Rex Stout (15 page)

“Cooper? The husband? About a dime,” Corbett said.

“Make it a bent nickel,” Beck snarled.

“What’s the matter?” Hicks asked in surprise. “Am I too late? Have you already got him?”

“No.” Corbett tilted his chair back and clasped his hands
behind his head. “I’ll tell you, Hicks. As I said yesterday, I know better than to try any subtlety with you. You know as well as I do that Cooper didn’t kill his wife. The way I know, we’ve checked him in New York at a quarter to three, borrowing a car, and in Croton at four o’clock, asking the way here, and at ten minutes past five the doctor said that she had been dead over an hour. That’s the way I know. Now just to even up, tell me how you know.”

“You mean how I knew?”

“Sure.”

“That Cooper didn’t do it?”

“Sure.”

“If I had known that, would I be apt to come all the way up here to try to trade him in?”

Beck uttered a word which the stenographer certainly did not record.

“You sure would,” Corbett chuckled. “Knowing you as I do. That’s exactly the point. If you really want to make a deal, if you really want something nice, like a year’s lease on the sunny side of Main Street for instance, why don’t you offer something interesting? How about trading in the murderer?”

“Glad to. Write his name and address on a piece of paper—”

“Horse around,” Beck said disgustedly. “You know damn well what he came for. He wanted to find out what we’ve got. He wanted to know if we still had Cooper down for it. Okay. Now he knows. Anything else, Hicks? How about a timetable? Here.”

Beck shuffled among papers on the desk and found one. “Here’s the timetable. Like to have a copy? ‘2:45, Martha Cooper arrives at house. 2:50, you arrive. 2:58, you meet Ross Dundee at the bridge over the brook. 3:05, you arrive at the laboratory. 3:02, Ross arrives at the house. 3:15, Mrs. Powell goes to the village to shop. 3:50, R. I. Dundee arrives at the house.’ And so on. Want a copy?”

“No, thanks. Those things just mix me up.”

“Me too.” Corbett looked reprovingly at Beck. “I don’t think it calls for sarcasm, Manny. We have no reason to suppose that Hicks is actually an accomplice. He is merely obstructing justice. All we are sure of is that he knows a lot more about those people than we do, he almost certainly knows why that woman was killed, and he probably knows who killed her.”

Corbett addressed himself to Hicks with great affability. “Naturally,
as soon as we checked Cooper definitely out, which we finished with this morning, we checked everybody else in. Take for instance that triple alibi, you and the girl and Brager.”

“Take it?” Hicks smiled. “I’m devoted to it. I cherish it. Speaking of triples, those three things you are sure I know give you a percentage of zero. I don’t know any of them.”

Beck grunted derisively. Corbett laughed, ha ha, and then tightened his baby mouth.

“Absolutely straight,” Hicks asserted. “Of course I know things about Dundee’s business, since I am on a confidential job for him, but I’m groping in the dark for any connection between him, or any of them, and Martha Cooper. That’s what I came up here for. I might be able to help a little before this is over, and I thought it would be a good idea for you to pass me anything you may dig up about Martha Cooper.”

“Jesus!” Beck snorted. “Gall? Match it! Try and match it!”

“You notice,” Corbett observed, “that I am not trying to put you through anything.”

“Yeah. Much obliged.”

“Not at all. I don’t believe in wasting energy. But I’ll make a remark. You are not a member of the bar. If things should warm up, you will not be able to plead privileged communication. And I shall be inclined to do my duty as the prosecuting officer of this county. My full duty. So I had better ask you one question for the record. Do you possess any information about the murder of Martha Cooper, regarding opportunity, motive, identity of the murderer, that you have not given me?”

“Yes,” Hicks said.

Corbett looked startled. “Yes? You do?”

“Sure.” Hicks got up and took his hat from the desk. “I know that if her voice had been soprano instead of contralto—” he was on his way out and turned at the door—“she wouldn’t have got killed.”

Beck told Corbett, “I’d give a year’s pay to break his goddam alibi.”

Hicks had intended, after finishing at the courthouse, to go on to Katonah, for, among other things, assurance that Heather was keeping the promise she had made him; but now that Cooper was out of it he wanted to get rid of him without delay, and before doing that he needed a talk with him. Heather had stated that her sister had not known Brager or Vail or either of the Dundees, or anyone connected with the Dundee firm or Republic Products;
but that, Hicks decided now, would not do. That was the hole to explore, and the best way to start the exploration was with George Cooper.

