“I’ve told you a thousand times to ignore Pokorny’s suggestions.”
“Right. So Thorpe asked to borrow it until he could buy one, and since he had been riding around chinning with you and Miss Grant—”
“And you let him have it.”
“Right. Hey, that hurts!”
“I’m squeezing out the juice. I won’t mention what I’d like to do.” Fox turned to Derwin at his elbow. “Do you want to ask him anything before I take him somewhere and clean him up?”
“I do.” Derwin was grim. “I want him to identify that gun and to sign a statement—”
“You can have that when I get through with him. It’s the gun, all right. I mean any detail as—”
“Yes.” Derwin faced Dan. “Was the gun loaded when you gave it to Thorpe?”
“Certainly it was loaded!” The answer came not from Dan, but from Jeffrey Thorpe, who was there confronting Derwin. “I borrowed it from him and it was loaded, and I put it in my pocket and brought it home with me!”
“You admit that?”
“Yes!”
“Come on, let’s get it bandaged,” Fox said to Dan and, as they left the room, no one offered to interfere, or even paid any attention to them, for all eyes were focused on Jeffrey. Miranda had moved and was beside him, her face pale and her jaw set. A trooper had sidled over and was directly behind him.
Brissenden snapped, “Get him out of here. Bring him to the library, Hardy.”
The trooper put a hand on Jeffrey’s arm, but he, ignoring that, spoke to Derwin:
“You want to run me through the wringer and that’s all right, but I want to ask a question. My sister told me that the gun that killed my father has been identified as one belonging to Tecumseh Fox. Is that correct?”
“It is. And therefore it’s the gun—”
“Yes. I can count that far myself. It’s the gun I brought here and that makes it my turn to talk. But you’re not taking me to the library or anywhere else. I’ll talk right here. The people who have heard this much will hear the rest. Tell your stenographer to go get his notebook. When I got home last night—”
“Wait a minute, Jeffrey!” It was Fuller, of the law firm of Buchanan, Fuller, McPartland and Jones, stepping forward. His hard non-committal eyes were aimed at the district attorney. “It is advisable, I think, that I should have a talk with Mr. Thorpe first.”
“Tchah!” snorted Brissenden.
“I think not,” said Derwin curtly.
“I think yes.” Fuller’s tone was acid. “Otherwise it will be my duty to advise him to answer no questions and give no information—”
“You can keep your advice,” Jeffrey blurted. “I’ve been afraid all the time—”
“Jeffrey! I order you, as your attorney, to keep silent! You flouted your father’s authority when he was alive; now—”
“He did not,” Miranda denied quietly. She was on the other side of her brother from the trooper, her hand on his sleeve. “But, Jeff, I think Mr. Fuller’s right. I think you ought to speak with him before you let them try to... to...” She faltered.
He looked down at her. “Much obliged, Sis,” he said bitterly. “You think I shot him. Don’t you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“You think maybe I did. She doesn’t, but you do. I’ve been thinking you did all afternoon and when you couldn’t look at me when you were telling me about them identifying the gun — and you knowing I had borrowed it myself last night—”
Brissenden barked, “I say get him out of here!”
Inspector Damon shook his head and muttered, “Let ’em talk.”
Fuller tried to get in: “I must insist—”
“I want to get a refusal for the record,” said Derwin. “I’m going to question him and if he refuses to answer on the advice of counsel, he has that right. Previously questioned, he has said nothing about having a gun. I also wish to question Mrs. Pemberton. I presume it was Mr. Fox who informed her that the gun that shot her father had been identified as his property. Anyway, she has admitted that she knew that and she also knew that her brother had borrowed one of Fox’s guns, and has concealed that fact.”
He glanced aside, saw that the pimply young man had got his notebook and was on a chair busy with it, and turned to Jeffrey. “Mr. Thorpe,” he demanded, “what did you do with that gun which you had borrowed when you brought it home with you, to this house, last night?”
Fuller commanded, “Don’t answer!”
Jeffrey had opened his mouth but closed it again. He looked at the lawyer. “You mean well, Mr. Fuller,” he conceded. “It doesn’t seem to me that this was the time or place to charge me with flouting my father’s authority, but you have sons of your own and I suppose you had to get that dig in.” He looked at Derwin. “I’m willing to grant that you mean well too, since you’re the district attorney.” He looked at Brissenden. “You’re a pugnacious jackass, and if I get out of this alive I’m going to meet you unofficially and sock you one. Now if you’ll all stop yapping I’ll tell you about that gun.”
“Jiffy, I order you—”
“Let me alone. If the truth won’t do it, to hell with it. When I got home and went up to my room last night — oh, I’m glad you’re in time to hear it, Fox, since it was your gun. How’s the vice-president?”
“He’ll keep for a while.” Fox smiled at him. “I’m glad I’m in time to hear it.”
“So am I. When I got home and went up to my room last night I took the gun out of my pocket and put it on the bed table. When I dressed this morning I put it in my pocket again. It was still there when Miss Grant and her uncle arrived around nine o’clock this morning. I tried to get Miss Grant to talk to me and she wouldn’t. I got peeved, not with her, with myself, and decided that I was acting like a half-wit and that I would drive off somewhere and not come back until she was gone.”
He looked at Brissenden. “That was the mysterious errand in my car which I refused to tell you about because it was none of your damn business. A few miles down the road I nearly collided with a truck and realized that in the condition I was in I was a highway menace, but the real reason I came back was that I knew Miss Grant was here and I couldn’t stay away.”
He looked at Nancy. “I apologize for bringing your name in so often but if I’m telling it I might as well tell it. When I sat down in the car the gun in my hip pocket dug into my behind, and I had taken it out and laid it on the seat. I felt silly with it anyhow in broad daylight and besides—” He stopped. “No, I might as well tell that too. I knew Miss Grant and her uncle had seen it in my pocket, because I had overheard a remark he made to her. Of course they’ll now be asked to explain why they didn’t mention that I was carrying a gun, but you can’t put them in jail for that.The fact that I knew they had seen it made me feel sillier. Anyhow, when I got back here and left the car out in the circle, I forgot all about the gun. I didn’t even see it on the seat when I got out of the car, because my mind was on something else, but it must have been there, since I had put it there only fifteen minutes before, when I started out. That was the last time that I actually remember seeing it, when I put it on the seat. I haven’t seen it since.”
As he stopped, Fuller was at Nancy like a hawk after a chicken: “Miss Grant, you saw the gun in Jeffrey’s pocket before he left you to go for a ride?”
“Yes,” she said clearly and firmly. “Just a minute or two after we got here.”
“You the same, Mr. Grant?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see it in his pocket, or in his possession — did you see it at all — after he returned from his ride?”
“No. I didn’t know he had gone for a ride, but when he returned around ten o’clock after an absence of perhaps a quarter of an hour, I didn’t see the gun. Nor at any subsequent time.”