Rex Stout - Alphabet Hicks

“Have you ever met Mrs. Dundee? Dundee Senior’s wife?”

“No.”

“Have you ever talked with her on the phone?”

“No, I haven’t, and I don’t know what you think you’re doing, unless you think I need practice answering questions, and I don’t think—”

“Call it practice,” Hicks conceded. “But you seem to be convinced that Cooper didn’t do it, and in that case who did? There’s only Mrs. Powell and the two Dundees. You can’t count you and me and Brager, because we were at the laboratory all the time. Unless someone sneaked in from the road and then sneaked out again. What did your sister do before she married Cooper?”

“She was an actress. You must have heard of her.”

“I’m not much up on actresses.”

“She was good. She wasn’t a star, but she would have been. That’s another thing — she gave up her career for him—” Heather’s chin started to tremble, and she clamped it.

“Did she know anyone connected with the Dundee outfit? Or with Republic Products? Anyone at all?”

“Not that I know of. I’m sure she didn’t, because I knew everyone she did. I had a job in New York then. Even then George was trying to make a fool of himself, and I got a job out of town because I thought that would be better, and then I got to like it out here, and the pay was good...”

“Well.” Hicks stood up. “We’d better make an appearance. At least I had, and you can take to your room.”

A shudder ran over her. “I hate that house now. I’m going to stay here a while.”

He looked at her keenly. “What about you?”

“I’m all right.”

“You’re not considering anything childish like running away from it?”

“Certainly not.”

“Okay. Can I cut through that way to the path?”

“It would be better to go by the road.”

He went, diving into the undergrowth, and in a moment was hidden by it. The sound of his progress, slashing through it, grew fainter in Heather’s ears, then abruptly ceased and was replaced by the barely audible crunch of his steps on the graveled road, which soon was gone too. Heather remained motionless on the boulder for long minutes, then her head dropped forward until her chin touched, her eyes closed, and she was motionless again.

Suddenly her head jerked up and her eyes came open startled. A noise — something in the brush — I’m silly, she thought, it’s just him returning. But as the noise grew louder and she realized it was from the wrong direction, she leaped to her feet and stood peering toward it, all her muscles tensed. I’m afraid, she thought. That’s ridiculous; there’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of, but I’m afraid. I’m a hot one, I am... Then abruptly her muscles went loose as she saw and recognized him, when nothing interevened but brush lower than his shoulders.

Ross Dundee emerged into the open spot and encircled the boulder to get around to her side. He had discarded the soiled white coveralls, but was scarcely more elegant in flappy gray slacks and an old gray sweater. He was hatless, and a limp tuft of his brown hair slanted down to a corner of his eye and was ignored, as he stopped six paces short of Heather and stood gazing at her.

“I’m alone here,” Heather said.

Neither of them appeared to be cognizant of the fatuity of that. In fact, Ross matched it.

“Excuse me,” he said. He took a step and stopped again. “I was looking for you. Dad said you started back to the house. I heard voices and saw you, but I didn’t want to intrude. I waited until he had gone— Who is that fellow?”

“If you don’t want to intrude, then don’t.”

The young man’s cheeks flushed, but if from resentment, there was no flash of it in his deep sober eyes. “Now look here,” he protested, “you might as well forget you don’t like me, at least temporarily. Petty things like that at a time like this. What do you know about that fellow Hicks? You never saw him before. It might have been him—”

“I never said I didn’t like you— Oh, go away!”

Ross sat down on the angle of the boulder that Hicks had occupied and said firmly, “I’m not going to go away.”

“Then I will.”

“All right, I will too when you do.”

A ridiculous silence ensued. Heather shut her eyes. Ross sat and gazed at her, with his arms folded, while the flush gradually left his cheeks. At length he broke the silence.

“Not that it is of any importance under the circumstances,” he said stiffly, “but you did say that you don’t like me. I heard you say it to Mrs. Powell. But I have a right to say I am sorry about your sister — I mean I’m very very sorry — and if there is anything I can do and if you will let me do it—”

He stopped. After a moment Heather opened her eyes and said:

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. And also, as a business associate and living in the same house with you, I have the right to see that the same thing doesn’t happen to you that happened to your sister. How do I know it wasn’t that fellow that did it? Anyhow, I’m not going to leave you here alone in the middle of the woods, and if you start off I’m going to follow you. If you regard that as merely obnoxious, I’m sorry. You may have forgotten about telling Mrs. Powell you didn’t like me. It was on the front terrace one evening about a month ago.” He unfolded his arms to make a gesture of dismissal. “Anyway, you’ve made it plenty obvious enough without that.”

Heather had nothing to say. She sat with sagging shoulders and no muscle in her, looking not at the young man but vacantly at a chipmunk perched on the end of a log. Ross gazed at her steadily.

He broke the silence again. “Since I’m here, and there’s nothing I can do about your trouble, or if there is you won’t let me, I’ll try to do something about a trouble of my own. I hate to ask you, but I’ve got to. It’s very humiliating, but I’ve got to. I’ve lost a sonograph plate.”

He paused, but Heather said nothing and didn’t move.

“I’ve got to ask you about it,” he went on, “because it’s important. Maybe you know where it is. It may have got into one of the racks I’ve taken to you from laboratory, among the other plates. When you were running them off, have you come onto one that was — well, peculiar?”

Heather’s face turned to him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she declared.

Her eyes met his, and Ross’s face was suddenly flushed again, redder than before, in a wave of embarrassment. “It’s hard to explain,” he said, half stammering, “because it’s complicated by those other plates. I don’t mean one of them. I don’t even know whether you played them through. This plate wasn’t marked, and I thought maybe I put it in the rack through carelessness, and you thought it was the same as the other plates that weren’t marked, and you didn’t put it on the machine at all and for that reason didn’t find out that it was different. You see?”

“I certainly don’t see.”

“But you must,” he insisted. “It’s a question of where those unmarked plates are, because I’m almost sure it’s among them. God knows I wouldn’t be asking you this if I didn’t have to. I never intended to mention them if you didn’t. And all I want now is just to get them so I can run them through and find the one I’m looking for. I don’t suppose you kept them, but you couldn’t destroy them because they won’t break and they won’t burn. I know you didn’t put them in the waste, because I looked. So I suppose you just threw them away. Will you tell me where?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Ross stared at her. “Certainly you have.”

“I have not.”

“But my God — I’m talking about the unmarked plates that I — that you have found in the racks mixed in with the others! I admit I was an ass! I know you don’t like me and never will! But there’s no reason why you shouldn’t tell me what you did with them—”