Rex Stout: The Mountain Cat

Then he put a fist on the desk again and said fervently, “I wish to God you would go away! I wish you would go to the coast or New York and start the work and sacrifice! But you won’t, you never will! Deep down in your heart you’re as wise to yourself as I am!”

The same faint smile moved her lips again. “Perhaps I am,” she agreed. “Only in a different way. You are quite correct when you say I won’t go away to work and sacrifice. Whatever sacrifice I make— Anyhow, I have abandoned the idea of a career.”

He stared. He asked in a weak voice. “What? What’s that?”

“I shall have no career.”

A swift eagerness that had flashed into his eyes as swiftly disappeared. He demanded suspiciously, “What’s the idea? Why not?”

She shook her head. “You’d say I was faking,” she declared without resentment. “I hope, Ty, that it won’t make you miserable some day to remember what you’ve said to me this morning. I hope only that. And I hope if you do marry Wynne Cowles—” She stopped to swallow, and her hand fluttered. “Anyhow, I didn’t come here to exhibit jealousy, fake or otherwise. I came to consult you. To ask you a question because you’re a lawyer.”

“It is possible,” said Dillon, looking straight at her as if he hoped so, “that I am a damned fool.”

She shook her head. “It’s a legal question.”

“But you say you’ve abandoned— All right. Consult me first. What’s the question?”

“I must put it carefully.” She hesitated. “It’s what you call a hypothetical question. I’ve written it down.” She opened the leather handbag and rummaged among its contents, but the revolver was in the way, so she took it out and laid it across her knees. Then her fingers found the paper she wanted, and she took it out and unfolded it and read it in a monotone:

“ ‘Question for Tyler Dillon: If a person decides to commit murder, for reasons which she considers legitimate and justifiable, and if she does not intend to conceal the act but, on the contrary, intends to declare it and intends to plead the circumstances as a defense, would it help if she made an affidavit, or something like that, in advance and left it with a lawyer, telling about the circumstances, or would it be preferable for her to proceed with the act and tell her lawyer about the circumstances after the act was committed and she was arrested?’ ”

She folded the paper and returned it and the revolver to the bag, lifted her eyes to the lawyer, and said, “That’s it.”

He was staring at her. In a moment he said, “Give me that paper, Del.”

She shook her head. “I only want an answer.”

He continued to stare. “Where did you get the gun?”

“It was my father’s.”

“Is it loaded?”

“Not yet. I bought a box of cartridges this morning.”

“Let me see it.”

She shook her head.

“Who are you going to shoot?”

She shook her head.

Dillon got up, walked around the desk, and stood looking down at her. “I would give my right eye,” he said slowly, “to know whether things that have happened really have got you unbalanced, or whether you are just practicing again. I have good reason to know that whether you have any ability as an actress or not, you have unlimited talent for dressing up a scene. I would give my right arm, too.”

Delia had her head tilted back to look up at him. “You told me once,” she said, “that a way for a client to refer a problem to a lawyer without committing or compromising either of them was to put it in the form of a hypothetical question. So that’s what I’m doing.”

Dillon groaned.

“Well, didn’t you?”

He stretched out a hand. “Give me that paper. And the gun.”

“Don’t get dramatic, Ty.” She had all her fingers on the handbag and her tone sang. “I won’t take any spurs, you know very well I won’t.”

He gazed at her with his lips pressed together, breathing, in spite of her command, dramatically. After a minute he backed to the desk without turning, sat on its edge with his feet still on the floor, and said professionally, “Okay. I’m your lawyer and you’ve put a hypothetical question. In such a case my advice would be that all circumstances should be written down and submitted to a lawyer for him to put in the form of an affidavit. There should be nothing in it about an intention to commit murder, merely a recital of the circumstances. A lawyer is bound by his oath to reveal any knowledge that may come into his possession regarding an intention to commit a crime.”

Delia stood up. “Reveal?”

“Right. Pass it on.”

“To whom?”

“The proper authorities.”

“Then it’s a good thing I made it a hypothetical question. Thank you very much.” She started off.

He let her get within a yard of the door and then sprang after her and caught her arm. “Delia! Del! For God’s sake—”

She jerked free. Her tone was withering. “Didn’t I tell you not to get dramatic?” She went.

It appeared that Ty Dillon was going to make another grab for her, but he didn’t. Then it appeared that he was going to pursue her down the hall, but he didn’t do that either. Instead, he waited until the door leading to the anteroom had closed behind her, and then headed in the other direction, stopping at the last door at the end. He had his knuckles raised to rap on it when it suddenly opened away from him and he was confronted by a bulky man in his shirt sleeves, with red suspenders.

There was a grunt. “You want me, Ty?”

But the sight of Phil Escott’s shrewd and cynical old face made Ty realize that he had better try his own shrewdness first. So he said, “Nothing urgent. I just wanted to report that Mrs. Cowles seems to be all set. She was just in talking to me.”

“Good. Excuse me. I have to play a tune.” The senior partner tramped off.

The junior partner returned to his room and sat at his desk. He sat there motionless for a full quarter of an hour and then muttered half aloud, “She’s an actress. Or she’s a little stage-struck fool. Or she’s a hundred percent fake. Or she’s hyperpituitary or something like that. Or she’s the girl I love, unbalanced by grief and getting herself in a jam.”

He swung his chair, reached for the telephone book, flipped the pages and ran his eye down a column until it stopped at the entry: Cole’s Detective Agency 109 Vrgna St... 3656 . He pursed his lips at it, considering, then finally tossed the book aside and shook his head for a decided negative.

“No good,” he muttered. “If it’s baloney I’d be a jackass, and if it’s real it would be dangerous.” He groaned. “But what the hell? I say what the hell!”

Five minutes later he reached for the phone book again, turned to a page, inspected it, scowled, muttered something and spoke into the phone. “Miss Vine, please ask Information for the number of Quinby Pellett over on Fresno Street. It doesn’t seem to be listed.”

He hung up, fiddled and fidgeted, and when the buzzer sounded got the receiver to his ear again. “What? He hasn’t got a phone? I’ll be darned. Much obliged.” He shoved the phone back, grabbed his hat, and departed.

Delia did a little shopping on her way back to where she had parked the car, then got in and swung into the traffic. Shortly after twelve o’clock she turned in at the driveway of the Brand home, a block away from the river, on Vulcan Street. It was an unpretentious house with a large yard which had been bought by her father at a time when she was eating with a bib on. As she circled the path she frowned at a border of scraggly calendulas, and she dragged the end of a hose there and set a sprinkler going before she entered the house. At the door she inserted her key, twisted it and found it wouldn’t turn in the ordained direction, turned the knob and discovered that the door wasn’t locked, and backed up a step, stiffening. She held the pose for a moment, then opened the handbag and took out the revolver. Gripping it in her right hand, she pushed the door open with her left and entered the hall. It was empty, but, hearing a noise, she called loudly, “Who are you?” Then, as the voice that answered was the most familiar voice in the world to her, she hastily returned the gun to the handbag and went by way of the dining room to the kitchen.