Free Rex Stout_Tecumseh Fox 01 by Double for Death Page B

minutes past seven when the truck stopped atthe curb on East 67th Street and Fox jumped to the sidewalk, walked around the corner to Park Avenue and entered an apartment palace, and asked to be announced to Miss Duke. The functionary stared in amazement at a creature who called on people in the middle of the night, but used the phone; and since Fox had already telephoned en route and so was expected, in a moment he was motioned to the elevator.
    To the woman who opened the door of Apartment H on the twelfth floor he said with his hat off: “Good morning, Miss Duke, I’m Tecumseh Fox. Here’s the note.”
    Without saying anything she took the sheet of paper, a page torn from Kester’s memo book bearing Thorpe’s scribble, read it twice, held it an angle for better light to inspect the writing and said huskily: “Come in.”
    The door closed, she was starting to lead the way to an inner room when Fox’s voice stopped her. “This will do, Miss Duke. I’m in a hurry.” He had already seen what there was to see: a woman of thirty and something got out of bed too early, distress and anxiety pulling at her face to make wrinkles, but displaying to a penetrating eye characteristics which might conceivably render a wilderness, if not sweet, at least tolerable. Under more favorable circumstances, he thought, homage might have needed no lift from charity.
    “Where is Mr…. Mr. Byron?” she demanded.
    “Mr. Thorpe’s all right,” Fox said. “You told me on the phone you’re alone here?”
    “I am.”
    “Good. I’d destroy that note if I were you. I’d like to know, when did Mr. Thorpe arrive at the cottage at Triangle Beach for the weekend?”
    “Friday evening. So did I.”
    “When did he leave?”
    “I don’t know. I came—he sent me away yesterday morning. He was still there when I left.”
    “Were Luke Wheer and Vaughn Kester there?”
    “Yes. They came late Sunday night, to tell him—” Her hand fluttered in appeal. “But where is he? What’s going to happen? For God’s sake—”
    “He’s all right. Don’t worry, Miss Duke. We’ll handle it. Was Thorpe with you at the cottage continuously from Friday evening until Sunday midnight?”
    “Yes, he—” She stopped and her eyes narrowed.
    “Why do you ask a question like that if—”
    “If I’m working for him? Because no matter who I’m working for I have to be sure of the facts. Don’t waste valuable time suspecting me. Was he?”
    “Yes.”
    “He didn’t go away at all?”
    “We went for a ride and to the movies at the village. He didn’t go away from me, not for five minutes.”
    “Thank you. Now what I really came for, do you know where your father is?”
    “My father?” She gawked at him. “My
father
?”
    Fox nodded. “Mr. Henry Jordan. Now take it easy, you’re jumpy. Thorpe says in that note that you are to answer my questions. We want to find your father because we need his help. Thorpe will explain when he sees you—or you’ll read it in the papers—I haven’t time now. Do you know where he is?”
    “But, good Lord—”
    “Do you?”
    “No.”
    “Do you know whether he spent the weekend on his boat?”
    “No. I know he’s on it most of the time. Weekends are the same as week-middles to him since he retired. I expect he was—”
    “Where does he go on the boat?”
    “Lord, I don’t know. Around on the water.”
    “Where does he keep it?”
    “I don’t know that either, but I suppose somewhere near his house. He lives in a little house at City Island. I suppose somewhere on the ocean—”
    “City Island isn’t on the ocean, it’s on the sound.”
    “Well, then, on the sound. That’s all I know—but I can give you the address of his house. Wait a minute, I’ll get it.”
    She disappeared within, and in a few moments came back and handed Fox a slip of paper. “That’s the address. He hasn’t any phone.”
    “Thank you very much. No, Miss Duke, I can’t tell you a thing. But don’t worry. Go to