Rex Stout - The Broken Vase

“And?”

“That’s all. Mr. Pomfret looked as if he was going to cry, and he couldn’t speak, so Mrs. Pomfret asked us if we knew anything about it, and we said we didn’t and cleared out.”

“But what was funny about that?” Fox was frowning. “What was it that you regarded as funny?”

“The funny thing didn’t happen there.”

“Where did it happen?”

“At home. Afterwards. Dad had left before the program was over to keep an appointment, and later, when he came home to dinner, before I mentioned what had happened, he said he supposed Pomfret had sent for the police about the vase. I asked how he knew about it, and he said that on his way out he had meant to stop in the yellow room for a drink, by the door from the reception hall, but as he was about to enter he saw the reflection of Pomfret in that big mirror at the end. He stopped at the expression on Pomfret’s face, and saw that he had in his hand a piece of the Ming vase, and he didn’t want to be delayed by the rumpus he knew Pomfret would make, so he went on out.”

“Pomfret didn’t see him.”

“Apparently not.”

Fox had a gleam in his eye. “So the broken vase was discovered twice, by different people.”

Dora nodded. “It looked that way. I told Dad he must have been mistaken, because Pomfret had said nothing about it, and he was standing there talking with us calmly and naturally when Perry called to him, and he was certainly surprised and shocked when he saw the vase, but Dad said he was positive he had seen the piece of the vase with the yellow dragon on it in Pomfret’s hand. Later he asked me to promise I wouldn’t mention it to anyone, and I did. He said we had all we could do to attend to the monkey business in our own lives without butting in on other people’s.” Dora bit her lip. “He was a wise man — and he was kind, very kind. He never liked Mr. Pomfret.”

“Did he have any theory to account for that particular monkey business?”

“I don’t think so. If he had he didn’t tell me.”

“Did he ever mention the vase again?”

“Not that I remember. I’m sure he didn’t.”

“Presumably Pomfret was alone in the yellow room when your father saw him?”

“Presumably. The program was going on.”

“How long was it from then until the moment Perry Dunham discovered the vase?”

“Oh...” Dora considered. “Half an hour, or maybe a little more.”

“Well.” Fox leaned back, frowned at the keyboard, and pulled at the tip of his ear. “I suppose it’s more than I had any right to expect, but it certainly isn’t much in the way of proof, especially since your father is — gone.”

“You said,” Dora reminded him, “that if it wasn’t what you thought—”

“But it is.”

She looked skeptical. “What you thought it might be?”

“Exactly. Not the details of course, but the implications. It was the first scene of a comedy which later turned into a dreadful tragedy. I know it was dreadful, because I saw Jan Tusar’s face when he was trying to get music out of that violin that night.”

A shiver ran over Dora. “I forget that. When I can.”

“I don’t,” Fox said grimly. Abruptly he arose. “For the present you’ll have to take my word for it that you won’t regret breaking the promise you made your father. If you made any others, keep them. It’s a good idea. But I’ll probably have to ask you to repeat it, just as you told it to me, in the presence of others. If I do, it will be under circumstances which will convince you that it’s necessary. In the meantime, for God’s sake don’t mention it to anybody. Three murders and another attempt at one are enough.”

Dora stared at him. “Three?”

Fox nodded. “Your father. I’m beginning to think that the only thing wrong with your suspicions was that they lighted on the wrong man.”

At two o’clock Sunday afternoon Irene Dunham Pomfret sat again in her library, at the head of the large table where boards of orchestras and hospitals and societies had so often met. Her appearance made it questionable whether this meeting would be handled with her accustomed authority and dexterity, or indeed whether she would be able to handle it at all. Two weeks ago she had been as handsome and vital, as competently and merrily alive, as any woman with a son in his twenties could possibly ask for; now she was not even a respectable ruin. There was no muscle left in her, and no tone. Her shoulders sagged, all of her sagged, and her half-dead eyes encircled by swollen red rims suggested that no remedy would serve but the final closing.

The others at the table were disposed as they had been on two previous occasions, with one notable difference, that Tecumseh Fox was in the chair formerly occupied by Perry Dunham. At Fox’s left, between him and Mrs. Pomfret, was Wells, the secretary. At his right were Henry Pomfret, Hebe Heath, and Felix Beck. Across the table were Koch, Ted Gill, Dora, Diego, and Garda Tusar.

Mrs. Pomfret looked dully around. “I want,” she said, in a tone that no board or committee had ever heard, “to tell you exactly why you’re here. Mr. Fox told me yesterday that the police had demanded that he turn the violin over to them, as evidence. They seem to be unable to get any other evidence of anything whatever, so they want that. I told him to let them have it. He objected.” She gestured flabbily at a violin case on the table in front of Fox. Her lip trembled, she stiffened it with an obvious effort for a moment, and then gave up. She muttered, barely audibly, “He will tell you why.”

Eyes left her face and went in visible relief to that of Fox, a less distressing sight.

Fox glanced around. “Maybe it was an excess of caution,” he conceded. He opened the case and removed the violin and placed it gently on the table. “But I felt responsible to you folks for this thing and I wanted to clear myself of that responsibility. As I told the police, I held it only as an agent. I am hereby returning it to its collective owners. You may either surrender it to the police voluntarily, or compel them to resort to legal process.”

Felix Beck blurted, “May I look at it?”

“Certainly.” Fox passed the violin along to him, in front of Pomfret and Hebe. Beck took it and inspected it, ran the tips of his fingers over the curve of its belly, and suddenly twanged the E string. The thin plaintive sound vibrated against overwrought nerves on both sides of the table; Dora shivered and shrank; Diego growled; Mrs. Pomfret pressed her handkerchief to her lips; Garda Tusar snapped peevishly, “Don’t do that!”

“Excuse me,” Beck said, and put the violin down.

Adolph Koch, regarding Fox, cleared his throat. “If the police want it as evidence in a murder, they can take it, can’t they?”

“Not necessarily, Mr. Koch, if we want to hang onto it. It’s valuable and it’s fragile, and it’s ours. We could fight a requisition.”

Koch shrugged. “It seems to me you might have done better than collecting us here like this. Especially it’s an imposition on Mrs. Pomfret, under the circumstances. Couldn’t you merely have phoned Miss Heath and Miss Mowbray and me?”

“I could, of course.” Fox returned his gaze unsmilingly. “But there are complications. I’ll have to tell you something else before you can make an intelligent decision about the violin. I’ll have to tell you who killed Jan Tusar and Perry Dunham.”

“Then,” Koch observed sarcastically, “you might have waited until you were prepared to do that.”

“I did. I’m prepared now.”

There were startled movements, gasps, exclamations, and ten pairs of eyes stared at him. Hebe Heath clutched Felix Beck’s sleeve and he jerked away. Mrs. Pomfret came up straight and was rigid.