Rex Stout - 1939 - The Mountain Cat Murders Read online

  “That’s right. She is. And I want to see her.”

  “She hasn’t made any mention of it.”

  “Maybe she hasn’t had a chance, with a stampede rushing her.”

  Ed Baker, Park County Attorney, smiled tolerantly. “She’s had plenty of chance to say anything she wants to. You’re not her counsel of record. Harvey Anson is.”

  “I’m her counsel.”

  “On this case? This murder charge?”

  “I’m her counsel. She came to my office just yesterday morning to consult me.”

  “So I understand. Was that when she asked you a question she had written on a piece of paper?”

  Dillon shook his head. “Privileged communication, Mr. Baker.”

  The county attorney shrugged. It might have ended there, with nothing more violent than a shrug, but for the interruption that suddenly interposed. The door was flung open and Lem Sammis entered on the charge. Behind him was Frank Phelan, chief of police, panting a little, and bringing up the rear was Harvey Anson, somehow keeping up with no appearance of precipitancy.

  Sammis got to the center of the room, glared around, and picked on Ed Baker. His lower jaw was set a full half inch to the left. “What the hell do you mean phoning Anson to ask by what authority he is representing Delia Brand?”

  The county attorney met the glare manfully, but he stuttered a little. “I t-t-told Anson on the phone. There seems to be a little mix-up. Young Dillon here says he is Delia Brand’s counsel.”

  “Bah!” Sammis whirled. “I don’t know you. Who are you?”

  “I’m a lawyer. Tyler Dillon. I came from the coast two years ago and I’m with Escott, Brody and Dillon.”

  “What are you doing here? Cough it up! What is it, Phil Escott trying to horn in or Ed Baker here trying some trick riding?”

  “Neither one. I’m Miss Brand’s counsel, that’s all.”

  “Who says so?”

  “I do.”

  Sammis snorted contemptuously. “I knew a man once that said he was a grizzly bear with cubs. Get out of here! Get out of this courthouse and stay out! Vamoose!”

  “This courthouse,” said Dillon firmly, “belongs to the people of the County of Park and you’re only one of them. I’m aware that I may be required to furnish confirmation of my statement that I am Delia Brand’s counsel. I suggest that you ask her sister here.”

  His eyes, turned to Clara, were appealing, even desperate. But it was too much to expect of her. Lem Sammis’s eyes were on her too, gleaming from behind their ramparts, and all her twenty-four years had been lived in the domain of which he was the uncrowned monarch. He growled, “You gone crazy or something, Clara?”

  “No—I …” She swallowed. “I don’t know anything about it. I only know what he told me this morning. I know he’s a friend of Delia’s—”

  “Friend hell!” Sammis wheeled. “Get out before I kick you out, and I can still do it!”

  Dillon’s face was pale, but with his feet planted he said resolutely, “I demand to see Delia Brand! I demand—”

  Sammis started for him. Others moved too, but not eagerly, for the complications of trying to stop Lem Sammis on the warpath had been demonstrated on various occasions. There was a general expression of relief when it was seen that a figure had got squarely between the old man and the young one. It was Harvey Anson, himself close to Sammis’s age. With his hand raised, not belligerently, to the level of Sammis’s advancing chest, he allowed his thin lips to emit words:

  “Wait, Lem. No use of all this. This young fellow looks like a good honest boy, even if his name is on Phil Escott’s door.” Having halted Sammis, he turned around. “So your name’s Tyler Dillon. I understand the sheriff and county attorney asked you some questions that had to do with Delia Brand and you refused to answer. That right?”

  “It is.”

  Anson nodded with a minimum of effort. “This morning Delia told me that she went to see you yesterday for legal advice. Naturally that made you her counsel.”

  “That’s what I say, I’m her counsel.”

  “Of course you are. But do you say that she specifically engaged you to defend her on this murder charge?”

  “How could she?” Dillon was truculent. “There hadn’t been any murder—”

  “Did she?”

  “No.”

  “Has anyone?”

