Bad for Business

She passed it across to Fry and surveyed Fox with a noncommittal stare. “So,” she observed, “it was Amy that sent you here yesterday.”

“In a way, yes.” Fox pulled a third chair closer and sat down. “Her, plus my impertinent curiosity. But I’m no longer curious about the quinine, unless it appears that there’s some connection between that and Tingley’s death.”

“I don’t think so,” said Fry.

“I do,” said Miss Yates. “Why does Amy need your help?”

“Because of the circumstances, which the police regard as suspicious. She was there — she discovered the body—”

“Nonsense. Anyone who thinks Amy Duncan could have murdered her uncle — what motive did she have?”

“That’s the question they’re asking — beyond the fact that she didn’t like him and had quarreled with him. But also, her fingerprints were on the handle of the knife that cut his throat.”

They both stared. Sol Fry said, “My heavens!” Miss Yates snorted, “Who said so?”

“Oh, they’re there all right,” Fox asserted. “That’s well outside the limits of police technique in a case like this. Of course they’re aware that there’s more than one way the prints could have got there, but it goes to explain why Miss Duncan needs a little help. Will you folks tell me a few things?”

“There’s nothing I can tell you,” Fry declared. “This thing is a black mystery.”

“We’ll brighten it up a bit,” Fox smiled at him, “before we’re through with it. Of course you’ve already told the police where you were yesterday from 5:45 to 8:15 P.M.”

“I have.”

“Would you mind telling me?”

“I mind it, yes, because I mind everything about it, but I’ll tell you. I left here a few minutes after five and went to 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue to look at a radio I had seen advertised. I listened to it an hour and didn’t like it. Then I walked to the 23rd Street ferry and crossed the river to my home in Jersey City. I got home about a quarter to eight and ate supper alone because my wife is an invalid and had already had hers. I went to bed at ten o’clock and had been asleep nearly two hours when you telephoned—”

“I’m sorry I woke you up, Mr. Fry. I apologize. I should think the tube would be much faster than the ferry.”

“The police do too,” Fry growled. “And I don’t care what you think any more than I do what they think. I’ve been taking the ferry for forty-five years and it’s fast enough for me.”

“That’s the Tingley spirit, all right,” Fox agreed. He turned. “You don’t have to monkey with ferries, 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—”