“Just the essentials. By the way, while you were kissing me I thought I heard you murmur that you would like me to stay to dinner and spend the night, and also that you wish to hire me to stay here and investigate. At a dollar a year. I annoy Derwin, but he can’t kick me out if you’ve hired me. Did I hear right?”
“Certainly.” Miranda nearly smiled. “But to avoid misunderstanding, that kiss was pure gratitude. I think I am going to marry Andrew Grant, but don’t tell him.”
“I won’t. Thank you very much. Go ahead.”
“I was saying it was next to impossible for me to get Father to discuss anything with me seriously. I didn’t like him on account of the way he had treated Mother and he knew it. Some day I’ll tell you about him; he was inhuman and fascinating. Jeffrey began to get sort of wild. I got a letter from him last Saturday that scared me a little and Sunday I flew down from the Adirondacks and found him, and arranged for us to meet Vaughn that evening and see what we could do about the quarter million. Vaughn was far from encouraging about the prospects. We left him around nine-thirty. Jeff went off to Long Island and I came on home, here, because I was tired. But I kept thinking about it and got pretty mad. I got in a car and drove to the bungalow. I had never been in it, but I knew exactly where it was, because Jeff and I drove around and found it one day a long time ago, out of curiosity. What I intended to do was blackmail my father. I fully expected to find that some woman was there with him and I thought under those circumstances I could make him talk sense. You would understand that if you knew how fearful he was that his reputation—”
“Let’s save that. Just what happened that night.”
“I’m paying you to listen. A dollar a year. When I got there I saw that car parked and the gate standing open, but I wasn’t stopping then for little things like that. I drove right in and on to the bungalow, easing along in high to keep my engine silent. When I got out and stood there I could hear a man’s voice that didn’t sound like either my father’s or Luke’s. That stumped me and instead of going to the door I sneaked around to the side where there was light shining from a window, and got behind a bush and looked in. A girl was sitting in a chair with her hands covering her face and a man I had never seen was talking on the telephone and I heard him saying that Ridley Thorpe had been killed. I stood there a minute pulling myself together enough to be able to move. I didn’t really decide not to go in or decide what to do, but the first thing I knew I was back in the car and on my way out. Then before I got to the road I stopped the car to think a minute and automatically, because I always wear them when I drive, I started to put on my gloves. I had one on and was looking for the other one before I remembered that I had come away with two right-hand ones. I thought I’d better find the other one, but I couldn’t; it wasn’t there. It had been tucked in a pocket of my jacket and it was obvious that if it wasn’t in the car it must have dropped out of my pocket at the bungalow. And like a perfect nitwit, I got panicky. Plain unadulterated funk. I sent the car down the driveway in second gear, roaring. At the gate I had a crazy impulse which seemed brilliant at the moment and I stopped alongside the parked car and threw the other glove in it through the window, only I couldn’t even do that properly. It dropped on to the running board instead of going in. I started to open my door to get out and do it right, but my hand was trembling so I actually—”
“Fox! Mis-ter Fo-o-ox! Fox!”
Fox bellowed, “Here!” and stood up.
A trooper came on the trot. “Mr. Derwin wants to see you at once!”
Fox made a disrespectful face and the noise that goes with it. “Excuse me, Mrs. Pemberton. I’m taking the whole dose, at least on trial. Don’t go monkeying around that piano. I’ll attend to it. Thank you for hiring me. If I feel like resigning, I’ll let you know.”
“Mr. Fox!”
“Coming!”
He went up the grassy slope, nodded to the trooper’s information that Derwin was in the library, and when he got to the house, entered by the French windows. In addition to the four who had been there previously, Colonel Brissenden and another trooper were standing beside the desk. Fox had guessed that he was being summoned for the purpose of ejection, but he abandoned that notion with his first glance at Derwin’s face. It bore the expression of a novice gambler who has been dealt a full house pat, and Fox’s nerves tightened into wariness all over his body as he dropped into the chair that was indicated for him.
Derwin’s eyes met his. “I’m sorry to interrupt your talk with Mrs. Pemberton.”
“That’s all right. We were through.”
“That’s good. A while ago you advised me not to waste time in a sparring match. So I won’t. I’ve found out what the job was that Thorpe paid you for. I’ve found what you got for him.”
“Have you?” Fox looked interested. “Where did you find it?”
“Here in a drawer in the safe. It was found hours ago, before I got here, but we’ve just learned the part it played. Would you like to look at it again?” Derwin opened the flap of a canvas case that was before him on the desk, took from it an object and extended his hand.
Fox took it and inspected it. It was a revolver, old but in good condition, of a make he had seen only once before in all his experience, a German Zimmerman. He frowned. “You found this in a drawer of Thorpe’s safe?” He held the muzzle to his nostril and sniffed. “It’s been fired quite recently.”
“Yes. We did that in our tests.”
“What did you test it for? If it was found in the safe it can’t be the gun that killed Thorpe.”
Colonel Brissenden made a noise of impatience. Derwin snapped, “It isn’t. As you damn well know, it’s the gun that killed Corey Arnold at the bungalow Sunday night.”
Chapter 17
Fox gazed at the district attorney through an extended silence. Without saying anything, he inspected the revolver again, carefully on both sides, and then leaned forward to place it gently on the desk so as not to mar the polished surface.
He leaned back and folded his arms. “This is beautiful,” he declared. “Perfectly magnificent. The gun that killed Arnold found in Thorpe’s safe! I appreciate your telling me this. I take it that the tests were conclusive?”
Brissenden said succinctly, “Yes.” Derwin merely nodded.
Fox glanced around at the faces. They had their eyes on him like a circle of hungry cats surrounding a robin. “It’s an amazing find,” he declared. “Simply amazing. I congratulate you. What are we going to say next?”
“We’re waiting,” said Derwin, “for you to tell us where and how and when you got the gun and delivered it to Thorpe. If you want to gab a little to work yourself up to it, go ahead, we’re in no great hurry.” He clamped his jaw. “But you’re going to tell us.”
“Let’s see.” Fox pursed his lips. “How would you figure it? You wouldn’t figure it was Kester who killed Arnold, because Kester probably had access to the safe, and so Thorpe wouldn’t have put the gun there after I got it and delivered it to him. You wouldn’t figure it was Thorpe himself who killed Arnold, since in that case he would have been in possession of the gun already without hiring me to dig it up for him. We’ll count Luke out on sentimental grounds. Of course there are Thorpe’s business associates, but I doubt if you figured it was one of them, for it isn’t likely that I would have been able to work so fast in that quarter. Also it must have been someone whom Thorpe didn’t want to denounce to the police, for he had a chance to do so with the colonel this morning and didn’t do it. That not only narrows it down, it makes it obvious. It was the son or daughter. Jeffrey or Miranda. So the only question is which? What do you think, Colonel?”