Rex Stout

by The Sound of Murder

  “What did you do with that candy?” he demanded.

  “By God.” Cooper’s voice was a hoarse rumble. “So that’s who you are.”

  “What did you do with it?”

  “I ate it.”

  “All of it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t believe it. You’d be as sick as a dog.”

  “I am as sick as a dog.”

  “Good. Get up. Can you stand up?”

  “I don’t know.” Cooper made no movement. “Who are you, anyway?”

  “My name is Hicks.”

  “Hicks?” A pause. “Are you the one that pulled me away from her and pushed me in the house?”

  “No.”

  “What was his name?”

  “I don’t know. Come on, get up. Here, grab my hand.”

  “I’ll get up in a minute.” Cooper groaned. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. Sometimes my head is as clear as a bell. Now it’s like—I don’t know. I wish to God I was dead. I thought I was dead. Did you ever think you were dead?”

  “Often,” Hicks said.

  “Often? I did once. I thought I was dead, and then there I was on a bed and I felt hungry. I never felt hungry like that before. I got up and looked around and found a box of candy in a drawer and sat down and ate it, and my head was as clear as a bell. I remembered everything. Everything! I drank too much. After Martha left me there in the restaurant, I began to drink. The reason I did that, I was getting up my nerve to go out there and have it out with Martha and Heather. I mean out here. We’re out here now. Aren’t we?”

  “Sure we are,” Hicks said.

  “Sure we are. Certainly we’re out here. Actually I was drunk when I borrowed that car and drove out here. That was the trouble, I was as tight as an owl, because that was why I lost my way and the first thing I knew I was in Croton, and I had to ask how to get here. Now I remember that again. And when I got here Martha was dead. If I had got here earlier she wouldn’t have been dead, and that’s what I mean about being drunk and being too early—”

  He stopped abruptly.

  “Okay,” Hicks said. “I get you.”

  “The hell you do. After I ate that candy my head was as clear as a bell. I remembered everything. I even remembered you taking me up those stairs. It was you that took me up those stairs, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought it was. I decided it was you that killed Martha, and you left me there in that room and went back to kill Heather. I was dead sure of that—you went back to kill Heather. So I went out and got a taxi and had him drive me up there. I mean up here. I keep forgetting we’re here. I was there on the terrace where Martha was, only she wasn’t there any more. I heard you coming along on the grass and I could see you through the shrubbery—and then you went to the corner of the house and then Heather came out and you followed her—”

  A fit of coughing stopped him.

  “Get up off that wet ground,” Cooper complained. “Not by a long shot. To save my soul, I can’t remember what I did with that knife. It was a long knife I got there in the kitchen—”

  Hicks stepped around behind him and got him under the armpits and heaved. Once upright, his legs seemed inclined to function, and all Hicks had to do was to steer him by an elbow over the treacherous footing back to the path, and across the bridge. There he balked.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To Heather’s office.”

  “Where’s Heather?”

  “She’s coming. She’ll be there.”

  Hicks prodded him on. On the narrow path in the black night, they proceeded in single file, slowly, Hicks in the rear making frequent grabs for Cooper when he stumbled. Emerging from the woods, the meadow was under starlight, and it was easier going. At the front entrance of the laboratory building, Hicks sat on a concrete step and took off his shoes and socks. He was wringing all the water he could from the bottoms of his trouser legs when the beam of the flashlight came out of the woods, and in another minute Heather was there. She put the light on Cooper, propped against the steps, and then on Hicks.

  “Give me the key,” Hicks said. “You can take the light back with you.”

  “I’m not going back.”

  Manifestly, by her tone, she meant it; and she had the door unlocked and was inside, and had turned the lights on, by the time Hicks had picked up his shoes and socks. He entered at Cooper’s heels. Cooper flopped on a chair and rested his elbows on his knees, and fastened his eyes on Heather with unblinking intensity. After one keen look at him Heather ignored him. She had changed to a brown woolen dress. Hicks, barefoot, draped his socks over the back of a chair, took out his handkerchief, and started to wipe the sonograph plates. Heather went to a cupboard and came with a roll of paper towels and reached for one of the plates. Hicks intercepted her. “No, thanks,” he said meaningly.

