Rex Stout - Alphabet Hicks

She stopped abruptly, staring at the thing in her hand. A shiver ran over her. “It may have been this — he shot George with—” Her fingers went loose and the gun dropped to the ground.

Ross stooped and got it and slipped it into his pocket. “They can tell that. You were saying, Vail might have what?”

“He might have sent me that message himself.”

“By short wave?”

“He could have phoned from anywhere. From Crescent Farm.”

“And how did he know you were sitting there in the car waiting for Hicks?”

“I don’t know.” Heather frowned. “It’s all crazy. Utterly crazy! And so am I. Anyhow, I was wrong. I mean when I told you to get out of the car and let me come alone and you wouldn’t. I mean I ought to be decent about it, and just tell you — I’m glad you came. It’s just decent to say that.”

“Aw, that’s all right. Forget it. But that message—”

Ross stopped himself, at a groan from the figure on the ground, and a movement. They both stood up. Another groan came, considerably louder, and more movement, and as Ross took a step James Vail got himself lifted to an elbow, and then, with his other hand braced on the ground, was sitting. He sat and blinked, with the light right into his face, and groaned again.

Ross said, “Maybe you’d better take it easy.”

“Who are you?” Vail croaked.

“I’m Ross Dundee.”

“What? Who?”

“Ross Dundee.”

“Dick Dundee’s boy?”

“Yes.”

“How the hell did you get here?”

“I drove here in a car with Miss Gladd. Heather Gladd. She came as soon as she got your message.”

“What message?”

“The message you sent her on the phone.”

“I sent no message to anyone.”

Heather put in sharply, “He was playing possum. He’s been lying there listening to us. The way he talks. His head’s clear.”

“Why the hell shouldn’t my head be clear?” Vail demanded. “What happened?”

“Because I hit you,” Ross said. “When we came you popped up from in front of your car and pointed a gun at Miss Gladd. I jumped you and took your gun and hit you with it, and you passed out. At least we thought you did. If you didn’t, you don’t need this explanation, but you’re welcome anyhow.”

Vail’s only reply was a grunt. He shifted his weight to his right hand, propped on the ground, and put his left to his head and felt of it, above the ear. He moved his head from right to left, grunted, forward and back, grunted again, then got onto his hands and knees, pushed himself up, and was on his feet. He felt of his head again, pivoted it slowly to one side and the other, took a trial step, and another...

“Better hold it,” Ross said crisply. “I’ve got your gun. If you get near the edge of the light I’ll start shooting at your legs, and I’m not much of a shot.”

“You’re a jackass.” Vail turned to face him. “You’re as big an idiot as your father. That message. I didn’t send it. What did it say?”

“Don’t tell him,” Heather said. “Don’t tell him anything. Make him tell you things.”

“Make him tell me what?” Ross kept his eyes on Vail and his hand in his pocket. “Anyway he’s a dirty liar and we couldn’t believe anything he said. We won’t get anywhere chewing the rag with him. We’ve got to take him somewhere. We’ve got to do something with him. I think we’ve got to go back to the house with him, I don’t know what else to do. And the police can take this gun and test it, and if it’s the one Cooper was shot with it won’t do him any good to try to lie—”

“What’s that?” Vail demanded. “Who was shot?”

“Cooper.”

“Cooper shot?”

“Yes. If you think—”

“Where? When?”

“Don’t tell him,” Heather insisted. “Don’t tell him anything. The thing to do would be to take him to Hicks, only we don’t know where Hicks is.”

“We certainly don’t,” Ross agreed. “Wherever he sent that message from—”

“He never sent that message! If he had he would have been here! If anything had happened — oh!” Heather stopped short.

“I forgot,” she said. “I know what I’m going to do. What he told me.” Her tone was resolute. “I’m going to see Mrs. Dundee.”

“Mrs. Dundee? You mean my mother?”

“Yes.”

Ross was gaping at her. “Hicks told you to go to see my mother.”

“Yes, and I’m going to. I won’t go back to that house again, anyway. If you want to take him there you can, but I’m not. You can take him in his car.”

Vail took a step toward them.

“Hold it,” Ross said warningly, as if he meant it.

“I have no intention,” Vail said contemptuously, “of inviting bullets in my legs. You children are fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. Discussing what you’re going to do with me. I can assure you, the decision involves considerations that you know nothing about. If we go to the police, they’ll want an explanation of my presence in this neighborhood at this time, and they’ll get it, and it won’t be me who will suffer for it. If I’m brought into this, and forced to tell the police what I know, for my own protection, I can’t be blamed for what happens to the Dundee family and business.”

“Don’t believe him,” Heather said. “He’s putting on an act.”

“Are you suggesting,” Ross said sarcastically, “that I hand you back your gun with a God bless you and just forget this little encounter?”

“Not at all. I don’t care what you do with the gun, except that it’s my property and I want it returned some time. What I suggest is that we go with Miss Gladd to see your mother. It is she who needs and deserves an explanation, and who should decide what is going to be done.”

“You mean—” Ross stared at him. “You have the gall to say that you want to explain to my mother?”

“I say that, my boy. It can be left to your mother whether it is an exhibition of gall.”

“Take him up,” Heather said.

“He’s stalling,” Ross declared. “He doesn’t want to go to the police.”

“You’re an imbecile,” Vail asserted.

Ross regarded him. “Okay,” he said finally. His hand came out of his pocket with the gun in it. “You and I will go in your car and you’ll drive. Miss Gladd will follow us in the other car. If you try any monkey business...”

“I’ll stay right behind,” Heather said. “But you’ll have to be careful. No matter what he does, you can’t shoot him while he’s driving. If you shoot him while he’s driving, the car might—”

“You don’t necessarily,” Ross said indignantly, “have to consider me an imbecile just because he called me one. And you’d better try to drive a little better than you did on the way here.”

Margie Hart had determined, come what might, to hold fast. First, there was loyalty. She had worked for Mrs. Dundee for over twenty years, and was quite convinced that should she die or quit, Mrs. Dundee would be utterly helpless, starving and clothed in rags, within a matter of weeks or even days. Second, there was her pay, which, thanks to an uninterrupted series of annual raises, was now stupendous. Third, there was her curiosity. The scenes recently overheard by her between Mr. and Mrs., the murder, actual murder, at that place in Katonah which she had never seen, the visits and questionings by real detectives in that very apartment — it was an earthquake, a cosmic spasm, a nightmare. Anything could happen. The whole shooting match might be arrested and thrown into jail. She herself might be drawn into the pitiless glare of a murder trial. It was a horrible and fascinating prospect.

But she wasn’t sleeping well, partly because she knew Mrs. wasn’t, and partly because of the feeling she had that the next development would be that Mr. would come in the night, letting himself in with his key, and kill Mrs. She derided herself for having the feeling, since it was completely unjustified and unreasonable, but she had it; and because she did, she heard, in her half sleep, the front door of the apartment open and close at twenty minutes past midnight. For a second she was rigid under the sheet, unable to move; here it was, here he was, he had come to do it; her heart stopped beating; then she was out and up, clicking the light, grabbing her dressing gown, flying from the room, down the service hall, through the kitchen, dining room, living room, into the reception hall...