Fox smiled at him. “Will you sign it?”
“I will if you’ll tell me how the devil you got onto it.”
“Nothing very adroit. Not at all stupendous. Miss Heath left the scene alone and in a hurry that evening, and was wearing a wrap that might easily have concealed the violin. Item two, I have never seen anything as hammy as her performance yesterday when Mrs. Pomfret announced that she had received the violin by parcel post — the back of her hand to her mouth and her eyes popping out and gasping for breath. The very essence of ham. Item three, the IRENE in the address on the package. Started to make a B and changed it to an N. Might have been thinking of Hebe.”
“I was thinking of her all right,” Ted declared grimly.
“No doubt. Of course it wasn’t conclusive, but it was enough to suggest a call on Miss Heath. I was with her an hour — one of the most singular hours in my experience. You should be able to tell me: Which is she, subtler than a serpent or not quite brainy?”
“I can tell you,” Ted said emphatically.
“Please do.”
“Between you and me and Miss Mowbray.”
“Certainly.”
“Well. It’s hard to find words. She is dumb beyond all previous manifestations of dumbness. Beyond the wildest dream of hebetude. Dumb enough to chew on the stick instead of sucking the lollipop. Dumb enough to grab a violin and scram for absolutely no reason whatever except that the violin’s there and she has fingers to pick it up with and an ermine wrap to hide it under.”
Fox was frowning. “That’s a little hard to take. That last one. I’m a little partial to motives.”
“You were with her an hour,” Ted expostulated. “Where do motives originate? In the heart. Okay, say she has a heart. What is necessary for a motive to result in action? Transference through a nervous center called a brain. Well?”
“Maybe,” Fox conceded doubtfully. “Anyway, we’ll leave it at that for the present. May I have that paper, Miss Mowbray? Thank you.” He took his pen from his pocket and offered it to Ted. Ted spread the paper on the piano arm and wrote his name below the statement, as illegibly as possible, blew on it to dry it, and handed it over.
“Much obliged.” Fox stuck it in his pocket. “Another little point. Would you mind telling me what you and Miss Heath were doing in Tusar’s dressing room Monday evening? I mean before the concert.”
“Why didn’t you ask her?”
“I did. She said something about music being sublime. She pronounced it—”
“I know how she pronounces it. We went there to ask Tusar to have his picture taken with Miss Heath, with her holding the violin, and he refused. Miss Heath began to undergo emotions, and Tusar walked out.”
Fox nodded. “I saw him.” He turned to Dora. “May I ask you, Miss Mowbray, did Tusar practice with you Monday afternoon?”
Dora shook her head. “Not in the afternoon. I went to his studio in the morning and we went through the Saint-Saens piece three times, but not the others. I left a little after twelve and didn’t see him again until evening, at the hall.”
“Why did you go through it three times? Didn’t it sound right?”
“I thought it did, but Jan wasn’t satisfied, especially with the animato after the introduction and the last eight measures before the allegro begins. He said he was racing it—”
“But the violin was all right? The tone? It didn’t sound as it did that evening?”
“Good heavens, no. In the evening it was terrible. From the very beginning it was terrible — but you heard it...”
“Yes, I heard it.” Fox arose and went to get his coat. “I’ll run along. Thank you very much.”
“So it’s all — all over.” Dora moved toward the door. “It was Jan’s violin, and there was nothing — and that’s all.”
“Not all, Miss Mowbray.” Fox got his other arm in. “I’ve answered the questions you folks gave me, but I’ve run up against another one, and I’m afraid it’s a good deal uglier than those.”
“Uglier?...” she faltered.
“Yes. You’ll be hearing from Mrs. Pomfret, asking you to be there tomorrow at two o’clock. You too, Gill. In the meantime, you might be considering whether driving a man to suicide can be called murder. It’s a nice point.”
Chapter 6
The tendency of the human animal to follow a pattern, however recently molded, was illustrated on Sunday afternoon in Mrs. Pomfret’s library. Those twelve people had gathered there and sat at that table only once before, but as Mrs. Pomfret’s glance went down one side and up the other, she noted that each occupied the same chair as on the previous occasion. At her left Adolph Koch, and beyond him Ted Gill, Dora Mowbray, Tecumseh Fox, Diego Zorilla and Garda Tusar; at her right was Wells, then her son, her husband, Hebe Heath and Felix Beck. The meeting had convened a little late, for Fox had not arrived until a quarter past two. That must have been intentional, since he invariably got to places well ahead of time.
Mrs. Pomfret, completing her regnant glance, said that Mr. Fox had a report to make, and nodded at him.
Fox took a paper from his pocket, announced, “This is a statement signed yesterday by Mr. Theodore Gill,” and read it aloud.
The reactions were varied and in two quarters spectacular: Perry Dunham burst into a roar of laughter, and Hebe Heath, after maintaining a haughty stare at Fox until he reached the end, suddenly covered her face with her beautiful hands and moaned. Ted Gill glared across at her; Garda’s eyes were flashing daggers; Henry Pomfret, next on her left, moved to increase the space between them. Diego Zorilla muttered in astonishment:
“A woman of course — but that one?” He demanded of Fox, “What is it, then? Merely a devil in her?”
Felix Beck was finding his tongue. “You!” he blurted. “I warned him! I warned Jan many times about you—”
“This is drivel,” Adolph Koch said sharply. “To begin with, I should like to know why Mr. Gill signed so extraordinary—”
“It is not drivel!” Garda cut him off. “She’s a Nazi!”
“Good God,” Ted Gill murmured in stupefaction.
“You, Garda,” Koch said caustically, “are an imbecile.”
“Oh, I am?” Garda was bitter, sarcastic, and triumphant. “I am always an imbecile, you think? When I said Jan was murdered I was an imbecile? So you said.” She snapped open her handbag, fumbled in it with hasty fingers, and took out an envelope. “This came to me today. Read it and see what you think now.”
Diego, next to her, had a hand there for it, but she reached around him toward Fox. Fox took the envelope, glanced at the address and postmark, extracted a slip of paper and looked at it front and back.
“No salutation,” he announced. “Hand-printed in ink — not, by the way, the same hand as on the package sent to Mrs. Pomfret — and it says: ‘Those who seek to damage the Reich will suffer for it as your brother did. Heil Hitler!’ Below, for signature, is a swastika. You say you got this today, Miss Tusar?”
“Yes. This morning by special delivery.”
“I noticed the special delivery. May I keep it?”
“No. I’m going to give it to the police.”
“As you please, of course. But I’d like to discuss it with you later—”
“Discuss it now,” Koch said bluntly. “It’s ridiculous! The idea that Miss Heath is a Nazi — What do you say to that, Mr. Gill?”
“Nothing. I’m petrified.”
“It’s absurd. Nor does that swastika thing prove that Nazis were responsible for Jan’s death; they may merely be taking credit for a misfortune they had nothing to do with.”
“Anyhow,” Mrs. Pomfret put in, “since Garda insists on turning it over to the police, that’s out of our hands. But I think the statement Mr. Gill signed entitles us to an explanation from Miss Heath. For what purpose did she remove the violin from the dressing room and keep it concealed for two days?”