finding Kester, or Kester was having difficulty locating the other pair, for ten minutes passed before footsteps were heard, muffled on the carpet of the corridor.

Fox faced the door as it opened. Luke Wheer was in the van, his face sullen, his eyes bloodshot. Vaughn Kester’s backbone was stiff and he walked with nervous jerky steps. Henry Jordan looked completely miserable, with the corners of his mouth drooping, his shoulders sagging, his feet dragging. There were only three chairs in the room. Fox invited the others to take them and, for himself, brought over the bench from the dressing table, then spoke to Dan.

“Stay out in the hall, will you, please? By the door. Sit on the floor and don’t go to sleep. If any one comes, give us a tap.”

Dan rumbled, not resentfully, “That’s one thing I’ve never done, I’ve never gone to sleep,” on his way out.

Fox turned to Kester: “Can we be heard in an adjoining room if we keep our voices down?”

The secretary shook his head. “The house is soundproofed. What’s this all about?”

“Murder,” said Fox curtly. “That’s what we’re going to discuss. But the precautions for secrecy are for the purpose of preserving the reputation of Ridley Thorpe. It’s his secret we’re trying to keep. You and Luke want to, I know. Jordan has his own reason for wanting the same thing and so have I. I’d hate to have to return this check to the Thorpe estate. I earned it and I want to keep it.”

“In any event,” Kester observed dryly, “you couldn’t be compelled to return it.”

“Oh, yes, I could, by my scruples — or my vanity. No matter what you call it, it’s the most effective compulsion there is.”

Kester didn’t look impressed. “What is it you want to discuss about the murder?”

Luke Wheer broke in, in a hoarse squeak, “I do not want to discuss any more about murder. I tell you, gentlemen, with all respect, I don’t want to!”

“I don’t blame you, Luke,” Fox sympathized. “But we four share the secret we want to keep and that’s why I asked all of you to come up here.” He turned and said abruptly, “The discussion will be mostly between you and me, Mr. Jordan.”

The wiry little man looked wearily surprised. “I don’t know what you think I can discuss about it,” he declared.

“Well,” Fox conceded, “I expect I’ll do most of the discussing myself. The fact is, I want to apply a test to you. I did it with Kester this afternoon; I built up an inference that he had killed both Arnold and Thorpe, and I did a pretty good job of it. Now I’m going to do the same thing with you.”

Jordan frowned at him. “I don’t understand. What is it you’re going to do?”

“I’m going to build up an inference that you killed Arnold, Sunday night, and Thorpe here today, and see what you think of it.”

The sag left Jordan’s shoulders, his chin stiffened and a flash came from his deep-set grey eyes. His voice was an angry growl: “I can tell you right now what I think of it.”

“Sure you can,” Fox agreed quietly, “but you’d just have to tell me all over again when I get through. To save time and avoid misunderstanding, I’ll put it this way: you’re going to sit there and listen right through to the end. If you start any motions I don’t like I’ll be on you and don’t think I can’t handle you. If you bust up the discussion, I’ll leave you in charge of Luke and Kester, and I’ll go downstairs and give the district attorney all the information I have, including the detail of Ridley Thorpe’s real weekend.”

“Not that,” Kester snapped.

“Yes, that,” Fox snapped back. “What about it, Jordan?”

“It’s ridiculous.” Jordan wet his lips. “It’s illegal. You can’t force me to sit and listen to this scurrilous—”

“I’m not forcing you. I’m merely telling you what will happen if you don’t.”

Jordan’s deep-set eyes were barely visible behind their ramparts. The palms of his hands slid down his legs and cupped over his knees and gripped there, as though he would hold himself down. “It’s blackmail,” he said. “I’ve suspected you from the beginning. Go ahead. Let me hear it.”

Fox nodded. “That’s sensible. I’ll make it as brief as I can, but there’s a lot to it.”

Luke, his bloodshot eyes wide at Jordan, squeaked, “He was on the boat!”

“Sure he was on the boat. Don’t start butting in, Luke, let’s get it over.” Fox’s eyes had not left Jordan. “Here are the bald details of the inference. Ten days ago, your plans being perfected, you sent an anonymous letter to Thorpe, threatening his life. You worded it so as to make it appear that it had been sent by a man who had been financially ruined by Thorpe, a man who lunched at the club he did. You did that to guide suspicion in that direction and also to establish the supposition that the man who killed Arnold thought he was killing Thorpe. You mailed the letter on Monday. The following Thursday you went for a trip on your boat. You knew of course that Thorpe would spend the weekend at the cottage in New Jersey with your daughter. Sunday night you anchored your boat at some deserted strip of beach on the Connecticut shore — I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the same spot where I embarked Luke and Kester and Thorpe yesterday — rowed ashore, stole a car somewhere and drove to the bungalow — probably on the road along the woods back of it, since Grant and his niece saw no car — sneaked through the woods, shot Arnold through the window, drove back to where your boat was, or near there, went back on board, crossed the sound to the Long Island shore, anchored, got into your bunk and slept. Maybe you slept; sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. Any comment?”

“No,” said Jordan contemptuously. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“I think myself,” Fox agreed, “it would be better to wait till I’ve finished. Before proceeding to more bald details, I’ll turn some light on a few of those. You had no desire or intention of harming Thorpe; it was Arnold you were after. You had no expectation of ever being remotely associated with the affair in the mind of any one. There were only four people in the world who knew that there was any connection whatever between you and Ridley Thorpe; Luke Wheer, Vaughn Kester, your daughter and Thorpe himself; and they were all people who would not divulge that connection. So your natural expectation was that all you would ever hear about the murder of Corey Arnold would be what you would read in the papers whenever you saw fit to go ashore and get some. It must have been the nastiest shock of your life, yesterday afternoon, when I floated alongside and you saw who was sitting in my boat. Wasn’t it?”

Fox shook his head. “Excuse me. Don’t try to answer yet. You handled that situation marvelously. To be sure, I wasn’t expecting anything suspicious, but I always have my eyes open and you didn’t betray yourself by the slightest flicker. The negotiations were completed, and Luke and Kester and I left. Then, at some moment prior to the time when it had been agreed you and Thorpe would go ashore, you had a second shock. Probably, I imagine, while you were steering the boat to Port Jefferson. Thorpe emerged from the cabin with a revolver in his hand. ‘Look here, Jordan,’ he said — I can hear him saying it — ‘I was poking around in there and found this in a drawer. I hate guns and I never carry one, but good gracious, somebody’s trying to kill me and I’m going to protect myself. I’ll just borrow this until I get one of my own.’ And he stuck it in his pocket. Wasn’t that the way it happened?”