Rex Stout_Tecumseh Fox 02

by Bad for Business

  Amy said nervously, as one impelled to speak without having any specific communication to make, “It’s ghastly, isn’t it, Phil?”

  “Not particularly,” declared the last Tingley who was not a Tingley. “The death of one economically useless man, even in such an abhorrent manner, is regrettable only in a very restricted sense. If he had been my father I might feel differently. As it is, I don’t feel.”

  “I congratulate you,” said Fox cheerfully. “Not many people ever achieve that philosophic detachment toward death. You’re not faking it, are you?”

  “Why the deuce would I fake it?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose you wouldn’t; you’d be more apt to fake distress and woe, which is often done. Do you feel equally indifferent to the fate of your cousin?”

  “My cousin?” Phil frowned in puzzlement. “Oh—you mean Amy. I do not. I rarely form personal attachments, but she is the only woman I have ever proposed marriage to.”

  “Phil!” Amy protested. “You were only talking.”

  He shook his head. “No, I meant it. I had decided I wanted to marry you. Of course I’m glad now I didn’t, because it would have interfered.”

  “That was some time ago?” Fox inquired.

  “That was in May and June, 1935.”

  “I see. It was the season of the year that unnerved you. But you are still well-disposed toward her? I ask because she needs a little friendly help. Did you know that your father—your foster father—phoned her yesterday to ask her to come to see him?”

  “No. Did he? I don’t think it was mentioned in the Times. I read only the Times.”

  “Well, he did. He phoned at a quarter to six, speaking of a problem on which he needed her assistance, and asked her as a family favor to be at his office at seven. That’s why she went there. But the police have only her word as evidence that she received that phone call, and corroboration would help a lot. We have considered the possibility, among others, that the problem he spoke of was connected in some way with you.”

  “Why do you assume that?”

  “Not assume it. Admit it as a possibility.”

  “Very well,” Phil conceded, “it’s a possibility.”

  “Thank you. But can’t you make it more than that? Had any—uh—discussion between you and your father recently become acute?”

  “Our quarrel was always acute. Chronic and acute both.”

  “But did it, between three o’clock Monday and six o’clock yesterday afternoon, reach a new crisis?”

  “No.”

  “It didn’t?” Fox smiled at him. “The reason I specify those hours is because Miss Duncan called on your father Monday afternoon, and when she left him, about half past three, his attitude was uncompromisingly hostile and certainly didn’t indicate that he was about to ask her a favor. But at a quarter to six Tuesday he did telephone to ask her a favor. It would be helpful if we could establish that in the interim something occurred to account for that. You realize, don’t you, that it would be extremely helpful to your cousin?”

  “Yes, I realize that.”

  “But you can’t fill it in for us.”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Your father sent word for you to go to his office, at five o’clock yesterday, and you went. What was that about?”

  Phil compressed his lips, thereby counteracting most of the drooping effect at the corners. “That,” he said. He moved in his chair for an easier position. “You sound like a police parrot. They asked about that too. I understood you were merely defending Amy’s position in this.”

  “I am. Protecting the flanks as well as the front and rear. If you’ll tell us what you and your father said to each other yesterday it might give us a peg to hang that phone call on.”

  “We said what we always said.”

  “With no novel variations?”

  “No.” Phil was frowning at the necessity for touching upon a highly distasteful subject. “It was enough without variations. He was chronically enraged at me because I had brains enough to see the criminal futility and cachexia of the orthodox capitalist economy and finance, and because I wouldn’t immolate my brains on the tottering altar of the petty business that bounded his horizon. I was equally enraged, though I controlled it better than he did, because he could easily have afforded to contribute considerable sums to the cause I had embraced, the purification and rejuvenescence of world economy, and he refused. He paid me a mere pittance for my work as a salesman. Forty dollars a week. I live on fifteen and give the remainder to the cause. It pays for printing—”

  He broke off abruptly and leveled his eyes at Amy. “By the way. That pamphlet I gave you. You gave it to the police. Did you read it?”

