“Did you send for a lawyer?”
“I don’t know any. I don’t think Uncle Andy does either. Why would he know a lawyer?”
“He might. Lots of people know lawyers. Go ahead.”
“That’s all.” Nancy upturned the palms of her nice hands. “They left me alone in the room, and I climbed out a window and hung on the ledge and dropped and went down an alley and phoned and took that car and came here.”
“You left by a window?”
“I had to because the door was locked.”
Fox grunted. “Didn’t you know you had the right to insist on making a phone call?”
“I only wanted to phone to ask if you were here. You were the only person I could think of that might help him and I had to persuade you, and I was afraid I couldn’t on the phone. You see, I haven’t got any money and neither has he. I guess I could scrape up about a hundred dollars and I could borrow—”
“What have you left out?”
“Left out?” She frowned. “You mean about money?”
“I mean facts. What have you left out?”
“Why, nothing. Honestly I haven’t. Didn’t I admit I stole the car?”
“Not the car. The murder. What happened last night and what led up to it. What have you left out about that?”
“Not one thing.” Her lips quivered again for a smile. “You see why I had to come instead of just phoning you? With me here like this looking at you and you looking at me, you can’t possibly think I’m lying about anything. Won’t you — please? It’s all my fault... the whole thing is entirely my fault—”
“Excuse me,” Fox said abruptly, and got up and left her to finish her plea to the air.
Within the screen door was a wide hall with a waxed wooden floor, a stairway, tan wallpaper with gold stripes, pretty bad, and six doors, all of them standing open except two which were for closets. In the room to the left, which was very large and very full of books, chairs, shotguns, tennis rackets, geraniums, guitars, binoculars, parrots and so forth, Fox paused to put his hand on the shoulder of the man with the bee stings, who sat with a drink in his hand watching the homely young man stalk a fly with a swatter.
Fox asked: “Did you put soda on them?”
“No, I—”
“Put soda on them.”
Through the room beyond, which contained a table that could have seated twenty and also chairs for that number, and he was in the kitchen — huge, clean, hot and aromatic. He intercepted Mrs. Trimble on a trip from the range to the sink.
“Well, darling, how goes it?”
A man washing red radishes at the sink snorted. “I’m glad to hear she’s somebody’s darling.”
“I’m sure, Bill, all you did was marry her. I’m free to adore her. I’m going out on business.”
Mrs. Trimble glared at him. “Back for dinner?”
“I’ll try.”
“You won’t. Starve.”
Fox went out the back door and stuck his head around the roses to see Dan Pavey rubbing a chamois over the polish of the black convertible.
“Dan! All right?”
Dan tramped over to him, which seemed a long way to come for the one word he growled: “Right.”
“You left it the other side of the hill?”
“Right.”
“Put things away and get a coat on. We’re going over to White Plains and maybe around a little. On business.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if we took the station—”
“No.”
“Right again.” Dan turned, flipping the chamois, then suddenly turned again and stood hesitant.
“Well?” Fox inquired.
“Nothing. Only I remembered something. I remembered the time that good-looking Bennett woman came here to get you to help her, and after we’d had a talk with her we put her in the car and took her to New York and turned her over to the cops for poisoning her husband.”
Fox shook his head. “It didn’t happen that way. You’ve garbled it. Anyway, this is different. Miss Grant hasn’t poisoned anyone.”
“Thorpe wasn’t poisoned, he was shot. According to the paper.”
“She hasn’t shot any one either. Do you agree?”
“I do.”
“Good. If I change my mind I’ll let you know.”
Fox left him. Re-entering the house, he went upstairs to a large corner apartment which, in addition to the usual furnishings of a bedroom, contained a desk, a safe that reached the ceiling and filing cabinets. Nine minutes later, having washed his face and hands, cleaned his nails, brushed his hair and changed his shirt, tie and suit, he trotted down to the front porch and said to Nancy Grant:
“Come on, let’s go.”
Chapter 3
The husky heavy man in a blue suit and black shoes with his chair tilted back against the wall was Ben Cook, the White Plains chief of police. The one at the big desk, in tailored grey summer worsted with slick hair and quick eyes was P. L. Derwin, the Westchester County district attorney. The younger one, incongruous in white dinner jacket and black trousers, with tousled hair and bloodshot eyes, was Jeffrey Thorpe; and the impeccably arrayed and arranged young woman with sleepy lids half down was his sister Miranda.
Miranda, whose name was Pemberton and not Thorpe because that was the one vestigial remain of a divorced husband, said: “I couldn’t even offer a guess.”
“Neither could I,” her brother declared. “Luke has been with Father over twenty years, almost ever since I was born. I don’t say he was devoted to him, but — hell, you know. He was square and straight and easy-going, and I would have bet Father had more confidence in him than any one else in the world. Anyway, why would he? He had a good job for life and an easy one. All he had to do was valet, which with Father was a cinch. He cooked and chauffeured only in that damn’ weekend hideout.”
“It’s ridiculous,” said Miranda.
The district attorney put his fingertips together. “I accept your opinion, of course,” he stated, in the tone of politic patience which an elected person has always in stock for such citizens as bereaved millionaires. “But the fact remains that Luke Wheer has disappeared. If we are to believe Grant and his niece, he went precipitately, in your father’s car, within a few minutes after the shooting, and your father’s pockets had been emptied. No one knows what money or valuables he may have had with him or in the bungalow.”
“Luke never did it,” said Jeffrey Thorpe with conviction and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles.
“Someone did,” Ben Cook rasped and scowled unimpressed at the district attorney’s admonitory glance.
“I doubt it myself.” Derwin was judicious. “I doubt if he — uh — fired the shots, but he may have — uh — taken advantage of the situation. I’m satisfied in my own mind that Grant did the shooting. It’s unfortunate — yes, Bolan?”
The man who had entered reported nasally: “Grant says he’s perfectly willing, sir, but nothing doing on any more questions.”
“I don’t want to ask him any. Bring him in.” The man went and Derwin turned to Miranda. “I dislike asking this of you, Mrs. Pemberton. I know it’s a painful thing—”
“I don’t mind.” She compressed her lips and released them. “I mean it’s all pretty painful. To look at the man who did it won’t make it any worse.”
They all turned their heads as the door opened. The man who entered, ushered in, was near forty, one side or the other. In spite of looking unwashed, extremely weary and disarranged as to clothing, there was an air of efficacy and distinction about him. Under the circumstances, which he understood, it must have been difficult not to make too much either of defiance or contempt, but his face and attitude displayed only a composed resentment. He walked in nearly up to the desk, stopped and turned to confront the young man, and then wheeled to face the young woman, looking down straight at her.