Derwin asked: “Was the detective Tecumseh Fox?”
“Nuts.” Jeffrey looked at him, at his sister, at Fox. “Double nuts,” he said shortly. “I’m making a jackass of myself. It was a... shock.” He looked at Nancy again. “I beg your pardon. I seem to meet you only under peculiar and difficult circumstances. The present ones being that your uncle appears to have murdered my father—”
“That’s a lie!” Nancy’s eyes were blazing. “He didn’t!”
“All right, he didn’t. He did, he didn’t. One way or the other—” He stopped abruptly and turned to survey the others. “Gentlemen. That’s a trick I copied from my sister. You say the name of the person addressed, or of persons, a collective designation, like that, with a stop. Gentlemen. Period. My former association with her — with Miss Grant, has no connection whatever with the crime you are investigating. It was a purely personal affair. Forget it. Proceed.” He sat down.
“Nevertheless, Mr. Thorpe,” said Derwin with an edge to his voice, “an important part of our investigation is the — uh — background of Grant and his niece. I’m afraid we’ll have to ask you—”
“You’re damn right we will,” Colonel Brissenden barked. “There’s been entirely too much—”
“Bowwow!” Jeffrey cut him off. “There are a lot of disadvantages to being a millionaire’s son, but there are also some advantages and one of them is that I can tell you to go to hell.”
Ben Cook cackled and then swallowed it.
“Excuse me,” Tecumseh Fox said pleasantly, “but I have work to do. If you want to question Miss Grant after I’ve had a talk with her uncle—”
“That’s out,” Derwin blurted.
Fox gazed at him in astonishment. “But you agreed if I brought Miss Grant—”
“It’s out. I’ve consulted Colonel Brissenden and he completely disapproves—”
“Oh. He does. I thought the district attorney was the chief investigating officer—”
“Think again,” Brissenden spluttered, in the tone of a colonel who has just been told to go to hell. “And go somewhere else to do it! Derwin says you threatened to get Nat Collins. Go ahead, get ten of him! Get out! The trouble with you is that your head’s got swelled to the point where you presume to interfere with the processes of law—”
Fox said in a voice so strained through tensed throat muscles that it was nearly a squeak: “I haven’t interfered—”
“All right, don’t.”
“I have requested permission to see Andrew Grant.”
“We heard you. On out.”
Fox took two steps and got Nancy by the elbow. “Come on, Miss Grant.”
“No you don’t.” Brissenden moved towards them. “She stays here. We want her.”
“So do I. Don’t touch her.” Fox was in between, expanded to cover her. “Don’t touch me either. I’m telling you. Have you got a commitment? No. Touch her and I’ll give you a lesson in the processes of law.”
“Why, you damned insolent—”
“Easy, Colonel.” Derwin was there. “This is my office and I won’t stand for—”
“Come on, Miss Grant,” Fox said, and took her elbow again and steered her out.
Chapter 4
They left the building and gained the sidewalk, but were not to get away without interference. As they climbed into the car, with Nancy protesting and demanding to know what was going to be done, Dan Pavey rumbled from the back seat:
“Hey, you didn’t pay your check. Here comes a waiter after you.”
The next moment Jeffrey Thorpe in his white dinner jacket, hatless, his eyes more bloodshot than ever from the rubbing, was standing on the running board and poking his head in and blurting:
“Miss Grant, I want you to understand—”
Nancy, clutching Fox’s sleeve, pleaded: “Go ahead! Please!”
Dan, leaning over from the back, asked: “Shall I push him off?”
“No.” Fox eyed Jeffrey. “Have you got a car around here?”
“Yes, that Wethersill Special across the street. I just want to tell her—”
“You can’t tell her anything here. Give—”
“He can’t tell me anything anywhere!”
“Miss Grant, you talk too much, too often and too soon. Mr. Thorpe, the man in the back seat is Mr. Pavey, my vice-president. Give him the key to your car, and take his place. Dan, take the Wethersill and follow us. Nothing fancy, just follow us.”
“But I just—”
“We’re leaving now.”
Jeffrey fished in his pocket for the key and handed it to Dan. Dan scrambled out and headed for the Wethersill, and Jeffrey took his place. As soon as Dan had got the Wethersill turned around ready to follow, Fox started the car rolling and spoke to Nancy.
“First, if you don’t mind, I’d like to catch up. You told me you didn’t know any Thorpes or any one connected with them. Your words.”
“I don’t!”
“You don’t. Does he know you?”
The back seat put in: “Let me tell—”
“No, Mr. Thorpe, I’m working for Miss Grant, I’d rather have it from her. Does he know you?”
“No, and he never will. He’s an arrogant fool. It was just — disagreeable. Last winter at the Metropolitan Opera House he accused me of stealing an ermine thing from his wife or fiancée.”
The back seat protested: “I’m not married and it wasn’t my fiancée! It was a girl I had—”
“Hold it,” Fox told him. “Please don’t do that any more. What were you doing at the Metropolitan Opera House?”
“Listening to an opera. I was a standee, of course, and dressed accordingly — I told you I came to New York to have a career — I was going to be a prima donna and was taking lessons — which Uncle Andy helped me pay for — but I finally found out that some of the notes are missing from my voice and now I’m modelling at Hartlespoon’s and earning my bread and butter. It happened in the refreshment room. She had carelessly left it on a table and I had a perfect right to move it — are standees people? — and the stupid disagreeable — he was actually going to have me arrested—”
“I was not! She was! She’s an imbecile—”
“Arbitrate it,” Fox suggested, bringing the car to a stop at the curb in front of a drugstore at the edge of town. “I have a phone call to make.”
He got out, entered the store and sought a phone booth. After a five-minute conversation he came out again and slid into his seat. “Get it settled?” he inquired as the car moved on.
“There’s nothing to settle,” said Nancy curtly.
“Uh-huh,” he grunted. “I called Nat Collins and he’ll be at the courthouse in half an hour. He may not be able to get a writ without an argument, but there’ll be fur flying.”
“Why didn’t we wait there for him?”
“Because I didn’t want to call him from there and we couldn’t help him anyway, and I can’t stand around or sit down when I’m sore. Also I wanted you out of there.”
“What the devil good am I, there or anywhere else? I can’t even pay the lawyer his retainer. You’re being — oh, damn—”
“Look here.” Jeffrey was leaning forward to her over the back of the seat. “Let me pay the lawyer — now wait! Say I’m an ape. Say I’m loathsome and repellent. Okay. But I owe you something. You could probably have collected colossal damages. That imbecile girl — she was my aunt’s husband’s partner’s daughter — she started it, but I admit I joined in and I’ll tell you why. I had been roped in. I hate opera and I thought if there was a row it might develop into our getting out of there. Then I got a good look at you with your eyes flashing and I’m here to tell you it was an experience. Right then and there it aroused — well, it was an experience. Then the excitement made that girl sick at her stomach and she insisted on leaving when I had decided I wanted to stay. I took her home and scooted back and got there before the show ended, but you had gone too — at least I couldn’t find you. I hunted you. The next day I got a detective. I advertised. I kept hoping I’d hear from a lawyer that you were suing for damages, but I never did. You should have. So it would merely be paying a legal debt if I pay a lawyer for defending your uncle — granting that he’s guilty, a guilty man has a right to a lawyer—”