  “To the police?” Amy looked bewildered. “But I didn’t—Oh! Of course. It was in my bag—that I left there—”

  “May I ask what pamphlet?” Fox got in.

  “Womon Bulletin Number Twenty-six.” Phil surveyed him. “I presume you have heard of Womon?”

  “I’m sorry, but I haven’t, unless it’s a new pronunciation—”

  “No. It’s Womon.” Phil spelled it. “It will remove the world’s economic cancer. It stands for Work-Money. Its central and revolutionary doctrine is that all money must be based on the median potential of man labor calculated by—”

  “Excuse me. Is that the cause you are devoted to?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’re not an anarchist?”

  “Good God.” Phil’s tone was of unutterable disgust. “Where did you get that idea?”

  “No matter.” Fox waved it aside. “You say you live on fifteen dollars a week. But of course you live at your father’s home.”

  “No, I don’t. I moved out two years ago. In addition to all the rest of it, it was a constant battle there to keep from playing bridge.”

  “May I have your address, in case—”

  “Certainly. Nine-fourteen East 29th. There is no phone. Four flights up in the rear.”

  The phone buzzed and Nat Collins said, “Excuse me,” and reached for it. He said, “Nat Collins speaking,” and for something like twenty seconds merely listened; then he spoke again: “Hello! Hello? Hello hello?” He hung up and pushed the phone back, reached for a scratch pad and pencil, scribbled rapidly, tore the page off and handed it to Fox.

  “A lead on that accident case,” he said. “Follow it up when you get a chance.”

  Fox read the sprawling words:

  A man disguising his voice said: “The man in a raincoat who entered Tingley’s at 7:40 last night was Philip Tingley. This is not absolutely positive, but 100 to 1.”

  “Thanks,” Fox nodded. “I may be able to get at it tomorrow.” He stuck the paper in his pocket, and smiled at Phil. “Well, Mr. Tingley, I’m sorry you can’t help us out with a motive for that phone call to Miss Duncan. I understand your talk with your father began shortly after five o’clock?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Would you mind telling me how long it lasted?”

  “Not at all. Until twenty minutes to six.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I walked to Broadway and ate something in an Automat, and then went to 38th Street and Sixth Avenue, where we have a little office.”

  “We?”

  “Womon.”

  “Oh. Do you often go there in the evening?”

  “Nearly every day. I give all the money and time I can spare. I left there around seven with a bundle of throwaways advertising a meeting we’re going to have, and handed them out on 42nd Street. I got back there a little after eight and stayed until ten o’clock, when we close the office.”

  “So from seven to eight you were on 42nd Street handing out throwaways.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Wasn’t it raining? You did that in the rain?”

  “Certainly. That’s the best time for it. People collect in entrances and doorways and you have a bigger percentage of takes.” Phil’s mouth twisted. “If
you’re trying to get Amy out of trouble by getting me in, I don’t think it will work.”

  “You mean you don’t care to be implicated in the murder of your foster father.”

  “I not only don’t care to be, I’m not going to be.”

  “Well, that’s a strong position if you can hold it. Don’t forget, though, that you have one bad weak spot: you are Arthur Tingley’s heir.”

  “Heir?” The curl of Phil’s lip was the next thing to a snarl. “You call it heir? With the business, such as it is, in a trust controlled by three decrepit relics?”

  “The business is good enough for a three-hundred-thousand-dollar cash offer. And I suppose Tingley had other property besides the business, didn’t he?”

  “He did,” said Phil bitterly. “And the whole works is locked up in that trust. Even his house and furniture.”

  “Were you aware of the contents of his will?”

  “You bet I was. That was his favorite club to threaten and coerce me with.”