  She opened her mouth to retort, choked it off, and went and sat down. Cooper shifted in his chair.

  “Quit looking at me like that!” she burst out at him. “Quit it! I can’t stand it!”

  “I’m sorry,” Cooper said hoarsely but politely. “I’m trying to remember something.”

  “It’s a—” Heather caught her breath with a little quivering gasp. “It’s a nightmare,” she said.

  “Right,” Hicks agreed succinctly. He was drying the plates with pieces of the paper towel. Finishing that, he took them to the desk where the record-playing machine was, seated himself, pulled the machine closer, placed one of the plates on the turntable, and looked for a switch.

  “Inside front right corner,” Heather said.

  “Thanks.” He found it and pushed it, and the disk turned. The arm swung over automatically and lowered the needle, and in a moment a voice came:

  “Heather Gladd! Heather! I love you, Heather. I could say that a million times, just keep on saying it all the rest of my life. I love you, Heather! I wonder if I will ever look at you and say it right to you? Of course I will, if you will ever give me a chance. I’m such an awful boob, the way I acted that first week I met you, so that you didn’t like me, and now you have got your mind made up not to like me.…”

  It was Ross Dundee’s voice. Hicks stared at the whirling disk.

  “By God,” Cooper said in a tone of stupefaction.

  “Shut if off!” Heather blurted. “Aren’t you proud of yourself? Shut it off!”

  “… but I swear to you I didn’t know what was happening to me, because it had never happened before. I suppose you have destroyed the first one of these plates I made, but if you haven’t, I wish I had it back, because even then I didn’t know what was happening, not completely, and I tried to be witty and amusing. Now I know it’s literally a matter of life and death, because there can be no life for me without you. I love you, I love you so! That hot night Tuesday, you left your door open, I could stand in the hall and hear you breathing.…”

  Hicks flipped the switch.

  “Leave it on,” Cooper said. “I want to hear all of it.”

  Heather was on her feet, coming to the desk. “Don’t you dare put on another one! Don’t you dare!”

  Hicks put a protecting hand over the stack of plates. “I admit,” he said dryly, “that this is a considerable surprise. Why in the name of heaven you should sneak out at two A.M. to baptize a bunch of plastic love letters in a brook—”

  “It’s none of your business why! Don’t you dare do another one!”

  “If they bore you,” Hicks said imperturbably, “go outdoors. Or go back and go to bed. I’ll compromise. I’ll run through them first, doing only a sentence of two. Go back and sit down. You know darned well I can tie you up if I want to.”

  She took another step forward, hesitated, marched back to her chair, and sat breathing through her nose. Hicks started another plate.

  “I love you, Heather. In my room last night I wrote down what I would say on this plate, but when I read it this morning it was silly and insipid, so I tore it up. I never
will be able.…”

  “That’s a sentence,” Heather snapped.

  Hicks removed the plate, put another one on, and started the machine.

  “I dreamed about you last night, Heather. You were picking flowers in a meadow, not our meadow, and I begged you to give me one.…”

  Hicks took it off and started another.

  “Good lord, let me sit down and gasp a while! I know I’m late, but I had an awful time getting here. I never saw such traffic.…”

  As Heather started from her chair with a cry of incredulous amazement, Hicks stopped the machine. Cooper was bolt upright, as if suddenly straightened and held rigid by a current of electricity, his jaw hanging.

  “Martha!” Heather cried. “That’s Martha!”

  “Is it?” Hicks asked quietly. “And how come? In among your love letters?”