  “Not yet.”

  Anson smiled the ghost of a smile. “Then it’s quite simple. There’s no occasion for any fuss. You’re not defending her on the murder charge and you’re not going to. I am. But you are her counsel, you know in what connection, I don’t.” He turned to confront the county attorney and his voice, though it remained scanty as to volume, was suddenly full of bite. “Ed, have you ever tried reading any law? And would you like to see a list of the Bar Association members of the committee that deals with infractions of ethics like trying to coerce information from a counselor regarding a privileged communication? And would you like to get Washington on long distance, as you did at twenty minutes past four this morning, and ask Carlson what job he has to suggest for you in case you happen to lose the one you’ve got now?”

  Baker opened his mouth and shut it again.

  Tyler Dillon demanded of the room and all in it, “I want to see Delia Brand! I have a right to see her!”

  “Not now, my boy,” said Harvey Anson. “I’m sorry, but not just at present. Why don’t you drop in at my office this afternoon? Maybe we ought to have a little talk.”

  Dillon looked around at the faces and saw it was hopeless. There was no one there susceptible to any appeal or pressure within his power. Sammis was still choleric, Phelan was impotent, Tuttle was hostile, Baker was speechless and Anson was impervious. There was nothing he could do. He wanted most of all to see her; he had a feeling that if only he could see her, for a brief moment even, he would then be able to think of things and do them—startling and efficient and conclusive things. He had gone about it wrong, he saw that now, but he must and would see her.…

  He turned on his heel and left the room.

  Halfway down the gloomy basement corridor he heard quick light footsteps behind him and then was stopped by a hand on his arm.

  It was Clara.

  “I’m sorry, Ty,” she said, looking up at him. “I mean that I didn’t make good on what I said. But I didn’t know Mr. Sammis would be there and I just couldn’t. Anyway, it’s all right now, since they can’t question you about that paper.”

  “I hope to heaven it is,” he said morosely. “But I’ve got to see her. I’ve got to find out … and what are they going to do? What are they doing? Someone has to do something!”

  “They are. Surely they are.”

  “I wish I thought so. I’m going to the office and see Escott and put it up to him. He’s friendly with Baker and maybe he can arrange for me to see her. Do you want to come along?”

  “I guess I’ll go back home.”

  They were outside in the shaded areaway and were about to emerge into the sunshine. Two men and a woman stood at the foot of the stone steps, talking. There was an exchange of glances, and the men and Dillon lifted their hats. The woman left them and approached. The electronic dispersion seemed to work as well outdoors as within walls; it competed successfully even with the sunshine.

  “How do you do,” said Dillon as she got to them. “Have you met—”

  “Sure,” Wynne Cowles said brusquely. She passed him up for Clara. “You poor thing. Lord, what a mess! I was out at the ranch and slept late and didn’t hear about it until eleven o’clock. I couldn’t get you on the phone, so I drove in, and you weren’t home so I came here. They told me you were inside and I’ve been waiting. You poor kid!” Her strange eyes probably made a display of compassion impractical, but it was in her voice. “What can I do?”

  “Nothing,” said Clara. “There’s nothing you can do.”

  “But there must be. I’ve never seen a situation yet where money couldn’t do something. And
while I know you don’t want any charity, I would supply almost any amount, and call it a contribution to the public welfare, to keep that child from paying any price whatever for the removal of Dan Jackson.”

  “She didn’t remove him. She didn’t do it.”

  “No? Just as you say.” Wynne Cowles apparently allowed it as not worth arguing about. “But I mean it, Clara. Aren’t we partners? I’ll get a real lawyer from the coast, or the east, instead of one of these renovators—excuse it, Ty, my love, said only to offend—or I’ll buy a jury, I’ll buy the whole county which is nothing but volcano leavings anyhow, or I’ll round up a bunch of witnesses. I mean it. Anything.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Cowles, but—”

  “Make it Wynne. We’re partners, aren’t we? Or M.C., that’s what they call me at the ranch. Short for Mountain Cat.”

