Rex Stout_Tecumseh Fox 03

by The Broken Vase

  “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?”

  “Pretty often. Maybe a day in a week, maybe three days in a week.”

  “Certain days? Tuesdays for instance?”

  “Oh, no, not certain days. Just days.”

  “How long has that been going on?”

  “Ever since I’m working there. Over a year.”

  “When was the last time it happened?”

  Frida frowned. “I don’t lie,” she said resentfully.

  “Of course not. Why should you? When was the last time?”

  “It was Friday. Last Friday.”

  “Perhaps Miss Tusar lets you go because she intends to go somewhere herself. She intends to be away and won’t need you.”

  “Maybe. She don’t say!”

  “Does she go out, or make preparations to go, before you leave?”

  “No, she don’t.”

  “Does she tell you about it in advance? Say the day before?”

  “No. It mostly happens all of a sudden. Soon after Mr. Fish phones.”

  “Fish?” The census man uttered a sociable little laugh.

  “That always strikes me as a funny name. I know a fellow named Fish, a short fat man with a double chin. I don’t think it would be him phoning Miss Tusar, though. Is it? Short and fat with a double chin?”

  “I don’t know. I never saw him. I answer the phone and he says to tell Miss Tusar Mr. Fish wants to speak to her, and I tell her.”

  “And soon after, she tells you you can have the rest of the day off.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s a funny world.”

  Frida agreed to that with a nod. The census man asked her a few more questions, more as a friend than an inquisitor, closed his book and arose and got his hat, and departed. Without, he marched to the corner and entered a Bar & Grill and sought a phone booth, dialed a number, and spoke:

  “Inspector Damon? Tecumseh Fox. Regrettable news. The lobby and elevator staff of the Bolton Apartments have been holding out on you. A man whose name may or may not be Fish has been calling on Miss Tusar once or twice or thrice a week for over a year. I should say it
calls for suasion. How about gathering them in? Right. I’ll be there in about half an hour.”

  At a moment well past midnight the atmosphere of Room Nine in the basement of police headquarters was permeated with tobacco smoke and ill humor. A dozen men of various ages and appearances and emotional conditions were on a row of wooden chairs at one end of the large room. Four or five plain-clothesmen sat or stood around. Inspector Damon braced his fundament on the edge of a rough wooden table and looked morose. Tecumseh Fox, his hair no longer slick and oily and the scar and spectacles gone, was at a water cooler in a corner taking a drink.

  The suasion, which had been forceful in spots though never violent, had been totally unproductive. The manager, the assistant manager, the doormen, the hallmen, the elevator men, all maintained that they had never seen or heard of a Mr. Fish, that Miss Tusar had no habitual or even frequent visitor, male or female, that they wouldn’t dream of withholding evidence from the police and that they wanted to go home. That had been going on for over two hours.

  Damon crossed over to the corner where Fox was. “We might as well let them go,” he muttered disgustedly. “They’re all lying. Or the maid invented Mr. Fish. Or Miss Tusar postponed her preparations for going out until after the maid had left. Take your pick.”

  Fox shook his head. “You’ve left out one. Since they’re here we might as well try it. Maybe they’re all telling the truth for a change, including the maid. When is a Fish not a Fish?”

  Damon grunted. “You mean he gave another name and pretended he was calling on someone else? But we’ve already—”

  “Nope. Who could enter as often as he pleased, and go up in the elevator, without giving his name at all?”

  “I don’t—Oh.” Damon considered. “I see. And if he phoned from inside it had to go through the switchboard—”

  “I doubt that. He wouldn’t have done that. He’d have phoned from somewhere else. If you think it’s worth the effort we’ll just have to start at the top and work down.”

  “No effort at all,” Damon said sarcastically. He walked back to the table, sat down, and aimed his gaze at a tired-looking neatly dressed man who was prematurely bald:

  “Mr. Warren, I’m afraid we’re not through. I want to ask some questions about your tenants. How many have you?”

  “Ninety-three,” the manager replied without hesitation.

  “How many on the twelfth floor? That’s the top, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Eight.”

  “What are their names and who are they?”

  “Well, starting at the south end, Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Bellows. Mr. Bellows has a real estate office.…”

  A plain-clothesman sat at the end of the table with a notebook and at the end of another hour had a voluminous record of the occupants of the top five floors of the Bolton Apartments, but there did not appear to be among them any likely candidate for the role they were trying to cast, though three or four had been reserved for further investigation. Like all searches for a nugget in a pile of what may be nothing but sand, it was a dreary and tiresome task, and most of those present were bored and half asleep when Tecumseh Fox suddenly interjected, “Ha!”

  “Ha what?” Damon demanded sourly.

  “That name. Mrs. Piscus.”

  “What about it?”

  “Piscus is Latin for fish.”

  “The hell it is.” Damon turned back to the manager. “What’s she like?”

  Mr. Warren gave details. Mrs. Harriet Piscus had rented 7D, which was two small rooms with bath, in January, 1939. She lived somewhere out of town, the manager didn’t know where, and used the apartment only during her trips to New York, which were frequent—she made an appearance on an average of twice a week. None of the staff knew anything of her family or history. She never brought guests to her apartment and none ever called. She was prompt with the rent, which she paid in cash, generous with tips, and extremely uncommunicative. She was large of frame, shy in manner, and old-fashioned in dress, and her voice was a sort of quavery falsetto. As to her face, it was hard to say, because she always wore a thick veil. Like a mourning veil. It was the romantic assumption among the staff that the tenant of 7D came there to be alone with sorrow.

