“But, Mum, I assure you—”
“You come with me. Henry, I approve of your suggestion. Stay with Mr. Fox. If he wishes to search the house for cans of varnish, by all means let him.”
She marched out with her son in tow. The others had gone. Perry, as he pulled the door to behind him, stuck his face beyond its edge to grimace derisively at the two who were left.
Henry Pomfret seated himself in the chair Diego Zorilla had vacated. Fox scowled down at him through a moment’s silence and then declared: “For a lead nickel I’d use that phone now.”
Pomfret nodded. “If I were in your place that’s what I would do.” He added hastily, “But I hope you won’t. Naturally you resent my wife’s taking Perry off like that, but that’s how she does things. She called you high-handed, and she doesn’t realize she’s high-handed herself. She can’t help it. She was rich before she married Dunham, and ten times richer when he died, and you know what money does to people, even the best of them, and she’s one of the best.”
Fox turned a chair around, sat down, and, resting his chin on his thumb, regarded the husband speculatively. The face he saw irritated him. Yet there was nothing especially disagreeable about nature’s silly attempt to compose a human countenance out of a broad mouth and a sharp nose, small gray eyes and a wide sloping brow. Was he then irritated, not by what he saw, but by what he knew, that this man lived on his wife’s money? That suspicion, that he was allowing an appraisal to be adulterated by a prejudice, and a herd prejudice at that, provoked him further. He abandoned the appraisal and inquired abruptly:
“Why did you and your wife leave before the concert began Monday evening?”
Pomfret blinked. Then he smiled wryly. “Well,” he said, “I left because she told me to take her home.”
“Why did she want to go home? Hadn’t she gone there to attend the concert?”
“Yes. That was the intention.” Pomfret leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “You know, you’re putting me on a sort of spot. No doubt the proper thing is to tell you that if you want to know why my wife left before the concert you can ask her, but if you did ask her she would as likely as not tell you to go to the devil, and then you might attach undue importance to something wholly trivial. On the other hand, if I tell you and she finds out that I did...” He shrugged. “That seems to be the lesser evil. It was a tactical retreat. The Briscoe-Pomfret War.”
“War?”
“My lord, you’ve never even heard of it?” Pomfret was amazed. “But then, you aren’t living in the trenches, as I am. Mrs. Briscoe is short on matériel, meaning money, compared to my wife, so she adopts a guerilla technique. She snipes. Last year, for instance, she practically kidnapped Glissinger, the pianist. Not long ago she coerced a promise from Jan to play at a musical for her. My wife talked him out of it. Monday evening in his dressing room he blurted at her that he had reconsidered and was going to keep his promise. Just before his concert was not time to start a counterattack, so she merely went home. The fact is, she has been damned upset about it, though she would never admit it. She thought her running out on his concert might have been responsible for the way he played, just as Dora thought it might have been her fault. Now you say it was something more deliberate — and a lot more damnable. God knows I agree, if it happened the way you think it did.”
“How else could it have happened?”
“I don’t know.” Pomfret, looking uncomfortable, hesitated. “You’re experienced at this kind of thing and I’m not. But you said the varnish was put in the violin between noon and eight o’clock Monday, and frankly, I don’t see how you can be sure of that.”
“Do you mean it might have been done after the concert? During the two days it was in Miss Heath’s possession?”
“Well — you can’t rule it out as impossible, can you?”
“I can rule it out as silly,” Fox declared shortly. “If the varnish wasn’t in it Monday evening, what was wrong with it? Why wasn’t it all right? If you like to suppose Miss Heath put the varnish in, why not suppose she did it before the concert instead of after?”
Pomfret flushed. “I don’t,” he said stiffly, “particularly like to suppose Miss Heath did it. If what my wife said about my vase made you think I’m ill-disposed toward Miss Heath, you’re wrong. I have never thought it likely that she took the vase.”
“Your wife said that both of you have suspected her all along.”
“My wife has. I’m not responsible for her interpretation of my failure to fly to Miss Heath’s defense. Ordinary common sense would keep a man from defending a beautiful young woman against his wife’s suspicion.”
Fox considered that, and disposed of it by remarking, “I’m not married.” If the fact was regarded by him as a cause for regret, he successfully excluded it from his tone. He went on, “There, in Tusar’s dressing room, you said he blurted something at your wife. Was there a scene?”
“I wouldn’t say a scene. No. But there was certainly an atmosphere. Jan always had nerves, but I had never seen him so much on edge. My wife knew what that concert meant to him, and she tried to calm him down.”
“How long were you in there?”
“Oh, ten minutes, perhaps fifteen.”
“Was there anyone else there?”
“Yes. Perry went in with us, but his mother told him to go and look up Dora. Beck went with him. Mrs. Briscoe was there. She’s a damn fool, and it was her mentioning her musical that made Jan say what he did to my wife.”
“Did she leave the dressing room before you did?”
“I don’t...” Pomfret thought a moment. “Yes, I do, she went out with Koch and left us in there. Or rather, Koch took her out. Koch was already there when we arrived.”
“Was there anyone else in there while you were? Perry, Beck, Mrs. Briscoe, Koch. Anyone else?”
I think not. I’m sure not. Just as we left Miss Heath and that fellow Gill went in.”
“Where was the violin?”
“The violin? I don’t remember—” Pomfret checked himself, frowned, and breathed. “Oh,” he said. “I see. You think it may have been done right there in the dressing room. I suppose that’s possible. There were a lot of people around, but of course they weren’t especially noticing the violin. It must have been there, but I don’t remember seeing it.”
“Soon after you left, Tusar appeared at the door of the dressing room and had it in his hand.”
“Well, it wasn’t in his hand while I was there. I’m sure I would have noticed it if it had been.”
“When was the last time you had seen Tusar prior to that evening at the hall?”
“I saw him Monday afternoon.”
Fox’s brows went up. “You did?”
“Yes.” Pomfret moved in his chair and an embarrassed little laugh escaped him. “So if you’re going by the law of averages you’ll probably pick me for the varnish suspect, or my wife, because we both had two opportunities. Only it happens that I didn’t see the violin either time. We were at the Garden at a matinee, a skating ballet, and we dropped in at Jan’s studio a little after five to invite him to have tea with us.”
“Did he accept?”
“He didn’t get invited. Diego and Koch were there, and my wife isn’t particularly fond of Koch. We stayed perhaps a quarter of an hour and then— What’s that?”
Pomfret jerked erect in his chair to rigid attention. Fox turned his head, ears alert, listened, and turned back again:
“It sounded like a female scream. Someone probably spilled a drink on Miss Heath—”
But Pomfret was on his feet. “Not Miss Heath— I think—”
A bellow came, from a distance and through the door, an urgent resounding bellow, in the bass of Diego Zorilla: