Read Online Rex Stout_Tecumseh Fox 02 by Bad for Business - Free Book Online Page A

attorney?”
    Fox nodded. “I just came from there. He’s as sore as a finger caught in a door.”
    “So am I. I think you’re through in Manhattan.”
    “I’d call that bluster. Quiet bluster.”
    “I don’t care what you call it.”
    “Have you finished your speech? I’d like to make one too.”
    “Go ahead, but make it brief.”
    “I will. At 8:42 in the evening I get a call from Miss Duncan asking me to come to her apartment. I arrive at 10:10 and find her unconscious with a lump on her skull. I revive her, question her, and phone for a doctor, telling him to take her to a hospital if that’s where she ought to be. Thinking that Tingley may be lying in his office bleeding to death, I get there as quick as I can and find that he is dead and has been for a while. I notify the police at once. I phone the hospital and learn that Miss Duncan got a severe blow, is resting, and should not be disturbed. Early in the morning I go to the hospital, find that she is in good enough shape to talk, inform the police of her whereabouts—”
    “And when I get there,” Damon cut in dryly, “I find her surrounded by Nat Collins.”
    “Certainly. She had got knocked stiff alongside a murdered man she wasn’t on good terms with. Do you take the position that you object to her having a lawyer? I shouldn’t think so. To finish my speech, I then had a hasty breakfast and arrived at police headquarters at eight A.M. , which is bright and early to be running bases. In your absence, I made a complete statement which was taken down by your subordinate,went by request to the district attorney’s office, got your message to return here at eleven, and here I am. On that performance you can fence me out of New York? Try it.”
    “You kept vital information from us for twelve hours. At least eight hours. And maybe something worse. Why all the telephoning?”
    “You mean last night?”
    “Yes. Half the people we’ve talked to—”
    “Five, Inspector. Only five. That couldn’t possibly have done any harm. I merely told them that I wanted to make sure they would be at work at Tingley’s this morning, as I wanted to talk with them again. I thought one of them might betray some interesting reaction.”
    “Did they?”
    “No.”
    “Why did you pick on those five?”
    “Because they were the five people who could most easily have put quinine in the mixing vats, and I was exploring the theory that Tingley had discovered the guilty one and got murdered as a result.”
    Damon grunted. “Is your theory based on facts?”
    “No, sir, only possibilities. All the facts I possess are in that statement you have.”
    “You’d like to believe that the motive for murder was in that quinine business.”
    “Like to?” Fox’s brows lifted. “It would be nice if a detective could choose a motive the way he does a pair of socks.”
    “But you’d like to believe that, because it would let Miss Duncan out.”
    “Now, come.” Fox grinned. “She’s already out.”
    “Do you think so? Then why Nat Collins? Who paid for the phone calls you made last night? Who areyou working for? And how did a set of her fingerprints, in exactly the right position, get on the handle of the knife that cut Tingley’s throat?”
    Fox frowned, leaned forward, focused his gaze, and demanded, “Huh?”
    “They’re there,” said Damon succinctly. “We got plenty of hers from that leather bag which you had sense enough to leave where it was. I have asked her about it, in the presence of her lawyer, and she denies having touched the knife. Her explanation, of course, is that while she was unconscious her hand was used to make the impressions. Yours too, I suppose.”
    “You’re stringing me, Inspector.”
    “No. I’m not. The prints were there.”
    “Have you arrested her?”
    “No. But if we get a motive that will carry the load—”
    Fox continued to gaze, his brows drawing together, then leaned back in his chair. “Well,” he said, in an