Rex Stout - Alphabet Hicks

“It sounds pretty odd,” Hicks admitted. “What kind of business secrets does he think you sold?”

“I suppose manufacturing secrets for making plastics. That’s the only—”

“What are plastics?”

“Why — plastics!” She looked as if he had asked what were apples. “Everything is made of plastics, or soon will be — fountain pens, clocks, furniture, dishes — Ford is experimenting with them for automobiles. They come in all colors—”

“Does your husband manufacture plastics?”

She nodded. “His firm is one of the largest. R. I. Dundee and Company. The office is on 40th Street and the factory is at Bridgeport, and that’s about as much as I know about it. He never discusses business with me — or very little.” Her voice took on a sudden edge, a note of metallic hardness. It was all the more noticeable because it was a distinctive and attractive voice, with richness and color, and a slurring of the hard consonants and a fullness of the soft ones that made it warm and pleasing. The abrupt change was slightly shocking. “How,” she demanded, “could I betray secrets if I didn’t know any? And have never had an opportunity of learning any? And anyway, it’s idiotic! What if your wife suddenly accused you of... of—”

“Never had one.” Hicks’s tone did not indicate that a filling of the vacancy was contemplated. “But I see your point. Who is Jimmie Vail? Does he make plastics too?”

“Yes, he’s the head of the Republic Products Corporation.”

“A competitor?”

“Very much so. He and my husband used to be friends, but not any more. My husband says he’s a crook and a thief. I don’t know much about it, but apparently Vail has been getting Dundee formulas in some underhand way — or my husband thinks he has. That’s been going on for two or three years.”

“How well do you know Vail?”

“I used to know him rather well. I haven’t seen him for a long time.”

“Have you been to his office recently?”

“I never have. I don’t even know where it is.”

“Your husband asked if you had wormed it out of Brager. Who is Brager?”

Judith Dundee’s lips curved in a little smile, whether of disdain or pure amusement could not be told. “Herman Brager,” she said, the R’s fuller and the G softer in her attractive voice than they were in Hicks’s twang. “A scientist. According to my husband, a genius; and perhaps he is, I don’t know. He does experiments and makes amazing discoveries. He has been with the company for several years. He wouldn’t work at Bridgeport, said there were too many people around, so my husband fitted up a laboratory for him up in Westchester, near a place called Katonah.” Her lips smiled again. “He’s what is called a character.”

“Do you know him?”

“Oh, yes. Not so well personally, if that’s the way to put it, but I’ve seen him often. My husband often has him here. He comes into town twice a month and dines here and they spend the evening talking business. And by the way — I said I never had an opportunity to learn a secret — but perhaps I did. Once Mr. Brager left his brief case here overnight, and possibly it was full of secrets. I can’t say, because I didn’t look. It must have been important, because my son drove in especially the next day to get it.”

“How long ago was that?”

She pursed her lips. “About a month ago.”

“Is your son with the company?”

“Yes, indeed. He’s twenty-four years old.” Her tone acknowledged the difficulty of crediting her with a son of so advanced an age, and to do her justice, it was rather surprising. “He finished a postgraduate course at M.I.T. in June, and now he’s up there with Mr. Brager.” She shifted her position on the divan, with a gesture of impatience. “But that’s irrelevant, isn’t it?” She made another gesture, of appeal, and smiled at him. “Won’t you help me? It’s so preposterous, and I feel so darned helpless! I went to a lifelong friend — he was best man at our wedding — and he has been to see my husband twice. That’s where I was this morning, at this friend’s office — he says that my husband absolutely refuses to discuss it and there’s nothing he can do. So I thought of going to a detective agency, and then I saw you, and remembered what that article said.”

She put out a hand, palm up. “You will help me, won’t you? Of course, since you despise money — but I can afford to pay whatever you ask—” She ended on a note of embarrassment.

“I don’t despise money.” Hicks surveyed her, and the glint in his unblinking eyes was more than ever the lazy but watchful insolence of a cat’s eyes. “In spite of what that article said, I’m not a nut. I admit one thing. It would be a lot of fun to find out if you really did sell your husband’s business secrets and what you’re really after is to learn what kind of proof he’s got hold of. Also I admit I could use about—” he paused a moment — “about two hundred dollars.”

She met his eyes. “I’ve told you the truth, Mr. Hicks.”

“Okay.” His eyes didn’t change. “I’ll take a crack at it. As I say, I need some cash. And I want a picture of you — a nice handsome picture. And maybe you can tell me a few more things.”

It appeared that she couldn’t, at least nothing useful or significant, though for another half an hour she answered his questions. When, a little later, he left, in his pocket was a check, and in an envelope under his arm was a large photograph of Judith Dundee, quite good-looking, even striking, with a gay tilt to her head and a provocative smile on her lips. There had been no explanation of his need for that. Down on the street, he returned to his cab and got in and started the engine.

On Madison Avenue in the Forties, a patrolman new to the beat was speaking in a grieved tone to his precinct sergeant, through the police phone box:

“... I was here on the sidewalk and this taxi stops right by me, and the driver gets out and says, ‘How do you do, Officer,’ and hands me this piece of paper. I unfold it and look at it and it says — here, I’ll read it — ‘Kindly phone Sheridan 9–8200 and tell Jake, the checker, to send a driver for the cab. I have no time because the police are after me.’ It’s signed, ‘A. Hicks,’ and that’s the name on the identification card in the cab. The writing’s hard to read, and then I look around and he’s gone. Nowhere in sight. I started—”

“What did he look like?”

“About thirty-five maybe, medium height, kind of slow-moving — at least I thought he was — big wide mouth, funny eye like a Chink — no, not like a Chink—”

The sergeant cackled. “That’s him. Alfred Hicks, alias Alphabet Hicks. Save that paper for me, I want to keep it.”

“Maybe I can pick up his trail if I—”

“Forget it. Kindly call the number he asked you to.”

“Do you mean,” the patrolman’s voice shrilled with indignation, “it was just a prank?”

“Prank hell.” The sergeant cackled again. “He saved a nickel, didn’t he?”

It would be a pleasure to record that during the ensuing hours of that Wednesday afternoon swift strides were made toward the solution of Judith Dundee’s problem, but it would be contrary to fact. Though Hicks performed various errands, the only perceptible progress was toward the disappearance of Judith Dundee’s money, beginning with cashing the check. The major expenditures were as follows:

At seven o’clock that evening Hicks was eating spaghetti and arguing about Mussolini at the family table in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant on East 29th Street. At nine o’clock the table was cleared and a pinochle game was started. At midnight Hicks went upstairs to the furnished room for which he paid six dollars a week.