It lacked a few minutes of four by the dashboard clock when he stopped the car in front of the address on 29th Street. Before going upstairs he dived into the restaurant, and found the proprietor in the kitchen.

“Okay, Rosy? Feed him yet?”

“By all means okay,” Rosy declared. “He has been served like a king, in his room. He can drink coffee, that man. And there is another man up there.”

“What! With him? You let—”

“No, no. Not with him. A man to see you. I invite him to sit in my restaurant, not a bad place, not a dirty place, but he insists he will wait upstairs. If he expects me to carry a chair—”

Rosy stopped because his audience was gone. Hicks went to the stair entrance and mounted the two flights. A guess was in his mind as to the identity of the visitor, but it proved to be wrong. It was not Ross Dundee. The man waiting in the upper hall in front of the door to Hicks’s room was larger and older and fleshier than Ross Dundee, and as Hicks reached the landing he recognized him. It was James Vail, the head of the Republic Products Corporation.

“Waiting for me?” Hicks asked.

Vail said yes.

Hicks stopped in front of him and surveyed him with a swift inclusive glance. The Vail corporeal substance presented no feature that appealed to him; it lacked all semblance of grace; and he was stirred to active and irritated dislike by the broad insensitive nose, the cold shrewd eyes, and the thin selfish
mouth. His fingers twitched with a desire to pick the visitor up without further ado and toss him downstairs; controlling that, he unlocked the door of his room and invited him to enter, let him have the comfortable chair, and turned the other chair around to face him.

“I tried to phone you,” Vail said, “but you don’t seem to have one.”

“No. If I had a phone people might call me up. Also it costs too much.”

Vail’s thin lips twisted with what was presumably intended as a smile. “I was asking my friend, Inspector Crouch of the police, about you this morning, and learned that you’re a very interesting character.”

“I don’t suppose,” Hicks remarked, “that you came down here just to tell me that?”

“Oh, no. I came to ask the purpose of your call at my office yesterday.”

“To try to find out whether Mrs. Dundee had ever been there to see you, and if so when and how often. Is that all?”

“I see.” Vail leaned back in the chair and stuck his thumbs in his vest pockets. “Then she didn’t send you. You’re working for Dundee.”

Hicks didn’t speak.

“Aren’t you?”

“Try another one,” Hicks suggested. “Ask me who darns my socks.”

Vail frowned. “All I’m trying to do,” he said evenly, “is to establish a basis. We may be able to discuss things to our mutual advantage, but before we can do so we shall have to establish a basis. I am prepared to be quite frank. For instance, does this interest you? Mrs. Dundee did call at my office yesterday noon.”

“Not much.”

“That doesn’t interest you?”

“Not much.” Hicks gestured impatiently. “Forget the basis and start with the mutual advantage. What have I got that you want?”

“You have intelligence. According to my friend the inspector, an extremely acute intelligence.”

“You can’t have that. I’m planning to keep it.”

“I don’t want it. I manage well enough with my own. I merely want you to use your intelligence.” Vail removed his thumbs from his pockets and leaned forward with his palms on
his knees. “And persuade Dick Dundee to use his, if he has any left, which seems dubious. I put the facts squarely to you. Over two years ago Dundee took a hostile attitude toward me, but it was a long time before I learned why, that he suspected me of getting his formulas. I tried to tell him his suspicion was absurd, but he wouldn’t listen. The fact is, of course, that coincidences continuously occur in all fields of scientific research, and that is especially true of a field as specialized as ours. Dundee ought to know that; he does know it. Somehow he got this idiotic idea in his head. But I didn’t know until yesterday that it had become an obsession with him. From what his wife told me, he has acquired the fantastic notion that she has been selling his secret formulas to me. That’s ridiculous. Simply ridiculous.”

Hicks scratched the side of his nose and offered no comment.

“Well?” Vail inquired.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I am telling you that Dundee’s suspicion that I have bought his formulas from his wife is ridiculous. Where did he get it? What evidence can he have?”

“Search me.”

“There is no evidence. There can be none.”