  “It must have been very disagreeable.” Fox, looking sympathetic, arose to his feet. “Thank you very much, Mr. Tingley, though you didn’t give us much.” He crossed to get his coat and hat. “Those things I want to ask you, Miss Duncan, they’ll have to wait. I’ll get in touch with you in the morning. See you later, Nat.” He turned to go, but was halted by a voice:

  “Here, wait a minute!” Phil Tingley pulled something from his pocket and extended it in his hand. “That’s the Womon Statement of the Basic Requirements of a World Economy. Read it over. I’ll send you a set of our bulletins—”

  “Much obliged. Very much obliged.” Fox took it and strode out.

  Though he seemed to be in a hurry, he halted abruptly in the front room. Leonard Cliff was in a chair against the wall, reading an evening paper. Fox crossed to where Miss Larabee sat at her desk, and bent down to her as if the recent little episode with Miss Duncan had been habit-forming; but instead of kissing her he merely murmured in her ear:

  “Has he been here all the time?”

  Miss Larabee was apparently averse to whispering or murmuring in a man’s ear. With no hesitation or change of expression, she swiveled to her typewriter, twirled in a sheet of paper, typed on it, and twirled it out again and handed it to Fox. He read it:

  20 min. ago he asked where the men’s room was and went out. Returned in about 10 min. with a newspaper, so he must have gone to the street floor.

  “Thanks.” Fox folded the paper and stuck it in his pocket. “I’ll let you know if I have news.” He stepped across to where Leonard Cliff sat.

  “Mr. Cliff. You said in there, regarding the adulteration of the Tingley product, that you suspected Consolidated Cereals because you knew how they worked.”

  Cliff, his newspaper lowered, nodded. “I know I did. I was indiscreet. But you promised to treat it as confidential.”

  “I will. That is, I won’t disclose it where it isn’t already known. In a conversation I had with Arthur Tingley on Monday, he too mentioned Consolidated Cereals. Are they major competitors of yours?”

  “Not yet. But they—” Cliff stopped, then shrugged and went on. “After all, anybody in the trade could tell you. About a year ago Guthrie Judd of the Metropolitan Trust closed in on Consolidated Cereals and took it over. For the bank, of course. Do you know Judd?”

  “No, but I’ve heard tell.”

  “Then I don’t need to tell you. When I said I knew how C. C. works, I meant I knew how Guthrie Judd works.”

  “I see. Will you be at your office tomorrow?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I may be dropping in. Much obliged.”

  Fox departed, descended to the street—where the early November darkness had already made it night—walked and dodged briskly to Madison Avenue and six blocks north, entered the lobby of another office building, and consulted the directory panel. Taking an elevator, he got out at the 32nd floor, and down a long corridor found a door with the inscription:

  BONNER & RAFFRAY DETECTIVES

  Entering, he was in a small and handsome anteroom that was the antithesis of the one at Tingley’s Titbits. The walls were greenish cream, the lighting indirect, the floor’s rubber tiling dark maroon; chairs and a small table and a garment rack were of red and black lacquer with chromium trim. There was no one there. Fox glanced around, and as he did so a door from an inner room opened and Dol Bonner came through, with coat, hat and gloves on.

  “Just in time,” said Fox. “I was afraid I’d miss you.”

  She smiled without warmth. “I’m honored.” Her yellow-brown alert eyes met his. “I’m sorry—I have an appointment—”

  “So have I, so I won’t keep you. Nice shiny place you have here. What were you and Leonard Cliff discussing at Rusterman’s Bar last Saturday afternoon?”

  “Really.” Her smile showed, if not more warmth, more amusement. “That’s amazing. Do you get results like that?”

  “When I have a good lever I do.” Fox smiled back at her. “As I have now. It would be cozier to sit down and chat and lead up to it, but we’re both in a hurry. The idea is, Cliff has told me his version of that conversation, and I’m getting yours to check up on him. You know the routine.”

  “Yes, but I make better use of it.” The gleam in her eyes was certainly amusement. “Tecumseh Fox? You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Who do you think I am, the downstairs maid that answered the phone call?”