  “All right. But about being partners … I’m not sure—”

  “Why not? You were yesterday.”

  “Well—anyhow, it would have to wait.”

  “Wait for what?”

  “For this to be—my sister. I couldn’t discuss anything now—or start anything—”

  “You’re a softie, Clara. It will do you good to be doing something. Don’t worry about your sister, we’ll take care of her. She’s a nice kid. Saw her yesterday. You ought to snap out of it; you look and talk as if someone had blackjacked you. Let’s go over to my suite at the Fowler and have a cocktail and some lunch and get your mind started working. Or out to the ranch—it only takes forty minutes—”

  “I don’t want to go anywhere. Not today. I’m going home. Later I’m coming back here and see Delia.”

  “Then I’ll go home with you. Let me go home with you?”

  When they had settled for that, Dillon accompanied them to where Wynne Cowles’s long low convertible was parked before he headed for his office on Mountain Street. He hadn’t known that those two were acquainted and certainly not that they were partners.

  Chapter 7

  At The Haven gambling parlors in the old Sammis Building on Halley Street, which, in a halfhearted sort of way, opened for business before noon, the awning was left down until the sun’s angle had passed beyond the perpendicular of the building line. Around three o’clock an employee in shirt sleeves emerged from the door with a crank in his hand. Before applying the crank and winding up the awning, he directed a look of appraisal at a man who stood near the door, in a niche between two stone pilasters. There was nothing extraordinary about the man—middle-aged, shoulders a little stooped—though he differed from the normal by having two strips of adhesive tape extending down his right cheekbone from under the brim of his hat, and by possessing a mustache of a quite unusual color, almost a fawn. The employee, having finished his task, glanced sharply at the man again and then disappeared inside.

  In a few minutes the door opened again and the assistant manager of The Haven stepped out. With his habitual deadpan for a face, he went directly to the man in the niche and inquired, “You taking a census, brother?”

  The man grunted and said, “I’m looking for a friend.”

  “You must be pretty short on friends, with all the looking you’ve done. You were here when I came, nearly four hours ago, and you’re still here. Why don’t you try some other spot a while?”

  “I’m doing no harm. The sidewalk is public property.”

  “So it is. What does your friend look like?”

  The man with the mustache shook his head. The assistant manager eyed him a moment, then turned and strolled down the sidewalk some thirty paces until he met a policeman in uniform. They exchanged nods and the assistant manager asked, “Have you seen that bird with the handlebars taking root in front of my place?”

  “Sure I’ve seen him. All day. He says he’s looking for a friend.”

  “How about advising him to go look somewhere else?”

  “I suppose I could.” The cop grinned. “What’s the matter, you afraid he’s a G-man with a line on that two bits somebody lost?”

  The deadpan didn’t respond to the grin. “I just don’t like it how patient he is. With Jackson murdered upstairs last night, the place has had enough of the wrong kind of advertising. One reason I asked, I thought maybe he was a gumshoe working on the murder.”

  The cop shook his head. “Not a member of this club. He don’t look ferocious. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

  The assistant manager, accepting that assurance, retraced his steps, re-entered The Haven and resumed his duties in the service of society. The cop sauntered after him, keeping close to the buildings for shade, approached the man in the niche and inquired casually, “Your friend show up yet?”

  “Not yet. Thanks.”

  The cop sauntered on.

  Thirty minutes later, when the little disturbance occurred, the cop was across the street listening to a man cussing at a flat tire and therefore missed the preamble of the brief climax to the man’s long vigil. It was all over in no time at all. The man with the mustache suddenly and abruptly left his niche, moving to intercept a husky-looking young man, rather shabbily dressed, who, coming along the sidewalk from the north, had altered his course with the evident intention of entering The Haven.

