Rex Stout_Tecumseh Fox 03 Read Online Free PDF

“No, it was simply stolen, that’s all. Though how and by whom …”
    “Yes, you might let me in on that,” Fox suggested.
    They were sitting in Rusterman’s Bar, having finally left Carnegie Hall around midnight. The last two hours there had been productive of no result whatever, except the negative one that Jan Tusar’s violin could not be found. There seemed to be no question that it had been in the dressing room immediately after Tusar had shot himself. Everyone denied having removed it or even touched it, but it was generally admitted that in the confusion and excitement it could easily have been taken without observation. A careful check had established with a fair amount of certainty that only three people had left the scene before the arrival of the captain: a Mrs. Briscoe, a Mr. Tillingsley, and Miss Hebe Heath. Men had been sent to interview them,and they had all denied any knowledge of the violin. It was true that there had been overcoats and women’s wraps around, under one of which the instrument could easily have been carried unseen, and any of those present might have been away for a few minutes without its being remarked, but a search of the entire building was fruitless.
    In the comfortable little booth at Rusterman’s, Diego had told Fox that of the three persons who had left the scene before the arrival of the police, Mrs. Briscoe was the lady whom Fox had characterized as a skeleton in sable and could be dismissed from consideration as a fiddle thief; Mr. Tillingsley was the concert master of the Manhattan Symphony Orchestra, equally above suspicion; and, though Hebe Heath was a movie star and therefore not subject to the normal processes of reason or logic, it seemed unlikely that she would steal a violin to the purchase of which she had contributed the substantial sum of two thousand, five hundred dollars.
    Fox inquired, “Is she also an admirer of the arts?”
    “She was an admirer of Jan Tusar,” said Diego in a certain tone. “Jan was a very romantic figure. He was, in fact, truly romantic—as he proved tonight. And as I am not. I am a realist. When my fingers were smashed in an accident and they had to go, taking the best of me with them, did I finish the job? Not me. I accepted your hospitality—your charity—and for months stayed at your place in the country, because a realist has to eat. Shall we have another drink? And now I arrange music for the Metropolitan Broadcasting Company.”
    “A lot of people listen to it. Anyhow, you’re all right. Tell me about some of those other people.”
    Diego told him. It was understood, he said, thatTusar had entertained the idea of marrying Dora Mowbray, but it had not been encouraged by Dora and had been unrelentingly opposed by her father. When, a few months ago, Lawton Mowbray had tumbled from his office window to his death, there had even been murmurs about the possibility that Jan Tusar had sent him on that last journey in order to remove an obstacle from the path of true love; but, Diego said, that had been merely a drop of acid from rumor’s unclean tongue, for Jan hadn’t been so romantic as all that. After an interval Dora had consented to act again as Jan’s accompanist; firstly, because Jan insisted that otherwise he could not play, and secondly, because she needed the money; for, though Lawton Mowbray had been an extremely successful manager of artists, he had spent more than he had made and had left nothing but debts, pleasant memories, and a penniless daughter.
    Fox remarked that young Mr. Dunham seemed to be on terms with Miss Mowbray.
    Diego snorted and said he hoped not. Perry Dunham was an arrogant young ape, incapable of appreciating one of so true a loveliness as little Dora. He called her “little Dora” because when he had first met her, six years ago, she had been only fourteen and had legs like a calf. Even now, he admitted, she lacked somewhat in roundness for a Spaniard’s taste, but she was undeniably lovely,