Double for Death [Paperback]

Tecumseh Fox has a sharp eye for solving murders—but this time he’s seeing double. Fox has been hired by the headstrong niece of a man charged in the shooting of wealthy financier Ridley Thorpe. The problem is that there are two gorgeous suspects, two powerful motives, two hotheaded suitors, and two murder weapons. And to top it off, Ridley Thorpe, or someone claiming to be him, is not only alive and well but has an airtight alibit for the night of the shooting. Only one thing is certain: Fox doesn’t have long to put two and two together before the real killer strikes again.Rex Stout(1886–1975) wrote dozens of short stories, novellas, and full-length mystery novels, most featuring his two indelible characters, the peerless detective Nero Wolfe and his handy sidekick, Archie Goodwin.Chapter 1
 
A man, with brown cheeks smoothly shaven and wearing a clean denim shirt because it was Monday morning, chaperoning his herd of Jerseys across the paved road from the barn side to the pasture side, saw a car coming and cussed. With any driver whatever the car would make his cows nervous; and if bad luck made it a certain kind of weekend driver from New York, which was only fifty miles to the south, there was no telling what might happen. He stood in the middle of the road and glared at the approaching demon, then felt easier as he saw it was slowing down and still easier when it crept, circling for a six-foot clearance past Jennifer’s indifferent rump. When it stopped completely, so close alongside that he could have reached out and touched the door handle, the last shred of his irritation was dissolved, for he was by no means so hopelessly committed to cows that he didn’t know a pretty girl when he saw one. He even saw, before she spoke, the flecks of ochre that warmed her troubled grey eyes, though she spoke at once.
 
“Please, am I going right for the Fox place?”
 
He grunted and crinklelc4