Fox said patiently, “I saw the Wan Li vase in Diego’s closet. I assure you that isn’t a lie. How it got from there into a parcel-post package is another matter. I have an assortment of theories on that, but they can wait. The point now is, where did Diego get it? I’m convinced he got it from you. In no other way can I account for his having acted as he did to me. He did, didn’t he, Miss Tusar? He got the vase from you?”
Garda shook her head, but apparently not to signify a simple negative, for a corner of her mouth curled upward in disdain, half indignant and half amused. “Really?” she said. “You really ask me if I am a common little thief, like that? And if it were so? You would expect me — do you know what?” Her eyes danced at him. “I have a notion to say yes, and see what next you would say—” She stopped abruptly, her whole expression changed, and she fairly spat at him, “You are a complete fool!”
Fox sighed, gazed at her gloomily, and said nothing.
“Your Diego too!” Garda said harshly. “Speak of Diego! He’s your friend, no? And he had that vase? Why don’t you ask him where he got it? That would be a different affair, now, if you bring him and he would lie and say he got the vase from me—”
“Shut up!” Fox blurted at her savagely.
Instantly she smiled at him. “Ah,” she said softly, “you don’t like—”
“I said shut up!” Fox was standing, towering over her, his neck muscles twitching. “So if Diego said you had the vase you’d call him a liar, would you? You may or may not be a common little thief, I admit I can’t prove it, but you’re certainly a common little rat!” She came up from her chair; his hand roughly pushed her back; she smiled up at him.
“I would enjoy,” Fox said more quietly but not with any less feeling, “rubbing that smile off. If it wasn’t for Diego I would. I like Diego. I might even say I love him if I hadn’t quit loving anybody whatever some years ago. I’ve been hired by Mrs. Pomfret to investigate the murder of her son. At the time I took the job I didn’t think Diego could possibly have been sneak enough to poison a man, but since then I’ve learned about his infatuation for you, God help him, and also about that vase. He won’t tell me anything about the vase. I ask you about it, because if it had nothing to do with the death of Perry Dunham I can forget the damn thing and go on with the job I was hired for.”
He pressed his hand harder on her shoulder, the fingers through the soft flesh to the bone. “Quit wriggling! I still can’t believe that Diego poisoned Dunham, but it’s possible. To protect you he might have done anything. If what you tell me about the vase makes it seem probable that he did, I’m out of it. If the police get him, then they do. I hope they don’t. I’m not going to. You can take my word for that. So that’s why I’ve got to know about the vase. Quit wriggling! If you have any sense—”
“Frida! Frida!”
Fox straightened up and folded his arms. From the other side of a door steps were heard, a little hurried but not precipitate; the door opened, and from the threshold the maid looked across at them, her phlegmatic facial geometry perfectly composed.
“Phone downstairs,” Garda told her in a voice that was not quite steady, “and tell Mr. Thorne a man is here annoying me. Or — wait a minute — or get Mr. Fox’s hat and coat.” Her eyes darted to Fox. “Which would you prefer?”
“You’re making a mistake. Perhaps a fatal one. If it’s like this I’m going through with it.”
Their eyes met. His were cold and hard; hers were hot, defiant, contemptuous.
“The hat and coat, Frida,” she said.
“Then take what you get,” Fox said with pale ferocity, and left her.
Chapter 14
On the outside the old house on East 83rd Street, though not exactly disreputable, was certainly dingy and dirty; on the inside it was still dingy but not dirty at all. On the contrary, it was extremely clean. In the lower hall and dining room at nine thirty that Tuesday evening, there was a pervasive odor of pork cooked with sour cream. In the kitchen the odor pervaded not only the room but also the breath of Frida Jurgens, which was to be expected, since she had just completed the consumption of four of the fillets with trimmings. Usually she was fairly satisfied with what she had got at the apartment of her employer, but on Tuesday, the day her aunt Hilda had Schweinsfilets mit sauer Sahne, she always left plenty of room.
She put down her knife and fork and eructed with pure pleasure, and was in so benign a mood that when a voice sounded from the front calling her name no faintest sign of protest accompanied the pushing back of her chair.
In the dining room her aunt Hilda had turned on the light and was squinting defensively at a strange man standing with an enormous flat book under his arm. His appearance was at the same time comical and maleficent; the former chiefly by reason of slick oily hair parted in the middle and enormous black-rimmed spectacles, and the latter by a jagged livid scar that slanted from his right cheekbone to the corner of his mouth. He had put his hat on a corner of the dining table.
“Sinsuss man,” Aunt Hilda hissed warningly at Frida.
“United States decennial census,” the man said sternly, the distortion of his lips by the scar making it indescribably sardonic.
“The census?” Frida demanded. “Already? The paper and the radio both said April second.”
“This,” the man said scornfully, “is the prolegomenon. The radio explained that.”
“I didn’t hear it. And at night like this?”
“Well.” The man leered at her. “If you wish me to report to the district administrator...”
“Now, now,” Aunt Hilda said anxiously. Aunt Hilda was constitutionally anxious. “Report you by us? Now, now.” She turned to Frida and sputtered a stream of German at her, and got a little of it back. At the end she told the man, “My niece speaks better English,” and bustled out of the room. Frida pulled out two chairs, sat on one of them, clasped her hands on her lap, and said with no expression whatever, “My name is Frida Jurgens. I am a naturalized citizen—”
“Wait a minute, please.” The man, sitting, got the book opened and cocked at an angle that kept its pages out of her range of vision. “First, the head of this household?”
Fifteen minutes later Frida was showing faint but unmistakable signs of strain. She had answered questions regarding two aunts, four cousins, and a brother who drove a taxicab, and the responsibility was heavy; for it was a general suspicion in that neighborhood that the census was some kind of a police trick and dire consequences might be expected. The trouble was her two cousins who belonged, as she knew, to a certain organization — she felt moisture on her forehead but dared not wipe it off — so when he finished with the others and began on her, her relief was so great that she failed to notice that the United States appeared to possess a greatly augmented curiosity in her particular case. Where was her present employment, how long had she been there, what was the nature of her duties, how many persons were there in the household, either constantly or occasionally, how many meals was she expected to prepare, what were her hours, how much time did she have off?...
She said she had plenty of time off, but just how much, it depended. The census taker declared, with a frown of dissatisfaction, that for the purpose of the employment census that was too vague. It depended on what?
“It depends on her,” Frida told him. “She don’t eat in much. When she don’t, I leave at seven, sometimes even earlier. But then again she tells me to leave at two o’clock maybe, or in the morning even, and not to come back that day. So the time off is fine.”
“How often does that happen?”