  “I don’t know!” She was at the desk. “I don’t—let me see it! Let me—”

  “No, no.” Hicks held her off. “You’re putting on a good show, but—”

  “I’m not putting on a show! It’s a trick! You had it—you put it—”

  “Shut up,” Hicks said curtly. “And don’t be silly. You said there were eight plates. Here they are, and this is one of them. You had them. You knew darned well what was on them. You’ve listened to them. And now you pretend—”

  “I’ve never listened to that one! I’ve never heard that! I tell you it’s Martha! My sister!”

  “You were hiding it in the brook with the others.”

  “I wasn’t! I didn’t know it was—there was one I hadn’t—I only got it—”

  Heather stopped. She gazed at Hicks, and he saw the change in her eyes.

  “Oh,” she gasped.

  There was a chair beside her and she dropped onto it.

  “I—” She gulped. “I never heard that before. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know how it got there. I wish you—I want to hear it—all of it—”

  Hicks’s eyes—the eyes which Judith Dundee had called the cleverest she had ever seen—were going straight through her. For a long moment she met them unfalteringly.

  “So you don’t know how it got there,” Hicks said softly.

  “No. I don’t.”

  “You just admitted that you knew there was one of them you hadn’t listened to. How did that one get there?”

  “I—it—” Her teeth caught her lip.

  “You’re not doing so well,” Hicks said sympathically. “Certainly you know how it got there. I saw you beginning to wonder how Ross Dundee ever got hold of a record of your sister’s voice, and I admit that would take some wondering. Let met try a little guessing. How did Ross get these plates to you? Slip them under your door?”

  Heather didn’t answer.

  “I’m going to find out. Shall I ask him?”

  “Don’t you—dare—”

  “Then open up, and wide. Did you find them under your pillow?”

  “No. In the racks. At the office. In among the others.”

  “You mean you would find one of them in with the regular plates that you were to type from?”

  “Yes.”

  “You wouldn’t know what was on it until you began to run it off, would you?”

  “At first, I didn’t, the first time or two. But they were unmarked, and if I came to one that wasn’t marked I would put it aside and later I would—I was just curious—when no one was there—”

  “Certainly. And this one you say you never listened to?”

  “It was the last one. I just got it—it was in the rack—”

  “What day? This week?”

  “Wednesday.” She hesitated. “No. Tuesday. Because Monday evening George came, and it was the next day, and I didn’t feel like—I didn’t want to hear it—so I took it and put it with the others—”

  “Where? In your room?”

  “Yes. I had to put them somewhere. They’re indestructible. I couldn’t just throw them away.”

  “Of course not. But that raises a point. The plates have been in your room all the time. The brook has been here all the time. Why did you suddenly get the idea of immersion at half past two in the morning? This morning?”

  “Because I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I—I just happened to.”

  Hicks shook his head. “It’s an important point. I may have to ask Ross Dundee if he can throw any light on it.”

  “You will not,” Heather said fiercely. “You promised you wouldn’t if I told you about it.”

  “I promised nothing. But anyway, you aren’t telling me. Maybe I can help. Did Ross tell you that he wanted one of the unmarked plates back? And you pretended you didn’t have them because you didn’t want to admit you had kept them? And apparently he wanted that plate so badly that you figured out a way of getting it to him? Namely. Put them in the brook and then tell him that was where you had been getting rid of them, and he could go and get them. That way he wouldn’t know you had been saving them up. Something like that?”

  “You knew—” Heather was gaping at him. “He must have told you—you knew that plate was there—”

  “No. I didn’t. Once a year my head works. Did Ross explain why he was so anxious to get one of the plates back?”

  “No.”

  “Did he ask if you had listened to it?”

  “No. I didn’t—I wasn’t admitting that I had listened to any of them.”

  “Did he tell you what was on it?”

  “No. And I don’t understand—Martha! That’s Martha’s voice! And you knew about it too—you don’t need to pretend you didn’t—”

  Heather stood up, her jaw set with determination. “I’ll tell you one thing,” she said. “I’m going to find out about this. I don’t expect you to tell me anything—you think I’ve just barely got enough brains to take dictation and run a typewriter—but Ross Dundee will tell me, and he’ll tell me now!”

