Rex Stout_Tecumseh Fox 03 Read Free Page B

about Tusar?” Fox demanded.
    “I don’t know.”
    “Will he try to finish?”
    “I don’t know. I tell you I don’t understand it.”
    “Neither do I, but I’d like to. I thought it was funk, but you say it wasn’t. Let’s go back and see him. And his violin.”
    “It won’t do any good. It’s all over for this time. Half of the audience has gone home. Anyway, he can’t fight any harder than he did.” Diego shuddered. “I wouldn’t go through that again for a finger.”
    But Fox insisted, and urged the necessity for haste if they were to get backstage before the end of the intermission. He paid for the drinks and hurried out, with the other still reluctant beside him. As they passed the front of the hall on their way to the corner, people were straggling down the steep steps from the entrance, hatted and wrapped, obviously with no intention of returning.
    There was no one to challenge them at the stage door, which would have been remarkable if they hadbeen in a mood to remark on such an irregularity. They climbed steps, passed along a corridor, turned a couple of corners, crossed a large room cluttered with everything from bunting to sawhorses, and opened a door.
    There had been a dozen people there before; now there were twice as many. And if before the atmosphere had been one of tense and nervous expectation, it was now, to Fox’s swift encompassing glance, one of shocked incredulous horror. The only faces that did not share it were those of two policemen in uniform who stood with their backs to the wall, one on each side of the door to the dressing room, which was closed. Nearest to Fox and Diego was Adolph Koch, seated on the edge of a wooden chair, as elegant as ever except that he was breathing with his mouth open. Diego confronted him and demanded:
    “What is it?”
    “What?” Koch lifted his head. “Oh. Jan. Committed suicide. Shot himself.”

Chapter 2

    O ne of the policemen tramped over and inquired, “How did you fellows get in here? Isn’t there a man out there?”
    Diego turned to look at him, but couldn’t speak.
    “It’s all right,” Fox told him. “We came by the stage door. We belong.”
    “Belong to what?”
    “They’re friends of Mr. Tusar’s,” said Koch, and the policeman nodded and let it go.
    Diego stood staring at the dressing-room door, his face contorted like a man trying to lift something too heavy for him.
    Fox sidled to a corner and surveyed the scene. He did that both from instinct and from habit. He had at one time regarded that diathesis as a defect of his organism, and still was not fond of it, but an extended and sometimes painful experience had forced him to accept the fact. Events and situations which caused the blood of most people to rush in hot torrents, or froze it in their veins, merely turned him into an instrument of precision for record and appraisal. Whether he liked it or not, that was perforce his functionin the face of tragedy, while others might lament or console or collapse.
    Of those visible, none had collapsed. They were here and there in pairs and groups, gazing silently at the door of the dressing room or murmuring in hushed tones. A woman was trying not to giggle, and a man and another woman were gripping her arm and telling her to stop. Felix Beck, Jan Tusar’s teacher, was pacing up and down, washing his hands in air. Diego Zorilla, having found speech, was talking with Adolph Koch. Hebe Heath was not to be seen, but the young man who had been in the dressing room with her previously, whom Diego had not known, was standing across the room with his hands in his pockets, and Fox noted that he also seemed to fancy himself as a recording and appraising instrument. Then Fox frowned, moved involuntarily, and stopped again, as his gaze was directed at Dora Mowbray. She was on a chair by the opposite wall, and on her face, no longer white but a sickly gray, there was no expression whatever or sign that she was hearing the words being