Phil Tingley let out a hoot.
“We are a board, Mr. Fry,” said Austin reprovingly. “We act as a board, not as individuals. But since you have spoken—have you anything to say, Miss Yates?”
“Yes.” Miss Yates’s soft and quiet soprano had yet a quality of unyielding determination. “I am resolutely opposed to the sale of the business to anyone whatever, at any price. I’ll never consent to it this side of my grave. It was born here and it belongs here.”
“I thought so.” Austin compressed his lips. “That puts the whole thing up to me.” He looked at Cliff. “Please draw up your proposal in triplicate and submit it to me as chairman of this board. I think you need fear no prior commitments.”
“Thank you,” Cliff said, and turned and marched out.
The plump detective shifted his position on the window sill, and the husky one, standing by the safe, yawned. Sol Fry and G. Yates regarded each other with open antagonism. Austin glanced inquiringly at Phil Tingley and then at Tecumseh Fox.
“I’m not trying to buy the business,” Fox said reassuringly. He moved his eyes to embrace the group. “You folks probably have confidential matters to discuss, so if you’ll just let me put a question—Miss Yates, what is your opinion of the likelihood that it was Philip Tingley who put the quinine in?”
Phil made a noise, stared up at him, and muttered in a tone of contemptuous disgust, “For God’s sake.” Charles R. Austin looked startled, Sol Fry incredulous, and Miss Yates imperturbable.
“I really want to know,” Fox insisted mildly.
“Then ask me.” Phil was sarcastic. “Sure I put it in. I injected it into the jars with a hypodermic needle I invented that goes through glass.”
Fox ignored him. “May I have your opinion, Miss Yates?”
“I have no opinion.” She spoke to his eyes. “As I told you on Tuesday, and as I have told the police, the quinine could have been introduced in the mixing vats, or on the filling bench, or later in individual jars. If in the vats, it must have been done by Mr. Fry, by one of the forewomen, Carrie Murphy or Edna Schultz, or by me. If on the filling bench, by one or more of the fillers. Philip Tingley had no access to the vats or the bench. But as I told you, it could have been done in the packing room downstairs by dumping the contents from the jars, stirring in the quinine, and filling the jars again. That wouldn’t have been possible during working hours, but anyone with a key to either entrance of the building could have taken all night for it.”
“Does Philip Tingley have a key?”
Phil growled, “I had a duplicate made at Tiffany’s.” He upraised his hands. “Here, search me. All I have at this place is a name that doesn’t belong to me.”
“I don’t know,” said Miss Yates. “Philip is Mr. Tingley’s adopted son, and it wasn’t my business to inquire what he had or didn’t have, keys or anything else.”
“It seems to me,” Austin put in crisply, “that this inquiry, at this time and place, is impertinent and unnecessary. You are interrupting a meeting which, I may observe, is not open to the public—”
“I know I am.” Fox smiled at him. “I apologize. What I really came for, I have been wanting all day to discuss a matter with Mr. Philip Tingley.” His eyes moved to Phil. “It’s private and fairly urgent, so as soon as you’re through here—”
“I’m through now.” Phil got to his feet. “Why they ever dragged me into this is more than I know. Come on down to the packing room and I’ll show you how my needle works—”
“Philip!” Austin’s voice trembled with indignation. “I have tried to control myself, but your conduct and your tone, in this very room where your father was murdered less than forty-eight hours ago—”
“He wasn’t my father. You can go to hell.” Phil tramped from the room and on out.
Fox followed him. The rooms were all empty, as Fox had discovered when entering. Apparently an item of the Tingley tradition had dictated the shutting down of the factory and office on funeral day, since there had been no cessation of activity on Tuesday afternoon, with the Tingley blood barely congealed. From a chair in the anteroom Phil got his coat and hat, then turned and surveyed Fox with no amity in the gleam of his deep-set eyes.
“Would you mind telling me,” he inquired evenly, “the reason for the horseplay about my putting quinine in the damned titbits?”
