Rex Stout - Alphabet Hicks

“Jesus!” Beck snorted. “Gall? Match it! Try and match it!”

“You notice,” Corbett observed, “that I am not trying to put you through anything.”

“Yeah. Much obliged.”

“Not at all. I don’t believe in wasting energy. But I’ll make a remark. You are not a member of the bar. If things should warm up, you will not be able to plead privileged communication. And I shall be inclined to do my duty as the prosecuting officer of this county. My full duty. So I had better ask you one question for the record. Do you possess any information about the murder of Martha Cooper, regarding opportunity, motive, identity of the murderer, that you have not given me?”

“Yes,” Hicks said.

Corbett looked startled. “Yes? You do?”

“Sure.” Hicks got up and took his hat from the desk. “I know that if her voice had been soprano instead of contralto—” he was on his way out and turned at the door — “she wouldn’t have got killed.”

Beck told Corbett, “I’d give a year’s pay to break his goddam alibi.”

Hicks had intended, after finishing at the courthouse, to go on to Katonah, for, among other things, assurance that Heather was keeping the promise she had made him; but now that Cooper was out of it he wanted to get rid of him without delay, and before doing that he needed a talk with him. Heather had stated that her sister had not known Brager or Vail or either of the Dundees, or anyone connected with the Dundee firm or Republic Products; but that, Hicks decided now, would not do. That was the hole to explore, and the best way to start the exploration was with George Cooper.

It lacked a few minutes of four by the dashboard clock when he stopped the car in front of the address on 29th Street. Before going upstairs he dived into the restaurant, and found the proprietor in the kitchen.

“Okay, Rosy? Feed him yet?”

“By all means okay,” Rosy declared. “He has been served like a king, in his room. He can drink coffee, that man. And there is another man up there.”

“What! With him? You let—”

“No, no. Not with him. A man to see you. I invite him to sit in my restaurant, not a bad place, not a dirty place, but he insists he will wait upstairs. If he expects me to carry a chair—”

Rosy stopped because his audience was gone. Hicks went to the stair entrance and mounted the two flights. A guess was in his mind as to the identity of the visitor, but it proved to be wrong. It was not Ross Dundee. The man waiting in the upper hall in front of the door to Hicks’s room was larger and older and fleshier than Ross Dundee, and as Hicks reached the landing he recognized him. It was James Vail, the head of the Republic Products Corporation.

“Waiting for me?” Hicks asked.

Vail said yes.

Hicks stopped in front of him and surveyed him with a swift inclusive glance. The Vail corporeal substance presented no feature that appealed to him; it lacked all semblance of grace; and he was stirred to active and irritated dislike by the broad insensitive nose, the cold shrewd eyes, and the thin selfish mouth. His fingers twitched with a desire to pick the visitor up without further ado and toss him downstairs; controlling that, he unlocked the door of his room and invited him to enter, let him have the comfortable chair, and turned the other chair around to face him.

“I tried to phone you,” Vail said, “but you don’t seem to have one.”

“No. If I had a phone people might call me up. Also it costs too much.”

Vail’s thin lips twisted with what was presumably intended as a smile. “I was asking my friend, Inspector Crouch of the police, about you this morning, and learned that you’re a very interesting character.”

“I don’t suppose,” Hicks remarked, “that you came down here just to tell me that?”

“Oh, no. I came to ask the purpose of your call at my office yesterday.”

“To try to find out whether Mrs. Dundee had ever been there to see you, and if so when and how often. Is that all?”

“I see.” Vail leaned back in the chair and stuck his thumbs in his vest pockets. “Then she didn’t send you. You’re working for Dundee.”

Hicks didn’t speak.

“Aren’t you?”

“Try another one,” Hicks suggested. “Ask me who darns my socks.”

Vail frowned. “All I’m trying to do,” he said evenly, “is to establish a basis. We may be able to discuss things to our mutual advantage, but before we can do so we shall have to establish a basis. I am prepared to be quite frank. For instance, does this interest you? Mrs. Dundee did call at my office yesterday noon.”

“Not much.”

“That doesn’t interest you?”

“Not much.” Hicks gestured impatiently. “Forget the basis and start with the mutual advantage. What have I got that you want?”

“You have intelligence. According to my friend the inspector, an extremely acute intelligence.”

“You can’t have that. I’m planning to keep it.”

“I don’t want it. I manage well enough with my own. I merely want you to use your intelligence.” Vail removed his thumbs from his pockets and leaned forward with his palms on his knees. “And persuade Dick Dundee to use his, if he has any left, which seems dubious. I put the facts squarely to you. Over two years ago Dundee took a hostile attitude toward me, but it was a long time before I learned why, that he suspected me of getting his formulas. I tried to tell him his suspicion was absurd, but he wouldn’t listen. The fact is, of course, that coincidences continuously occur in all fields of scientific research, and that is especially true of a field as specialized as ours. Dundee ought to know that; he does know it. Somehow he got this idiotic idea in his head. But I didn’t know until yesterday that it had become an obsession with him. From what his wife told me, he has acquired the fantastic notion that she has been selling his secret formulas to me. That’s ridiculous. Simply ridiculous.”

Hicks scratched the side of his nose and offered no comment.

“Well?” Vail inquired.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I am telling you that Dundee’s suspicion that I have bought his formulas from his wife is ridiculous. Where did he get it? What evidence can he have?”

“Search me.”

“There is no evidence. There can be none.”

“Then he hasn’t got any.”

“And it was in an effort to get some that you came to my office yesterday. Isn’t that correct?”

“Nuts,” Hicks said disgustedly. “You’re not that clumsy. Maybe we do need a basis. Cut out the act that you came here to try to pump me. That’s kindergarten stuff. Possibly you’re leading up to something reasonable, I don’t know, but I do know why you came. Because you’re good and scared.”

The substitute for a smile twisted Vail’s lips. “Scared? My dear sir. Of Dick Dundee? Of you?”

“I don’t know who of, but I know what about. Murder.”

Vail’s brows went up. “Murder?” He made a noise evidently intended to signify mirth. “Do you mean I am afraid of being murdered? By Dundee?”

“No. The murder has already been committed.”

“Not on me. I am quite intact.”

“Martha Cooper isn’t.”

“Martha Cooper? What—” Vail stopped. He wet his lips. “Oh! That’s the name of the woman who was killed by her husband up at Dundee’s place near Katonah. Isn’t it? Martha Cooper? I saw it in the morning paper. May I ask where you got the strange idea that there is anything in that to concern me?”

“It just occurred to me,” Hicks declared, “sitting here looking at you. I thought I’d try it out. Something has certainly happened to change you since yesterday. Then you ordered me out. Now you go to all the trouble of asking your friends the police about me, and digging up my address, and traveling down here in the slums — do you suppose it’s another coincidence in scientific research?”