Cliff returned to his chair and sat down. “Go ahead.”
Fox shook his head. “Confidential things. You can wait out front if you want to, but it will be a long wait.”
“But with Miss Duncan’s permission — you understand that I’m not claiming any right—”
“It wouldn’t do you any good,” Fox said shortly, “if you did. Miss Duncan is under the suspicion of the police in a murder case. So are you and some other people. I am acting on the assumption that she is innocent, but on no similar assumption regarding anyone else. If you were a detective working for her you would do the same. So we won’t get personal and you can wait in front as long as you want to. All right?”
Cliff’s face did not give the impression of acquiescence that it was all right, but he rose to his feet. “I won’t quarrel about it,” he told Fox, “because I owe you something. I certainly do. Also I have a fact to give you which I have already given the police. Tingley phoned me yesterday afternoon and made an appointment to see me at ten o’clock this morning.”
Nat Collins looked interested. Fox said, “Thanks. What time did he phone?”
“At twenty to six. Just before I left the office.”
“What did he say?”
“Just that he wanted to see me, and we made an appointment. He had never phoned me before, our communication had all been on my initiative, and I was pleased because I thought it meant that he was ready to make terms, but he didn’t say so. He was curt and anything but amiable, but under the circumstances that was only natural.”
“You thought he was surrendering.”
“If you want to call it that. I thought he was prepared to make a deal that would be profitable for both sides.”
Fox grunted. “It took a lot of quinine to get him into that frame of mind. I’m not saying that you furnished the quinine. By the way, you say you left your office at twenty to six. Would you mind telling me where you spent the next two hours and a half?”
The trite and routine question produced an effect. Cliff’s eyes altered their focus for a fleeting glance toward the opposite corner of the desk, and his face changed color, faintly but perceptibly to an alert regard.
“Yes,” he said, “I would.”
“You mean you’d mind?”
“Yes.”
“You mean you refuse?”
“Yes.”
Fox shrugged. “Since the cops have questioned you, you certainly had to tell them. But suit yourself.”
“I didn’t tell the cops. I refused to. I told them that instead of inventing something about going for a walk or going to a movie, I preferred to state that from six to nine Tuesday evening I was on personal confidential business which I declined to disclose.”
“I see.” Fox smiled at him. “Maybe you’d better give Nat Collins a retainer after all.”
“I believe I’ll be able to keep afloat, Mr. Fox. So you’re Tecumseh Fox. Well, as I say, I owe you something.” Cliff looked at Amy. “May I wait for you and take you home?”
Their eyes met. “Why,” she said, “it may be a long wait—”
“I don’t care if it’s a year.”
“Well — of course a girl loves attention—”
“I’ll be waiting,” he said, and marched out.
After the door was closed, Fox cleared his throat to address Amy, but she spoke first.
“I want to kiss you,” she said, “on the mouth.”
“Come ahead.”
“But I can’t. I think I’m part Puritan. I’ll bet I’m blushing. Or else I regard kisses as dissolute, which is so darned old-fashioned it makes me furious, but I can’t help it. Only I really do want to kiss you.”
Fox got up and crossed over, bent and kissed her proficiently on the lips without skimping, and returned to his chair.
“A little domestic but nice,” Nat Collins allowed. “Now for God’s sake let’s line up a few — Come in!”
It was Miss Larabee. She advanced to the desk, handed Collins an envelope, and announced, “By special delivery five minutes ago. And Mr. Philip Tingley is here.”
“Ask him to wait. If he gets restless, soothe him. If he gets too restless, send him in.”
Miss Larabee went. Collins, regarding the inscription on the envelope, grunted, “Personal and important,” and reached for a knife and slit the flap. Extracting a sheet of paper, he unfolded it and read it with a frown.
He glanced up at the others. “From our old friend John Henry Anonymous. As usual, he forgot to sign it. Cheap envelope, cheap paper, typewritten by one who knows how to spell and punctuate. Marked at Station F at three P.M. today. I’ll read it to you:
“‘Tuesday evening, twenty minutes after Amy Duncan’s arrival at Tingley’s, which would make it seven thirty since she arrived at seven ten, a black or dark-blue limousine stopped there. It was dark and rainy. The driver got out and held an umbrella over another man as he crossed the sidewalk to the entrance, then the driver went back to his seat. In five minutes the man came out again, ran across the sidewalk and climbed in, and the car left. The license was OJ55.
“‘Five minutes later, at seven forty, a man approached the entrance and went in. He had on a raincoat with a hat with a turned-down brim, and came from the east. He was inside a little longer than the first man, maybe seven or eight minutes. When he came out he hesitated there a moment and then walked rapidly west.
“‘Proof of the reliability of this information: When Miss Duncan left, a little after eight, she stumbled on the second step and nearly fell, and stood holding to the rail for thirty seconds before she went on. The times and intervals are approximate, but fairly accurate.’”
Collins looked at Amy. “Of course you did. Stumble on the step and stand holding the rail. Otherwise John Henry wouldn’t have tacked on that embellishment.”
Fox, scowling, reached across the desk. “Let me see that thing.”
“I’m not sure,” said Amy, concentrating. “My head was so dazed I’m not very sure about anything. But then—” Suddenly she straightened. “Someone was there watching! Dol Bonner was having me tailed!”
Fox, folding the sheet of paper, grunted. “Or the cop on the beat saw your eyes as you went in,” he said dryly. “May I borrow this awhile?”
Collins nodded. He had reached for his phone and made a request to it, and presently he spoke:
“Bill? Nat. Love and kisses. Will you do me a little favor with the speed of light? Regarding a careless automobile, motor vehicle to you. New York license OJ55, whose is that? Call my office. Much obliged.”
He leaned back and eyed Fox. “Well, what is it? I don’t see how it can very well be a nut, with that about Miss Duncan stumbling. Do you?”
“Not a nut,” Fox agreed. “I’ll have to do some work on it, which of course will start with the owner of that license number. It’s fairly certain that whoever wrote it was there when Miss Duncan left the building, probably in the tunnel of the driveway or she would have seen him. He was close enough to see a hat brim turned down and a license number, if he’s not a liar. It’s also certain that he’s a trained writer — I’d say a newspaper man. Did you notice it?”
“Notice what?”
“There’s no ‘I’ in it. Any ordinary person would have put in at least half a dozen. He was describing something he himself had seen, his own experience. Elimination of the ‘I’ from a recital of a personal experience requires training and acquired discipline. ‘I couldn’t see distinctly because it was dark and rainy.’ That’s the natural way to put it. Other places the same. It’s a simple enough trick, but if you haven’t learned it you just don’t do it.”
“You’re right,” Amy declared. “One of the operatives at Bonner and Raffray was on the Herald Tribune over a year.”