“No particular reason. Just something to say.” Fox looked around. “I did, and do, want to ask you something. Since there seems to be no one here to overhear—unless you’d rather go somewhere else—”
“Oh, no, I’m at home here. I own all this, you know. About as much as you own the White House. Go ahead and ask.”
“I wondered if you’d care to tell me where you got the ten thousand dollars in cash that you contributed to Womon on Monday. Only three days ago.”
The effect was considerable, but was in fact somewhat less than Fox had expected. Phil did not blanch or tremble, or even completely lose countenance, but the surprise of it made his mouth sag open, and his self-assurance abruptly retreated from his eyes to some inner line of defense.
“Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money,” Fox declared. “I thought maybe someone gave it to you for injecting quinine into the jars with that needle you invented. That was really why I asked Miss Yates about it. I’m talking to give you a chance to collect yourself.”
“I told them—they promised—” Phil faltered.
Fox nodded. “Don’t hold it against them. I bought cocktails and wine for Miss Adams and she didn’t even know she was telling me. Then there’s another thing. About your passing out throwaways on 42nd Street Tuesday evening from seven to eight o’clock. I know a man—a veracious, intelligent and reputable person—who saw you enter this building at 7:40 Tuesday evening. You came out again in seven or eight minutes. You had on a raincoat and the brim of your hat was turned down. You came, walking in the rain, from the east, and went in the same direction when you left. Leaving, you were in a hurry—”
“It’s a lie!” said Phil harshly. The self-assurance was gone from his eyes altogether.
“Don’t talk so loud. Do you deny that you were in this building Tuesday evening?”
“Certainly I deny it! You’re only trying—no one saw—how could anyone see me if I wasn’t here?”
“You also deny that you had ten thousand dollars in cash on Monday. Do you?”
“I had—I’m not admitting—”
“It is presumably on record, entered as a deposit in the Womon checkbook. They know about it and I doubt if they would perjure themselves. Did you give it to them?”
“Yes.” Phil’s bony jaw was set. “I did.”
“Did you get it from your father? Foster father?”
“No. Where I got it—”
“Did someone give it to you for putting quinine in the jars?”
“No. Where that money came from has nothing to do with quinine or this business or Arthur Tingley. And that’s all I’m going to say about it.”
“You refuse to say where you got it?”
“I do. You’re damned right I do.”
“What else are you going to say about coming here Tuesday evening?”
“Nothing. I wasn’t here.”
“Don’t be a fathead. Of course you were here. You came to see Tingley and Guthrie Judd.”
Phil stared, speechless, defenses gone, in helpless astonishment and consternation. The hoarse sound that came from him may or may not have been intended for a word. Then suddenly fierce anger blazed in his eyes and half choked him:
“It’s him, by God! Him that says he saw me! But he didn’t! He wasn’t here! How could he—”
Phil’s jaw closed as with the spring of a trap.
“Keep your voice down or one of those cops will be coming out to investigate,” Fox said quietly. “Judd got here ten minutes before you did, and went away again before you arrived. I’m giving it to you straight because I can afford to. It wasn’t Judd who saw you, it was someone el
se. Now tell me what you saw and did during the seven or eight minutes you were in here.”
Phil’s jaw stayed shut. His eyes, slits beneath his jutting brows, could scarcely be seen.
“You’ll have to spill it sooner or later,” said Fox patiently. “Here alone with me like this is as good a chance as you’ll have. Did you come right upstairs?”
The pivot of Phil’s jaw opened enough for him to get out, “I wasn’t here,” and closed again.
Fox shook his head. “You can’t do that now. The mention of Judd’s name got you. You’re wide open.”
“I wasn’t here.”
“You actually think you can stick in that hole?”
“I wasn’t here. No one saw me. If anyone says he did, he’s lying.”