  She started for the door. The barefooted Hicks got ahead of her.

  “Get out of my way!”

  “In a minute,” Hicks said soothingly. “The idea with brains is to use what you’ve got. You mean you’re going to get Ross out of bed and make him explain where he got that record of your sister’s voice?”

  “I certainly am!”

  “I offer two objections. First, you’ll have to tell him how you suddenly found out about it in the middle of the night, which will be a little embarrassing, since you have hitherto refused to admit that you were saving his love letters. Second, there is better than an even chance that you’ll be committing suicide.”

  Heather goggled at him. “Committing—what?”

  “Suicide. That you’ll die shortly.” Hicks, facing her, took hold of her elbows. “Listen, dearie. I am not hell on wheels, but I can add and subtract. It is true I had some knowledge of that sonograph plate, but I didn’t know where it was, and my knowledge was incomplete in other respects, and still is. There’s only one person who knows all about it, and that’s the man who murdered your sister.”

  Heather stared, and he saw the horror in her stare.

  “No,” Hicks said. “I’m not saying it’s Ross Dundee. I don’t know who it is. You were right that it’s not George Cooper. And I’m right when I tell you that if you let out a word about that sonograph plate, your chances of living out the week are slim. That’s all I can tell you now, but I’m telling you that. And the same goes for Cooper.”

  Heather said, “You’ll have to tell me more than that.”

  “I will when I can. I can’t now.”

  “You have to. I have to know how Ross Dundee got it. And why he wants it.”

  “You will.” Hicks released her elbows. “In the meantime, you are not to mention it. To anyone. This is bad.”

  “Bad,” Heather said. “My God, bad!”

  “Very bad,” Hicks conceded. He went to the chair where he had hung his wet socks, sat down, and started pulling one of them on. “Cooper, too. I wish to heaven they had him at W
hite Plains. I’ll have to take him back to town with me. I need some sleep. So do you. I had better take all the plates, too. If Ross asks about it again, stick to it that you don’t know anything about them. Will you do that?”

  “I—guess so.”

  “No guessing.” Hicks paused in his tussle with the second sock to look at her. “Promise?”

  She met his eyes.

  “I promise,” she said.

  Twelve

  Rosario Garci, who operated the restaurant on the ground floor of 804 East 29th Street and owned the building, such as it was, weighed a hundred and ninety-two pounds, was five feet six, had a face as round as a dinner plate, and was called Rosy by his friends and most of his customers. At one o’clock Friday afternoon he looked up from his doughboard in his kitchen when a form darkened the doorway leading to the front of the premises.

  “Ah, Mr. Heecks! Did she work?”

  “Pretty good.” Hicks relieved himself of his burden, a bulky wooden box-shaped phonograph, by depositing it on a table. “She needs oil.”

  “I warn you she’s a pip.”

  “She’s all of that. Much obliged. I’m going out. That fellow upstairs will probably sleep all day, Rosy. We didn’t get to bed until six o’clock. If he wakes up, feed him. If you could run up once in a while—”

  “Sure. Work off some fat.” Rosy cast his eyes swiftly upward. “Maria, for the love of Christ, if you catch me eating! When Franky comes home from school he can sit on the stairs and listen.”

  “That will be fine. But don’t disturb him.”

  “Never in God’s world,” Rosy said solemnly.

  Hicks went to the sidewalk and got in the car that was the property of R. I. Dundee and Company, and started uptown.

  While eating the cutlets and spaghetti and salad that he had asked Rosy to send up when he went down to borrow the phonograph, he had listened to the sonotel plate a dozen times, and at the end would have had to toss a coin to decide whether the voice was Judith Dundee’s or Martha Cooper’s.

  As he listened, he could have sworn it was Judith Dundee, but that had to be discounted because he had heard Martha Cooper speak not more than a hundred words altogether. And Heather and George had both, immediately and unhesitatingly, taken it for Martha.