  The man with the mustache, blocking the young man’s path, said urgently, “I want a talk with you, young fellow. There’ll be a reward in it. Now don’t start—”

  The young man shied back, ready, it appeared, to bolt. The man with the mustache sprang and seized his arm, getting a good grip. The young man’s right fist swung and landed square on the other’s jaw. The man with the mustache dropped to the concrete, rolling, and his assailant leaped back, wheeled and scooted like a deer down the sidewalk, nearly knocking a woman over, swerving to disappear into a narrow alley forty feet away.

  Passersby collected and one of them stooped to give the fallen man a hand. Disregarding it, he scrambled to his feet, looked around with glassy eyes, and demanded, “Where is he? Which way did he go?”

  A dozen voices answered him at once. The cop, having trotted across the street, took him by the elbow and observed sarcastically, “A swell friend that was you were looking for. Come along with me.”

  “He got away! I’ve got to catch him!”

  “We’ll catch one at a time, starting with you. Come along.”

  “You damned fool!” The man grimaced, worked his jaw, and grimaced again. “You know me! I’m Quinby Pellett!”

  “Yeah? Where’d you get the lip grass?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” The man took hold of his mustache and gave it a jerk, and it was gone. “Which way did he go, damn it? I have to find him!”

  “He’s out in the sagebrush by now.” The cop had released the elbow, but he looked neither sympathetic nor amused. “What’s the idea of the handmade tassel?—Hey, wait a minute, where you going?”

  “None of your business! Turn loose of me! I’m going to see Frank Phelan.”

  “Okay. Come on, folks, let us by, open up there! I think I’d better go along, Mr. Pellett. If you happened to run across any more friends of yours on the way, you might not make it.”

  Quinby Pellett offered no objection as the policeman climbed in beside him on the seat of his dilapidated coupé, parked around the corner on Garfield Street. He got into the channel of the traffic stream and drove with the apparent assumption that he was an ambulance.

  “You know, I could give you a ticket anyway, sitting right here,” the cop observed.

  Pellett stopped working his jaw long enough to grunt.

  They went to the police station, and were informed that the chief was out and might be at the courthouse. Upon Pellett’s refusal to converse with the lieutenant in charge, a phone call to the courthouse got the information that Phelan was there in the sheriff’s office, so they returned to the coupé and drove to the courthouse, missing fenders by inches on the way. They tramped down the dim basement corridor. The man in the anteroom told them the chief and the sheriff were busy and they would have to wai
t; then, obviously impressed by Pellett’s violent reaction, used the phone, nodded toward the rear, and told them to go on in.

  Bill Tuttle was seated at his desk. Two men who looked like detectives, which was what they were, stood at the opposite side of the desk. Phelan, in a chair not far from Tuttle, frowning at the newcomers as they entered, spoke:

  “Hello, Quin. What’s on your mind?”

  The cop put in, “First I think I ought to tell you, Chief. He’s been standing all day in front of The Haven, wearing a phony mustache, looking for a friend, he said—”

  “Go on and chew the rag while he digs himself a hole,” Pellett said bitterly.

  “Spill it, Quin, we’re busy. Who’s digging a hole?”

  “A man I tried to collar. By this time he’s to hell and gone for the hills.”

  “Not him,” said the cop scornfully. “That bum wouldn’t get more than a mile from a pavement—”

  “What bum?”

  “The one that socked you. Al Rowley, his name is.”

  Pellett gaped. “Do you mean to say you know him?”

  “Sure I know him. He’s one of those—”

  “Then find him! Get him!”

  “That wouldn’t be—”

  “Get him, damn it!”

  “Keep your shirt on, Quin.” Phelan sounded impatient. “If the boys know him they can get him. Then what do they do with him?”

  Pellett went to a chair and sat. “Listen, Frank. I’ll tell you about it. But first tell them to get that man. Have you ever known me to take a fool hen for a grouse? Tell them to get him.”

  Phelan turned. “Who is he, Tom?”

  “His name’s Al Rowley,” said the cop. “He came in with that carnival last year, the one that busted, and he’s been hanging around ever since, mostly at one of the joints on Bucket Street. Every once in a while he gets ahold of a buck, I don’t know how, and makes a deposit at The Haven.”