“Then he hasn’t got any.”

“And it was in an effort to get some that you came to my office yesterday. Isn’t that correct?”

“Nuts,” Hicks said disgustedly. “You’re not that clumsy. Maybe we do need a basis. Cut out the act that you came here to try to pump me. That’s kindergarten stuff. Possibly you’re leading up to something reasonable, I don’t know, but I do know why you came. Because you’re good and scared.”

The substitute for a smile twisted Vail’s lips. “Scared? My dear sir. Of Dick Dundee? Of you?”

“I don’t know who of, but I know what about. Murder.”

Vail’s brows went up. “Murder?” He made a noise evidently intended to signify mirth. “Do you mean I am afraid of being murdered? By Dundee?”

“No. The murder has already been committed.”

“Not on me. I am quite intact.”

“Martha Cooper isn’t.”

“Martha Cooper? What—” Vail stopped. He wet his lips. “Oh! That’s the name of the woman who was killed by her husband up at Dundee’s place near Katonah. Isn’t it? Martha
Cooper? I saw it in the morning paper. May I ask where you got the strange idea that there is anything in that to concern me?”

“It just occurred to me,” Hicks declared, “sitting here looking at you. I thought I’d try it out. Something has certainly happened to change you since yesterday. Then you ordered me out. Now you go to all the trouble of asking your friends the police about me, and digging up my address, and traveling down here in the slums—do you suppose it’s another coincidence in scientific research?”

Hicks smiled at him.

“I begin,” Vail said acidly, “to question Inspector Crouch’s opinion of your intelligence.”

“You’re wise. Crouch exaggerates.”

“And I regret it.” Vail leaned back and stuck his thumbs in his pockets again. “Because I assure you it wasn’t fright that brought me here. I sent you off yesterday in a fit of temper. I shouldn’t have done so. Dundee’s absurd suspicions have annoyed me, and he has refused to discuss the matter, and you offered an opportunity for discussion and I should have seized it. That’s why I came to see you. But with your ridiculous remark about murder—”

“Forget it.” Hicks waved it away. “I get spells like that.”

“I would advise you to control them. Under the circumstances it may be useless to mention the proposal I intended to make.…”

“Suit yourself.”

“But it can do no harm. I propose that you call on the director of our research department, Dr. Rollins. He will open the records for you. He will demonstrate that all of our new introductions for the past two years, including carbotene—I mention that because I understand Dundee has charged that that formula was stolen from him—they have all been developed independently in our laboratories. You will be permitted to investigate fully, and I am sure you will be satisfied that my contention is justified. And that you will be able to satisfy Dundee also, if he hasn’t entirely lost his reason.”

“That might work if I—”

“Just a moment.” Vail was slowly rubbing his palms together. “I want to be completely fair about this. I am aware that it would not be to your advantage to accept this proposal. The investigation you are making for Dundee might go on for months, and of course he is paying you well, whereas if you do what I
suggest the matter can be closed up in a few days. I have no right to ask you to make that sacrifice. If and when it is closed, I am willing to make up the difference to you personally. The most satisfactory arrangement would be to agree in advance on a flat sum. Say a cash payment of ten thousand dollars?”

Hicks appeared to be considering. “In twenty-dollar bills?”

“Any way you like.” Vail wet his lips. “The arrangement would of course be confidential.”

“I warned you that Crouch exaggerates.”

Vail brushed that aside. “And the sooner it is done the better. Mrs. Dundee’s call on me yesterday was disturbing. Very. Say tomorrow morning at the factory? I’ll take you out there myself and instruct Dr. Rollins to—”

The door swung open and George Cooper entered. He came in three paces, was there before Hicks could move, glanced from one to the other, and fastened his gaze on Hicks.

“Where’s my hat?” he demanded.

Hicks, on his feet, realized with one glance that this was a different George Cooper. This Cooper was in his senses, completely in command of himself. His eyes, bloodshot and swollen as they were, were steady and fully perceptive.

“You haven’t got any hat,” Hicks told him. “If you’ll wait for me downstairs in the restaurant—I’ll be down in a couple of minutes—”

“I’ll get along without a hat,” Cooper interrupted. His tone was not friendly. “Also I’ll get along without you, but I want that phonograph record and I want it now.”