“All right.” Fox shrugged. “Here it is in ABCs. Tingley was murdered and I’m working on it. So are the police, which is what they’re paid for. By luck and wearing out my shoes I’ve made a little collection of facts which the police haven’t got hold of. I can keep them for my private use up to a point, but beyond that point it would be not only risky but reprehensible. I ask you to tell me what you did here Tuesday evening, on the assumption that you did not murder Tingley. If you did murder him, you’ll continue to deny that you were here, and soon, probably tomorrow, I’ll feel obliged to hand my facts to the police, and they’ll screw it out of you. Don’t think they won’t. If you didn’t murder him, you’re a fool if you don’t come clean with me here and now. Let’s start with the ten thousand dollars, since you admit you had it. Where did you get it?”
“It was mine.”
“Where did you get it?”
“It was mine. I got it. I didn’t steal it. That’s all I’m going to say.”
Fox looked at the stubborn bony jaw, the sullen obdurate mouth, the dogged expression of the eyes beneath the projecting brows.
“All right,” he said incisively, “I’m not waiting till tomorrow. You and I are going together to one of two places right now. Either police headquarters or Guthrie Judd’s office. Try balking on that and it will be a pleasure for me to take the necessary steps without any help. Which do you prefer, Centre Street or Wall Street? I think I should warn you that Inspector Damon, when he has something on you as he will have now, is a good deal tougher than you found him yesterday.”
Phil was gazing at him. “You can’t make me go anywhere with you if I don’t want to.”
“No?” Fox smiled. His right shoulder twitched. “A stupid mule like you? Damon wouldn’t care what condition you were in as long as you could talk. And I’m pretty irritated.” The shoulder twitched again. “Centre or Wall? Which?”
Phil swallowed “I have no—” He swallowed again. “I’m perfectly willing to go to Judd’s office—”
“That’s fine. Come on, and don’t obey any sudden impulses.”
Chapter 12
On this second visit the suave young man never appeared at all, in the reception room on the top floor of the Metropolitan Trust Building. Nor was Fox, entering, armed with a sealed envelope or any other weapon. He merely told the young woman at the desk that Mr. Fox and Mr. Philip Tingley wished to see Mr. Guthrie Judd. After a wait of five minutes the same tough man appeared and conducted them to the room occupied by the skinny middle-aged man, who now, instead of being flanked by stenographers, was confronted by three stacks of mail on his desk ready for signing. He asked what they wanted to see Mr. Judd about.
“I think the names will be enough,” Fox told him. “Just give him the names, please.”
The skinny man got up and went out. The tough man stayed. Before long the skinny man returned, but not alone. Entering immediately behind him were two individuals in uniform, male, sturdy and rugged-looking, with deadpans for faces. They came in three paces and stood. The skinny man spoke politely:
“Come with me, please, Mr. Tingley? Mr. Judd will see you first. You won’t mind waiting, Mr. Fox?”
“It will save time if I go in with Mr. Tingley,” Fox said, and moved determinedly to do that, but with the first step he knew he was licked. A man in uniform was on either side of the door, and he saw the mobilization of their muscles. To try to slug or shoot his way through would have been heroic but futile, and the setup made it plain that argument would be wasted. Gritting his teeth, he stood and watched Phil and the skinny man disappear. For a moment the impulse to dash to the nearest phone booth and call Inspector Damon was well-nigh irresistible, but he downed it because it would have been humiliating beyond endurance; and the advantage of surprise—surprise to Guthrie Judd at the sudden and unexpected confrontation—was lost anyhow.
Outwitted, euchred, defeated and deflated, Fox sat on the edge of a chair for thrity minutes, swallowing his saliva and finding it bitter with impotence and mortification. He had not even the consolation of seeing any smirk of triumph on the faces of the men in uniform: they remained deadpans. The skinny man had returned and was at his desk busily reading and signing letters. At a buzz he pulled the phone to him and spoke into it, or rather, listened to it, and then pushed it back and turned:
“Mr. Judd will see you now, Mr. Fox.”
A uniformed man opened the door and Fox passed through; and the second door likewise. Guthrie Judd was seated at his desk of amargoso wood, erect, unsmiling and composed; Philip Tingley, in a chair near him, was tense in both posture and countenance and seemed uncertain whom to look at. As Fox entered with a guard at each elbow, not touching him but ready to, and approached the desk, Judd nodded curtly.
