Rex Stout - Alphabet Hicks

“But it began to get gummed up right from the start. Ross, thinking to protect you from what he suspected to be a plot, made off with the record and brought it out here and hid it, and your husband had to postpone the showdown until he could find it again. That was bad enough, but it was nothing compared to what happened Monday evening, five days ago. George Cooper suddenly appeared, arriving here Monday evening to see Miss Gladd, and his wife had returned with him from abroad. That was worse than a nuisance, it was a threat of disaster. Martha was apt to show up here any minute, and if Ross met her and heard her speak, good-bye. So Brager made preparations. When Martha did come, Thursday afternoon, he was ready with a batch of records that would place him ostensibly in the laboratory while he sneaked through the woods to the house and took whatever action the circumstances offered. His luck seemed to have turned again. He was able to get into the house unseen, wield the candlestick through the open window without appearing on the terrace, and leave again and return to the laboratory still unseen. Also, I was here in the office with Miss Gladd, making his alibi that much better.”

“You gave us that alibi,” Manny Beck growled.

Hicks ignored him. “But still, even with Martha’s voice quiet for good, everything was far from rosy. Brager had plenty to worry about. Where the devil was the record? He had to find it and destroy it. Also Vail, learning of the murder, would know who had done it, and Vail might be hard to handle. Friday morning Brager phoned him from White Plains and arranged to meet him. They met, and probably it was an unpleasant session, but for his own protection Vail agreed to keep his mouth shut. Also he decided to take steps of his own, and as a starter he called on me. At my place he saw Cooper, and learned that Cooper knew of the sonotel record — had actually heard it, or at least part of it.

“Of course that was bad. Very bad. On leaving my place Vail got in touch with Brager — probably phoned him by prearrangement to some number in White Plains — and told him about Cooper. Undoubtedly he urged him to make every possible effort to find that record. For Vail’s voice was on that record.”

Hicks turned to Vail. “This raises the question, naturally, whether you were an accomplice in Cooper’s murder. I doubt it. I think you were already as close as you ever wanted to be to murder, and a good deal closer. I think you merely warned Brager of Cooper’s knowledge of the record, and urged him to sidetrack Cooper if possible, and above all to find the record.”

“I’ll thank you when you’re done,” Vail said in a tone of controlled fury.

“Don’t bother,” Hicks told him, returning to Mrs. Dundee. “Also Vail arranged for a rendezvous with Brager, Brager designating the spot on a deserted stretch of road not far from here. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had used that spot before during the three years that Brager was selling Vail the Dundee formulas. Anyhow they used it today. Vail drove there at once, and waited. It was getting hot for him now, entirely too hot for comfort. In fact, he was scared stiff.

“But I doubt if Brager was scared. He’s too cold-blooded to get scared. Look at him now, he’s not even scared now, though God knows he ought to be. What he did, he beat it back here as fast as he could come and prepared to receive Cooper by getting his revolver from wherever he kept it, and by getting the recording machine in the laboratory in readiness so that all he had to do was turn on the switch. Since no one else saw Cooper when he arrived, I suppose Brager met him at the entrance and took him around by the road here to the laboratory. You may think I don’t know what he said to him, but I do. No question about it. He told him he had that record he was looking for, and he took him into the laboratory to prove it by playing the record. Cooper wouldn’t know the difference between a recording machine and a playing machine. Brager started the machine going, and while Cooper was gazing at it, waiting to hear the record, paying no attention to Brager, Brager shot him in the temple, with something — his handkerchief — over the muzzle of the revolver to prevent powder stain. So I do know. It couldn’t have been any other way.”

Hicks glanced at Brager, and back at Judith. “But he’s not scared yet. Okay. There was no blood, or very little. He dumped Cooper’s body out of the window, maybe went outside to arrange it in a good position, removed the record of the shot he had made and put it on the playing machine, and placed the playing machine against the open window. Then he went to the house to get an audience. It didn’t matter much who the audience was, but the one he had the most plausible excuse for was Miss Gladd, so he took her. They arrived here and found Cooper not present, to Brager’s pretended astonishment. He went into the laboratory to see if Cooper was there, the real reason he went, of course, being to switch on the playing machine. He scooted back in here to rejoin Miss Gladd, and in a minute bang went the shot. Since that partition is soundproof, and windows were open, it sounded as if the shot was outdoors. Naturally, they ran out—”

Heather blurted incredulously, “Then George wasn’t — it wasn’t that shot that killed him?”

“Sure it was,” Hicks assured her. “He was killed by the shot you heard, only you didn’t hear it until half an hour or so after it was fired. And you’ve just heard it again. So will the judge and jury when the time comes. It’s an extremely convenient arrangement. It will be the first time in history that the sound of the shot itself is used as evidence in a murder trial.”

District Attorney Corbett spoke for the first time. “If it is admissible,” he squeaked.

“Pooh,” Hicks admonished him. “Found as it was right there in a cabinet? That was the biggest blunder you made, Brager. I admit it presented a problem, since Miss Gladd was here with you until the police came, and that plastic is indestructible, but it does seem you might have done better than merely stick it in among other records in the cabinet. I suppose you figured that no one would have brains enough to look for it, and of course you would have had a chance later to remove it if Beck hadn’t kept men here. It took them only an hour to dig it up after I tipped Corbett off. If I were you I wouldn’t build any hope on Corbett’s misgiving about its being admissible as evidence. Take my word for it, that shot will be heard by a judge and jury. And still you’re not scared?”

“That shot,” Brager said contemptuously. “That record of a shot was made for experiment many weeks ago. I will say that one thing. Beyond that I say nothing.”

“I’m surprised you say that much,” Hicks declared. “I expected you to go dumb on me. One other thing, your phoning that message to Miss Gladd that sent her to where Vail was waiting. I’ll bet you thought that was slick as grease. You thought it would drag Vail out into the light, and then he would have to stand by you no matter how many murders you committed. But you were wrong. There’s one risk Vail won’t take. At least I don’t think he will.”

Hicks’s eyes darted, stabbed at Vail. “How about it? Where do you go from here?”

Vail sat motionless, frozen. It did not appear that he was aware that Hicks was looking at him or had spoken to him, for his own eyes, narrowed to nothing by the drooping fleshy folds of his lids, were directed only at space.

“It’s a question,” Hicks went on to him, “of throwing out the baby to appease the wolves. If Corbett can convict Brager of murder without your help, he can convict you as an accessory. Knowing Corbett, I can assure you he will do just that, if you hold out on him. That’s the risk if you play it pat. If you come clean and help Corbett, Brager is a pushover. His conviction is a cinch, and you’re out as far as murder is concerned, but you’ll have to settle with Dundee about the formulas, and you may have to find a new place to eat lunch. It’s six of one and about three dozen of the other. And you choose now. If you talk now and sign a statement, you go home. If you don’t, you go along with Brager. That is official. Is that official, Corbett?”