Rex Stout - Alphabet Hicks

The slightly grandiose living room of the Dundee apartment on Park Avenue was dimly lit, and quiet, with only faint intrusion of the midnight noises of the city. The upholstery of the divan, and the cushions on it, were a dark rich red, which made an effective background for the gold-colored dressing gown Judith Dundee wore, with mules to match, and no stockings.

Hicks shifted his chair to alter his field of vision. He didn’t like bare legs with long skirts.

“I’ll keep my eyes open if I can,” Mrs. Dundee said. “I don’t often take a sleeping pill, but I did tonight. I was in bed when you phoned.”

“Sorry,” Hicks said gruffly.

“Not at all. Not if you have news for me.”

“I’ve got nothing that’s much good. There have been a few little developments.” The sharp glint of his eyes contrasted with her lackluster gaze from under heavy lids. “I thought you might be able to furnish some information that would help. Have you heard anything?”

She frowned. “Heard anything? You mean from my husband? No. As for information, I told you everything yesterday—”

“I don’t mean yesterday. Today.”

“No.” Her frown deepened. “I told you my husband refuses to discuss it with me, and anyway I haven’t seen him—”

“I have. And a few others. There has been a murder.”

“Murder?” Her lids opened wide. “ Murder! ” she repeated incredulously. “Who—” A cushion tumbled to the floor as she leaned to clutch his arm. “Ross? Dick? My son? My husband?” She pulled at him, shook him. “Don’t sit there glittering at me—”

“Not your son or husband. A woman named Martha Cooper.”

“They’re all right?”

“So far as I know. Did you know Martha Cooper?”

“No. What—”

“I’m telling you. Do you know a girl named Heather Gladd who works out at the laboratory at Katonah?”

“No.”

“Have you ever been out there?”

“No.”

“Mrs. Cooper is Heather Gladd’s sister. She went out there today to see her. Sometime between two-fifty and four-forty this afternoon, on the house terrace, someone hit her on the head with a brass candlestick and killed her.”

Mrs. Dundee stared at him. “How awful! There in the house at Katonah? Where my son lives?” A little shudder ran over her. “Who did it?”

“Not ascertained. Brager and Miss Gladd and I are out because we were all at the laboratory. Whereas Cooper, the husband, and Mrs. Powell and Dundee Senior and Junior were all at the house during that period—”

“Dick was there?”

Hicks nodded. “And still is. Also Ross. Both voluntarily. They’re not held by the police — not yet—”

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Dundee said sharply. “They don’t hit women with candlesticks. But for heaven’s sake, what was it? What were you all doing there? How did you get there?”

“Me, by train. I’ll tell you all about that if and when. When you’ve told me a couple of things; for instance how and where you’ve spent the day.”

“Where I have spent the day?”

“That’s right.”

Mrs. Dundee gazed at him, and, sleeping pill or no sleeping pill, her eyes did not lack luster nor did the lids droop. “Really,” she said, “I suppose I have no right to complain of your impudence—”

“Save it,” Hicks cut her off rudely. “You asked me to do a job for you and I started to work on it. I might have had more sense even if I did need a new suit. I’m not trying to find out if you have an alibi for the time a murder was committed, I’m merely asking where you were between noon and five o’clock today, which is not in itself an offensive question. The simplest way is just to go ahead and tell me.”

“Nevertheless — under the circumstances — it is impudent.”

“Okay, it’s impudent. Where were you? Here? At home?”

“No. I went out a little before noon. Shopping. Later to the Modern Museum.”

“Car and chauffeur?”

“No, taxicabs.”

“Did you go anywhere except shopping and the museum?”

“Afterwards I went to Rusterman’s with some friends—”

“I mean before the museum. Only shopping?”

“Yes.”

Hicks got out his wallet, took some bills from it, counted them, and laid them on a cushion of the divan. Then he stood up.

“Very well,” he said. “There’s what’s left of your two hundred. Seventeen dollars. The account is closed. I figure I don’t owe you anything, because I am not something you work with strings. Don’t sputter. If you hire somebody else, and I think you’d better the way things are going, I advise you to deal off the top, and don’t forget to tell him about your visit to Vail’s office today. But although you’re a liar, you deserve something for your money, which I’ve spent. Your husband has a sonotel, which is an electric eavesdropper, planted in Vail’s office, and the proof he had is a record of a conversation you had there with Vail on Thursday, September fifth. I suppose tomorrow he’ll have a record of your conversation today.”

Mrs. Dundee was goggling at him in consternation. “Good heavens!” she said, aghast.

“And goodness gracious,” Hicks said dryly. “You’re in a nice fix now. Happy landing.” He turned and was going.

He did not see her leave the divan, but the movement must have been swift, for he had gone only three paces when the grasp of her fingers on his sleeve stopped him; and when he wheeled sharply she held on and was jerked off balance, so that she had to use her other hand to seize support, a fold of his coat; and there she was against him, looking up at him.

“You listen to me,” she said harshly. “Maybe you think you’re picturesque, but you’re not going to quit me like this. My husband hasn’t got any record of any conversation I had with Vail in his office. I was never in his office in my life.”

“You were there today.”

“All right, I was. I was never there before. I went to tell him about this and tell him if he couldn’t get along without stealing Dundee formulas at least I wasn’t going to be dragged into it.”

“That was a good idea.” Hicks’s yellow-brown eyes slanted down to meet her upturned gaze. “He could explain to your husband just how he got the formulas and that would let you out. Did he give it to you in writing?”

Mrs. Dundee let go of his coat. “I know I made a fool of myself,” she acknowledged. “He merely said he has never got any Dundee formulas. And there’s nothing very picturesque about your sarcasm, either. When you asked me where I had been today, there was no point in admitting that I had been idiot enough to go and appeal to Jimmie Vail.”

She stepped to the divan and picked up the seventeen dollars, returned and stuffed it into his coat pocket, and demanded, “Is that all that’s left of it? Then you’ll need more I’ll give you a check.” She went back to her seat on the divan and put her hands to her forehead. “I’m getting a headache from that darned pill. Sit down and tell me about that record of a conversation that never took place. Did you see it or hear it?”

Hicks sat down. “You’re pretty remarkable,” he observed. “You haven’t asked how I knew you went to Vail’s office today.”

“What does it matter? I suppose you bribed somebody. With my money. I want to know about that record. There couldn’t be any such record. What does it say?”

“I didn’t hear it. Your husband told me about it—”

He broke off as a sound cut in.

“The doorbell,” Mrs. Dundee said. She stirred and sank back again. “The maids have gone to bed.” She glanced at her wrist. “It’s after midnight.”

“Shall I go?”