“I do. If the police hadn’t traced you, the papers would. Now you’ll have to tell all about it.”
“I can’t do that.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘can’t.’ Like the woman on a horse who said: ‘I can’t get off.’ The horse reared and she fell off. So she was wrong. So are you.”
“No, I’m not wrong.” Thorpe was peering at him. “That’s the job I have for you. I want you to arrange an explanation for me that will stand investigation. I want an alibi that will stand up. Kester and Luke and I have been discussing it all day and got nowhere. We’re handicapped because none of us dares to make an appearance, even on the telephone. That’s the job I’ll pay you fifty thousand dollars for, and it has to be done in a hurry. I want it done before the stock market opens in the morning. Will you do it? Can you do it?”
“I’m working for Andrew Grant.”
“This won’t interfere. You said yourself that Grant will be clear as soon as I reappear.”
“But there will still be a murder. To arrange a false alibi—”
“Not for a murder. I had nothing to do with that. I was... nowhere near the bungalow.”
“That’s good. Where were you?”
“I was in the woods, walking. The pinewoods in New Jersey. I often do that, with a rucksack, alone, and sleep on the needles, under the stars, the summer nights—”
“Don’t waste it.” Fox sounded disgusted. “Where were you?”
“I tell you I was in the woods, walking—”
“No, no. That must be one of the explanations you and Kester invented and discarded; and it sounds like the poorest of the bunch. Don’t forget, Mr. Thorpe, that your activity was one which you were, and are, determined to keep secret. I have to know what it was and you have to satisfy me on it. Don’t waste time like that. Where were you?”
Silence, except for a faint noise the source of which was now visible in the unfolding light. It came from the suction of the gums of the colored man against his teeth as he nervously and monotonously worked his lips. Vaughn Kester’s lips, thin anyway, made a tight straight line as he sat twisted around in the front seat for a level gaze of his pale hostile eyes at Tecumseh Fox. Ridley Thorpe, disheveled and unornamental with a streak of dirt slanting across his unshaven cheek, ground his right palm against his left, as if with that mortar and pestle he expected to pulverize all obstacles.
Fox said impatiently: “You understand it has to be the truth. Depending on how it sounds, I’ll either accept it for the time being or I won’t. I’ll check up on it as soon as I can, and if it’s phony I’ll turn it loose. I must be satisfied that I’m not establishing an alibi for a man who might be a murderer.”
Thorpe sputtered: “But I tell you—”
“Don’t do that. It will soon be sunup. Tell me where you were.”
“If I do that, Mr. Fox, I’ll be putting myself completely in your power—”
“No more than you are now.” Fox frowned at him. “Must I diagram it for you? I could trace you down. Any competent man could and a lot of them will, if they are given a suspicion to start on. That’s why you have to furnish an alibi that will exclude all suspicion, which is a big order to fill. It is also why I must have the truth and all of it or you can count me out.”
Thorpe gazed at him, and suddenly abandoned the mortar and pestle to make a gesture of decision. “Very well. Quiet, Vaughn. I never supposed — very well. I was in a cottage at Triangle Beach, New Jersey. I arrived there Friday evening and remained continuously. Shortly before midnight Sunday — I was in bed — the phone rang and it was Luke. He said someone had shot through the window and killed Arnold—”
“Did he phone from the bungalow?”
“No. Luke is no fool. He had left in the car and phoned from a booth in Mount Kisco without being observed. He asked what to do and I told him to come to the cottage. He arrived there around two o’clock; it’s over ninety miles. In the meantime Kester had phoned, having been notified of the murder at the Green Meadow Club. I told him also to come to the cottage and he got there about an hour after Luke did. We began a discussion of the situation and we’ve been discussing it ever since. Luke and Kester are the only people on earth who know of that cottage. Except you. Now.”
“The only ones?”
“Yes.”
Fox shook his head. “It won’t do. It sets up the conclusion that you were alone there and that—”
“I didn’t say I was alone there. I was... I had a companion.”
“What’s her name?”
“I don’t think you need that.” Thorpe was scowling. “This is very embarrassing to me. Very. If my reputation with the American public which I have so scrupulously earned — if I have chosen to safeguard it by maintaining a decent privacy for certain activities which are natural and normal—”
“I’m not the American public, Mr. Thorpe, I’m only a man you want to hire to manufacture an alibi for you. If this lady felt like it, she could make both it and me look silly. What’s her name?”
“Her name... is Dorothy Duke.”
“How long have you known her?”
“Five years.”
“She used to spend weekends at the bungalow with you before you got your stand-in?”
“Yes.”
“How thoroughly do you trust her?”
“I trust no one alive thoroughly except Luke. I trust Kester because it is to his advantage to remain loyal to my interests. With Miss Duke other — ah — considerations are involved, but I rely on her discretion for the same reason that I rely on Kester’s loyalty. Quiet, Vaughn.”
“Is she at the cottage now?”
“No, she’s there only for weekends. She returned to her New York apartment. I instructed her to stay there in case it was necessary to communicate.”
“Do you ever call at her apartment?”
“Never. I never see her in New York.”
“What’s the address of the cottage at Triangle Beach?”
“It hasn’t any. It’s remote, two miles south of the village, with five hundred yards of private water front. Its name is Sweet Wilderness. My name there is George Byron.”
Fox rubbed his nose to camouflage a grimace. “Where’s the car Luke drove there?”
“In the pinewoods back of the cottage. My property.”
“That’s bad.”
“We had to leave it somewhere.”
“You should — never mind. Where’s the one Kester drove?”
“This is it.”
“What about servants at the cottage?”
“A local woman cleaned during the week. There was no one there weekends. Miss Duke did the cooking. There’s nothing to fear there.” Thorpe pointed. “What’s that... that pink—”
“That’s the sun. Or it soon will be. I’m willing to have a try at your job, Mr. Thorpe, but I’m afraid it’s impossible. I’m afraid the American public is destined to see the name of that cottage in big type. Sweet Wilderness. The requirements are too drastic. It has to be plausible enough to allay suspicion. We can’t say you were alone, anywhere at all, from Friday evening until now; they wouldn’t swallow it. We must have corroboration. So we must find a man who will fill this bilclass="underline"
“One. He must be a friend of yours, or at least an acquaintance on friendly terms. Two. He must be willing to lie, either for friendship or for money. Three. He must have a cool head and adequate intelligence and discretion. Four. He must accept your word that you want an alibi not to protect you from a charge of murder, but merely from the disclosure of certain non-criminal activities which you wish to keep secret. Five. He must have been alone, in some place where you might conceivably have been with him, either for pleasure or for profit, from Friday evening until the time we find him; or if not alone, with another person or persons who can meet the other requirements along with him.” Fox grunted. “That’s a minimum. Without that it would be foolish to try.”