“Thanks, that will do. Leave us, please.”
When the door had closed noiselessly behind them, Judd, otherwise motionless, moved his eyes to focus on Fox.
“So you came back.” His voice was silk and steel as before, but with an edge to it, an edge that menaced as a sharp knife might menace a throat. “You’re determined to make a nuisance of yourself, aren’t you?”
“I am now, Mr. Judd.” Fox met his gaze. “I’m good and sore. Not at you. I hope you’re not congratulating yourself that you hung me out to dry, because I did that. If I hadn’t been a moron I’d have kept your young friend in a bottle until I got in here. But I fumbled it, and now I’m sore; and when I’m sore—anyway, don’t congratulate yourself.”
A corner of Judd’s lips faintly curled. “You will now, of course, go to the police.”
“I don’t think so. If I did that I’d have to describe my performance here, and they’d send me to an institution for mental defectives. So I guess I’ll wait till I have more on the ball.”
“Suit yourself.” Judd’s tone implied that it was no concern of his. “I asked Aiken to send you in in order to remove a misapprehension you seem to be under. I have never met Philip Tingley before. Have I, Mr. Tingley?”
“Certainly not,” Phil muttered.
“But when his name came to me along with yours I naturally surmised that he was some relation of Arthur Tingley, and I wondered why he was here with you. The thing to do was to ask him, and I sent for him. What he tells me is astonishing, even fantastic. He says that you state that he had an appointment to meet me at his father’s office Tuesday evening; that he went there at twenty minutes to eight for that purpose and remained seven or eight minutes; and that I had already been there, arriving ten minutes before he did and leaving before he came. Further, that I had paid him ten thousand dollars to adulterate the Tingley product.” Something resembling a smile flitted over Judd’s lips. “That last is even more preposterous than the rest of it. I was poor when young, I’ve made for myself what money and position I have, and I assure you I didn’t do it by paying large sums to people for putting quinine into jars of food.”
Fox nodded. “You can try that, but I doubt if it’s wise.”
Judd’s brows went up.
“I mean,” Fox explained, “that even if I don’t start a fire under you and am compelled to give up, the police are almost sure to flush you if you take that cover. They’ll work on Tingley here, and he’s not made of re
inforced ice as you are. There’s the man who saw your car drive up at Tingley’s at 7:30 Tuesday and saw you get out and enter the building. There’s the chauffeur who drove you there. There’s the ten thousand dollars, which came from somewhere. And the line you’re taking is, ‘Not me.’ With all your position and power, and the invincible will back of your eyes, I doubt very much if you can carry it off.”
“Are you through?” Judd asked, with the edge sharper on his voice.
“Thank you,” said Fox.
“For what?”
“For a lead to a tag. I’m not through, I’m just starting.”
Fox turned and went, by the other door as previously.
The rush-hour crowd would be clogging the subway, but it was the quickest way uptown, so he took it, squeezing into a corner of the vestibule. On one side a girl’s elbow dug into his hip, and on the other a man’s newspaper tried to scratch his cheek, but he was oblivious. Swaying with the mass in response to the lurches of the train, his thoughts were all boomerangs, beginning and ending with the thorns of self-disesteem that were pricking him. At 42nd Street he fought his way out.
Since it was long past five o’clock there was a chance that he would be too late to catch Nat Collins at his office, but luck was with him. Miss Larabee was gone, but Collins was there, chewing gum and looking as if he would soon be in need of a shave, two invariable phenomena of the end of the afternoon. He greeted Fox and waved him to a chair and resumed chewing.
“News?” Fox demanded.
Collins shook his head. “Nothing explosive. Miss Duncan and I—what’s this about your asking her about when it started to rain?”
“I got curious about it. File it. How was the D.A.?”
“So-so. It was Skinner himself. He covered about the same ground that Damon did yesterday, except that they’ve dug up some stuff about some unmarried mother there at the factory.”
“That was years ago.”
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