  When had she last been there?

  That called for discussion, but finally a doorman, a hallman and an elevator man agreed on the preceding Friday. Fox muttered something to Damon, and after the inspector muttered back he turned to the manager:

  “We’ll go up there and take a look at 7D.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  Warren protested, was told that a search warrant could not be procured until morning and requested not to enforce the delay, and reluctantly consented. Room Nine was left to its tobacco smoke and stale air, and they all emerged into the night, breathed, and filled three police cars. The trip to the Seventies took less than ten minutes through the deserted streets. The staff was told to wait downstairs, and only the manager accompanied Damon, Fox and two detectives up to 7D.

  The pool contained no fish. Since the apartment was rented furnished, there was furniture there, but that was all. The closets and cupboards were bare; there was even no toothbrush in the bathroom cabinet. After a hurried but thorough inspection, during which doorknobs and drawer pulls were touched only with gloves, the manager stated that every article in the place was the property of his employers.

  Damon scowled at a detective: “Get busy. Fox and I’ll go down and ask foolish questions.”

  In the manager’s office at the rear of the lobby the staff was collected and tackled again, but nothing new was learned of Mrs. Harriet Piscus. None of them had ever seen her without the veil. None had ever suspected she was a man, though now they admitted it was quite possible—she walked like one and she had big feet. She always arrived in a taxi.… She never phoned from her apartment or was called there.… No mail ever came for her and no packages were delivered.…

  Shortly after the assemblage was dismissed the detectives came downstairs and reported: “Not a damn thing. Not a scrap. Not a single print on anything anywhere.”

  Fox grunted, “Gone for the duration.”

  “And now,” Damon said bitterly, “the police will investigate. We’ll find taxi drivers who picked her up in front of the Public Library. Fine. After losing a night’s sleep what do I know that I didn’t know before? That Piscus means fish.”

  “Oh, I know more than that,” Fox declared. “Lots more. For example, that fish have gills. As in Ted Gill. Or that Dolphie or Dolphin is a common diminutive for men named Adolph, and a dolphin is a fish—”

  “Nuts,” Damon said, and stamped out.

  Chapter 15

  For three days a hundred detectives plodded or darted around, as their various natures impelled them, in a dogged and desperate search for the spoor of Mr. Fish—or rather, of Mrs. Harriet Piscus. They found traces but no trail. A dozen taxi drivers were unearthed who had picked up a person in female clothing, wearing a mourning veil, and driven her to the Bolton Apartments. The pickups had all been in the midtown section, mostly, it appeared, near subway kiosks. All efforts to back-trail had failed. Another trace was discovered at the address on 51st Street where Fox had gone Monday night expecting to occupy a bed and had found that Perry Dunham’s apartment had been visited by a hurricane. On that afternoon, Monday, the elevator had had a passenger meeting the specifications; the operator remembered it because the passenger had alighted at the third floor, where a small salon had a showing of racing prints, and he had thought it odd that a woman in mourning should be out after pictures of race horses. To walk upstairs from the third to the sixth would have been simple, though there would still have remained the detail of getting into the Dunham apartment.

  The third and last race, though a dead end like the others, was the most significant of all—at least to Tecumseh Fox, when Inspector Damon told him about it. With stubborn and inexhaustible patience a squad had been assigned to recheck recent sales of potassium cya
nide, and had learned that on Monday morning a clerk at Dickson’s, the wholesale chemists on Second Avenue, had sold 500 cubic centimeters of oil of mirbane to a big woman with a squeaky voice wearing a mourning veil.

  Damon was half frantic. “It was her,” he declared with gloomy conviction. “Don’t tell me it wasn’t!”

  “Him,” Fox corrected.

  “Okay, him! And he’s got it and he’s a murderer and he’s going to use it! You know what oil of mirbane is, it’s nitrobenzene, and it’s so deadly that if you just drop a spoonful on your skin …”

  Fox pretended to listen to a recital of the properties of nitrobenzene and the apprehensions of the inspector regarding the use Fish-Piscus intended to make of that particular bottle of it. He did not share the apprehensions, for he judged that it had taken all of 500 cubic centimeters to make the splash that had so narrowly missed him when he pushed Diego Zorilla’s door open Monday afternoon. But still he restrained the impulse to relieve the inspector’s mind, knowing that no subtlety or brutality of police technique could loosen Diego’s tongue.

  However, it was beginning to look as if Diego was the only hope. Fox had handed Mr. Fish over to the police because it was precisely the sort of thing their methods and equipment can handle vastly better than any private cleverness; and they had failed, which was astonishing. If Fish-Piscus was a man and a murderer, he was either the luckiest or the shrewdest one on the long list Fox had known.

  And Inspector Damon, in something approaching a panic at the news that Piscus, presumably in his proper and unknown guise, was freshly armed with a bottle of nitrobenzene, had lost his head. The preceding evening, Friday, he had gone to Garda Tusar and exposed his hand by making a direct attack. Garda had smilingly told him that she got phone calls from many people, but not, as far as she could remember, from anyone named Fish; Frida was always getting names wrong; surely she was not legally or morally obliged to justify her practice of giving her maid an afternoon off now and then; she had never seen or heard of Mrs. Harriet Piscus. She had few contacts with the other tenants.