“You’re on. Good night.”
Fox ascended, went down the hall to the large room with a desk and a safe, seated himself and pulled the telephone across. He got the man he wanted and spoke:
“How are you, Harry? Family all right? Good. I’m sorry to bother you at home like this, but I may be moving around too fast in the morning to get you at the office. I’m developing a sort of an interest in the Ridley Thorpe murder. Of course. No, I’m working in a side show. What I wanted to ask, I notice that Thorpe Control Corporation closed at 89 Saturday and dropped to 30 today. Is that because the Thorpe enterprises were dominated by Thorpe and he was responsible for their success? No other reason? Holy smoke. Oh, you think it will. He was as good as that, was he? I suppose so. Let’s see — buy me a thousand shares when you think it’s around bottom tomorrow morning. Even if you think it may drop again in the afternoon, get it before twelve o’clock. Wait a minute — get it before eleven o’clock. That’s important. No, I can’t, but I never bet on a sure thing. Suit yourself...”
He hung up, tiptoed back down the hall to listen for a minute at the door of Nancy’s room, returned and undressed, and went to bed and to sleep.
Thunder awakened him. It was low thunder issuing from the throat of Dan Pavey. Fox recognized it and stayed on the pillow.
“What?”
“Derwin and a state trooper.”
“What time is it?”
“Ten minutes to one.”
“Did you let them in?”
“No, they’re on the porch.”
Fox turned on the bed light, hopped out, donned a linen robe and slipped his toes into mules, went downstairs with Dan at his heels and opened the front door the width of his shoulders. Two faces were there.
“Well?”
Derwin spoke. “I want a talk with you.”
“Well?”
“Not through a crack. I want to know what information you have that will protect Andrew Grant.”
“I don’t— Oh, sure. You’ve been listening to the radio.”
“And now I’m going to listen to you.”
“I haven’t got a thing to tell you, Mr. Derwin. Sorry.”
The trooper muttered something to Derwin. Derwin muttered back and showed his face again, twenty inches from Fox’s nose. “Look here, Fox, what’s the use of stunting it like this? Just to be cute? You know damn well we don’t want to pin it on Grant unless he’s guilty. If he can prove he didn’t lie — if you can explain why the radio was playing band music — I’ll turn him loose right now. I’ve got him out here in the car. Damn it all, this thing is worse than dynamite — the murder of a man like Ridley Thorpe—”
Fox shook his head. “Sorry, nothing to tell. Radio muck. Dick Barry trying to start a sensation. But I’ll give you a hot tip, buy Thorpe Control on the drop in the morning. That’s an insult to your intelligence — see if you can figure out why. Good night.”
He shut the door. Shoulders were against it and explosive protests came, but Dan’s bulk was with him and the door clicked shut as the lock caught. Fox thanked Dan, went back up to the corner room, heard a car retreating down the drive and was asleep again in three minutes.
It was not thunder, but clangor, that roused him the second time — the telephone bell. He switched on the light, bounced to the floor and trotted to the desk. As he lifted the receiver, a glance at the clock told him it was a quarter past three.
“Hallo.”
“Hallo.” The voice in his ear was low and blurred from lips too close to a transmitter. “I want to speak to Tecumseh Fox.”
“This is Fox.”
“I...” A pause. “I must speak to Fox himself.”
“You are. I’m Fox. Who is this, please?”
“I’m calling on account of the statement made by Dick Barry on the radio. Was that authorized by you and what basis did you have for it?”
“You’d like to know. Don’t be silly. Is your last name—”
“Don’t say it on the phone!”
“I won’t. Is your last name Teutonic and does it mean from the village?”
“No.”
“Is your first name Old English and does it mean from the red field?”
“No. But that’s enough...” The voice was agitated and even more blurred than before. “That tells me you do know—”
“Wait a minute. What does your last name mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything. It was—”
“What does your first name mean?”
“It’s Celtic and means small or little.”
“Hold the wire a minute.”
Fox went to the shelves and pulled out a book bearing the title, “What Shall We Name the Baby?” flipped to a page, got what he wanted in a glance and returned to the phone.
“Fox again. Go ahead.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Yes.”
“I’m talking from a booth in an all-night lunch place at Golden’s Bridge. We want—”
“Is he with you?”
“Yes. Not in here — he’s in the car around the corner. We want to see you.”
“Come to my place.”
“No, there are people there.”
“Go north on Route 22, six and two-tenths miles from where you are. Turn left on to Route 39 and follow it three and four-tenths miles. Turn right on to a dirt road, go one mile and stop. You’ll get there before I do. Wait for me. Have you got the directions?”
The voice repeated them. “But you must be alone. We absolutely insist on that—”
“I won’t be. My vice-president will be with me.”
“Your what?”
“Never mind. You’re in no position to dictate terms, are you, Mr. small or little? I’ll handle my part. You be there.”
Fox slipped out and down the hall, entered a room, grasped a massive shoulder and shook it, said: “Come on, Dan, work to do,” trotted back to his room, dressed in four minutes, put an automatic in a shoulder holster under his arm and another smaller one in his hip pocket, tiptoed back to Dan’s door and whispered explosively: “Come on!”
“Right,” Dan yawned.
Three dogs met them in the dark in front of the garage door and saw them off. Fox took the wheel, wound along the drive and was on the highway. The headlights split the summer night at seventy miles an hour; and since it was only fifteen miles or so to the spot on Route 39 where the dirt road offered its narrower and dustier track, the ride wasn’t as long as it was fast. Fox slowed down and swung around the sharp turn on to the dirt. It was uphill the first thousand yards, then leveled out and narrowed still more as the leaves of the trees on either side reached out for space.
Rounding a bend, there was a car, a long sedan, parked at the roadside in the entrance to a disused wood lane, a branch from a tree scraping its top. Fox drew up behind it, turned off the lights, told Dan to stay there and got out. A man emerged from the sedan and moved towards him in the darkness, all but impenetrable there in the woods. The man spoke:
“Who are you?”
“Tecumseh Fox.”
“I’m Kester. Who’s in your car?”
Instead of answering, Fox swept past him, found the handle of the rear door of the sedan and flung it open, sent the ray of a flashlight darting within, focused it on a face and uttered a cordial greeting:
“Good evening, Mr. Ridley Thorpe.”
Chapter 5
The mouth of the face opened to blurt a command: “Turn that thing off!”
Fox bent his wrist to aim the light at the front seat and saw a dark-brown face with black eyes popping out. He switched the light off, observed: “Luke Wheer too, pretty good fishing, three on one hook,” climbed in the tonneau and plumped on to the seat. The man outside muttered an ejaculation and was going to follow him in, but Fox pulled the door shut.