Rex Stout - The Mountain Cat

She lifted her head. Damn. Someone on the porch. Apparently, from the sound, several someones. The doorbell clanged and Clara stirred, opened her eyes, and struggled up. “That darned doorbell,” Delia said savagely. “I’ll see who it is.”

“I guess I must have gone to sleep.” Clara was upright. “For heaven’s sake don’t let them in.”

But that, Delia found, was too large an order. Switching on the porch light, she saw through the glass that the bell ringer was one from whom no Cody threshold was barred if he displayed a desire to cross it. So she opened the door, and Mr. and Mrs. Lemuel Sammis entered.

Delia got another kiss immediately, this time on the cheek — really more of a puff than a kiss, for climbing only the five steps to the porch had been an overdraft on Evelina’s air-conditioning system.

“You look awful, girlie! But here you are! In again, out again! I remember when that fellow, Marbie or Marble I think his name was, when he was in the pen for two years for cheating the Indians, as if anyone could cheat an Indian, he came out as fat as a pig— Hello, Clara. What did I tell you? Didn’t I say Lem would have her out of there before night? I admit that was yesterday, but here she is!”

“Shut up, Eva,” her husband snapped. “I had nothing to do with it. Escott’s partner and Quin Pellett got her out. I was afraid you girls might be in bed. Probably you ought to be. We came over from Amy’s...”

In the front room Delia turned on the lamp by the couch again and they found seats.

“We won’t stay long,” said Sammis brusquely. “I was coming over from Amy’s to ask you a couple of things, and Eva had to come along to give Dellie a smack.” He reached to pat his wife on the knee with the most predatory hand between Utah and the Sierras. “First you, Clara, what do you want to do about the office?”

“Why...” Clara was a little flustered. “I was fired from the office.”

“No, you weren’t. Didn’t Dellie tell you? I had it in mind some time ago to give up grubstaking, but I’d hate to see that old office closed like the one in front. A thing I said to Dellie, I’d like to put you in charge and run the thing if I could think of something else to do with Dan. Well, somebody thought of something and did it. You’re a smart girl, but you’re a girl and it’s not like it was twenty years ago. With mining what it is, do you think there’s any chance you could make it pay?”

“Why, I think—” Clara was not at ease. “I think so.”

“Say at ninety a week and a third share?”

“I think I could.” Clara suddenly straightened, her chin up, with decision. “But I may as well tell you and get it over with. I’ve about accepted an offer from Wynne Cowles to go into partnership with her.”

An ejaculation came from Delia. Sammis glowered.

“You mean that woman with cat eyes? The one that’s been backing Paul Emery?”

“Yes. She made me an offer about two weeks ago, but I turned it down. Then I got fired. I had an appointment to see her Tuesday afternoon, but she came to the office for me because she’s the kind who does what she pleases, and Jackson saw her there and they started quarreling. I went away and left them. Later I met her and told her I would go in with her. She’ll ante up to two hundred thousand, and I’ll draw seven thousand a year and get half of the net.”

“You will.” Sammis’s eyes were narrowed. “And you’ll take my men.”

“I suppose I will, as their stakes peter out.” Clara stretched a hand in appeal. “What was I to do? I was fired, wasn’t I?”

“You should have come to Lem, girlie.” Evelina was emphatic. “Everybody should. Everybody does. Come to Lem.”

“I’d been to him enough already. Anyway, I was really glad to get away from Dan Jackson and I wasn’t sorry he had fired me.” Clara turned. “I didn’t tell you, Del, because I didn’t want anyone to know until it was settled. But if I’d told you, you wouldn’t have gone there Tuesday night with that note, and— I’m sorry. I should have told you.” She shifted to Sammis. “I was sorry to be doing anything you wouldn’t like, too, but I couldn’t help it. And the way it is now, since you wanted to get out of the grubstaking business anyway, I’m sure Mrs. Cowles will make a deal to take it over—”

“I don’t like her.” Sammis grunted. “It would be a hell of a note, two women taking over Sammis & Brand. We’ll see. What do you think of it, Eva? Tell me later. I’m tired. You’re right, Eva, I’m tired.” Evelina returned the pat on the knee she had previously received.

Sammis sighed. “We’ll see. We’ll talk it over. I wanted to ask you, Dellie, did you tell Baker that you saw me in Amy’s car Tuesday night there at her house?”

It was Delia’s turn to be flustered, at the unexpectedness of it. She opened her eyes at him. “Why, no. I couldn’t very well tell him that, because I didn’t see you.”

“You didn’t?”

“No.”

“You didn’t see me and you didn’t tell him you did?”

“That’s right. He asked if I saw you in the car and I told him no, and I said you couldn’t have been there anyway because you were out at the ranch.”

“Well, you were wrong. I wasn’t at the ranch. I was there in Amy’s car.”

Delia stared. “But when I left — I supposed—”

“It don’t pay to suppose, Dellie. When you left the ranch I was starting to eat supper, that’s true. But it was ten o’clock when we drove in at Amy’s. I want to ask you girls a question. Let’s say Amy went to Dan’s office and shot him because he was a polecat and she couldn’t stand it any more. She didn’t, but let’s say she did. Where would you girls—”

“But she couldn’t! Where would she get the gun—”

“I said she didn’t do it, didn’t I? But say she did. Where would you girls stand? You know what Dan Jackson was. Would you want to see her arrested and tried and convicted?”

They gazed at him. Delia said, “I wouldn’t.”

“Neither would I,” Clara agreed.

“I don’t know about this, Lem—”

“Shut up, Eva. I’m not telling anything Baker don’t already know. All right, you girls say you wouldn’t, and I believe you. I believe you because I know you and you’re Charlie Brand’s daughters. Now here’s something Baker does know. Two people have told him that about 9:45 Tuesday evening they saw Amy coming out of the door from the stairs leading to Dan’s office, and they’re right. Dan had told her he was going to the office, and she suspected he wasn’t and had gone there to see, and had climbed the stairs and found the office dark and quiet, and came away again without going in. That’s the way it happened. Where I came into it don’t matter — anyway, she had phoned me and I met her.”

Sammis set his jaw sidewise, then, after a moment, relaxed it. “Ed Baker wants to question her. He wants to make trouble. He can never in God’s world explain how she got that gun and that handbag, but he might even arrest her and try her. He wants to make the Sammis name stink all over Wyoming. He wants to fasten a motive on Amy by dragging it all out about Dan and his dealings with women. That’s why I asked you girls that question — especially you, Clara. Dan was pretty careful and cagey, and he didn’t leave any trails to speak of — I know, because I was trying to find one and he knew I was. Twenty times I’ve wanted to ask you about telephone calls and messages and letters there in the office, but I couldn’t bring myself to it, turning Charlie Brand’s daughter into a spy on a woman chaser. But Ed Baker won’t be squeamish. He knows you’re the best source of information he can get and maybe the only one. He’s expecting you at his office at ten o’clock. That right?”