  “Nope. But you’re going to tell me. This isn’t your murder case, so why not stay out of it? It will be an awful nuisance if you get in—I mean for you. You may regard it as proper and ethical to let A hire you to investigate B, and then let B hire you to investigate C, but you know how the police are. They’ll get suspicious and when they’re suspicious they’re obnoxious. Their smallest suspicion will be that you were double-crossing A, and maybe you were until he got murdered. I’m not interested in that, but I want what I asked for. Otherwise, and immediately because I can’t afford to wait, it’s Inspector Damon on the telephone, and orders to bring you in dead or alive, and all the questioning and please sign this statement and be here again in the morning and don’t leave the jurisdiction—”

  “Damn you,” Miss Bonner said. The amusement was gone. “You can’t do it. How could you account for having it?”

  “Easy. Use your head. I’ve already told you that I have it from Cliff and I’m only checking. Don’t my A, B and C prove it?”

  “I wasn’t double-crossing Tingley.”

  “Good. Had you ever met or seen Cliff before Saturday?”

  “No.” Miss Bonner swallowed. “Damn you. He phoned the office and we arranged to meet at Rusterman’s. I thought I might get a break on the job I was doing for Tingley, but when I found out what he wanted I saw no reason why I couldn’t take his job too. It couldn’t harm Tingley any, and neither could it harm Cliff if he was on the level—”

  “What did he want?”

  “He suspected that Consolidated Cereals was responsible for the trouble at Tingley’s, and he wanted me to investigate and get proof if possible. The reasons he wanted it were, first, he expected to buy Tingley’s and didn’t want the property depreciated, and second, he wanted to expose Consolidated Cereals.”

  “Did he mention anyone specially?”

  “Yes. Guthrie Judd of the Metropolitan Trust. They recently took over Consolidated Cereals.”

  “Was there anything else he wanted you to do?”

  “No.”

  “Did you tell him you were working for Tingley, investigating him?”

  “No.”

  “Did he phone you here about half an hour ago?”

  “What?” Miss Bonner frowned. “Did who phone me?”

  “Cliff. To tell you what to tell me?”

  “He did not. You—you insufferable—”

  “Save it. I’m sensitive. I don’t want to hear it. Thank you very much, Miss Bonner.”

  Fox wheeled and tramped out. Apparently Miss Bonner was disinclined for an
y further association with him, for though he had to wait more than a minute for an elevator, since it was after six o’clock, she did not put in an appearance.

  On the street again, he still did not return to where he had parked his car, but set out at a brisk pace, headed downtown. At 38th Street he turned west. When he reached Sixth Avenue he entered a drugstore and consulted a phone book, emerged and looked around, and crossed the avenue to the entrance of a building which had seen better days and would certainly soon suffer demolition now that the El was gone. After a look at the directory he took a creaky old elevator to the third floor, where a narrow hall led him to a door with a dirty glass panel which said “Womon” in the center, and in a corner said “Enter.”

  He entered.

  Chapter 9

  Piles of literature were stacked high in all available spaces of the medium-sized room which housed the administrative, editorial, business and distribution departments of Womon. The furniture—two desks, five chairs, a typewriter, a mimeograph, cabinets and shelves—was unassuming but adequate. Standing beside one of the desks was a worried-looking man, dipping bicarbonate of soda from a package and stirring it into a glass of water. Seated at the other, sticking stamps on envelopes, was a young woman whose plain tan woolen dress conformed to her curves, with a face that might have been thought attractive for customary purposes but for the formidable intellectual power suggested by the capacity of her brow. They looked at Fox and he said how do you do.

  “Good evening,” said the man. “Pardon me.” He swallowed the mixture in the glass and made a face. “I eat too fast.”

  “Lots of people do.” Fox smiled at him. “Nice place you have here. Compact.”

  “Nice? It’s a dump. I used to have an office—” The man waved that away. “What can I do for you?”

  Fox opened his mouth to start the approach to the query he had come to make, but the young woman got a word in first. She had finished stamping the envelopes and arisen to put on her coat and hat, and spoke to the man: