Free Rex Stout_Tecumseh Fox 02 by Bad for Business Page A

do you, Miss Yates?”
    She ignored the pleasantry. Having glanced at the clock, “It’s five minutes to one,” she stated, “and we’re going to start three mixers.”
    Fox looked surprised. “Today?”
    She nodded shortly. “Customers want their orders filled and people want to eat. Arthur would expect it. I told you yesterday, there hasn’t been an order go out of here a day late since I was put in charge twenty-six years ago.” Her voice had the timbre of pride. “If Arthur—” She stopped, and after a moment went on. “If he could send a message, I know what it would be. Stir the vats, pack the jars, fill the orders.”
    “Is that a sort of slogan?”
    Sol Fry abruptly pushed back his chair, arose, rumbled, “I’ll keep an eye on it,” and marched out.
    Miss Yates was on her feet.
    “This is pretty urgent, you know,” Fox remonstrated. “Miss Duncan is in a hole, and it may be a deep one, and time is important. If the quinine business furnished the motive for the murder, as you think, it’s all over now. Can’t you trust Mr. Fry? Do you have an idea he supplied the quinine?”
    “Him?” Miss Yates was contemptuous. “He would as soon put arsenic in his own soup as quinine in a Tingley jar. He may be a doddering old fool, but the only life he lives is here. That’s as true of him as it is of me.” She sat down, leveled her dark eyes at him, and said tersely, “I usually leave here at six o’clock. Arthur Tingley was always the last one out. Yesterday as I was leaving he called me into his office, as he has frequently done since this trouble started. He said sales had fallen off nearly one fourth, and if it kept up he didn’t see what could be done except to let P. & B. have it at their price. I said it was a shame and a crime if we couldn’t protect our produce from ruination by a bunch of crooks. All he wanted was bucking up, and I bucked him up. I left at a quarter after six and went home to my apartment on 23rd Street, only seven minutes’ walk from here. I took off my hat and coat and rubbers and put my umbrella in the bathtub to drain—”
    “Thank you, Miss Yates, but I didn’t ask for—”
    “Very well. The police did,” she said grimly, “and I thought you might like to know what they do. Usually I have dinner at Bellino’s on 23rd Street, but it was raining and I was tired and dispirited, and I went home and ate sardines and cheese. At eight o’clock a friend of mine, Miss Cynthia Harley, came to playcribbage, which we do Tuesdays and Fridays, and stayed until half past ten. What else do you want me to tell you?”
    “Cribbage?”
    Her brows lifted. “Is anything wrong with cribbage?”
    “Not at all.” Fox smiled at her. “Only I am impressed at the pervasiveness of the Tingley spirit. Tell me, Miss Yates, who in this place dislikes Miss Duncan?”
    “No one does that I know of, except Arthur Tingley. He did.”
    “The quarrel, I believe, when she left here, was about an employee who got into trouble and Tingley fired her.”
    Miss Yates nodded. “That was the final quarrel. They never did get along. For one thing, Amy was always standing up for Phil.”
    “His son Phil?”
    “His adopted son. Phil’s not a Tingley.”
    “Oh, I didn’t know that. Adopted recently?”
    “No. Twenty-four years ago, when he was four years old.” Miss Yates stirred impatiently. “Are you expecting to help Amy by questions like this?”
    “I don’t know. I would like as much of the background as you’ll take time to give me. Wasn’t Tingley married?”
    “Yes. But his wife died in childbirth and a year later he adopted Phil.”
    “Do you know who Phil’s parents were?”
    “No, but I know he came from some home up in the country somewhere.”
    “You said Miss Duncan was always standing up for him. Did he need standing up for?”
    Miss Yates snorted. “He not only did, he does, and he always will. He’s not a Tingley. He’s an anarchist.”
    “Really? I thought