Hanged for a Sheep Page 18

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Weigand said. “Probably we’ll be seeing you.”

  “Don’t forget,” Dr. Buddie advised him. “I wouldn’t use arsenic—slow and uncertain. To say nothing of being needlessly painful for the patient. Keep you from running off at a tangent.”

  “It takes all the running I can do to stay in the same place,” Weigand told him, gravely. He went out, with Mullins behind him, while Dr. Buddie recognized the paraphrase and made sounds of discontent. The receptionist looked at them with hostility and did not speak.

  “Bye, toots,” Mullins said. She still did not speak. Weigand, leading the way to the car, decided that this was fortunate.

  Driving the few blocks to the Buddie house, Weigand pulled into the curb in front of a cigar store. He left Mullins in the car, with the motor running, and went to a telephone booth. He deposited a nickel, dialed the operator, gave his number and got his nickel back. The sergeant on duty told him a message had just come through from Washington, and read it. Weigand said, “Yeh, I thought so. Thanks” and hung up. He went back to the car and drove on, over the rutted snow, to the Buddie house. Just as he stopped in front of it, snow began falling again.

  Weigand, sitting in the library with Mullins, waited for Benjamin Craig, who sent word that he was just finishing breakfast. He was, Weigand decided, making the best of his enforced holiday from the bank. There was time while they waited for two visitors. Nemo honored them first, with long ears flopping as he advanced and an expression of beatific enjoyment as he sniffed Weigand’s trousers. He found them delicious and had no reticence in his approval; there was, clearly, a fascinating odor which it was sheer, exciting happiness to investigate. Weigand was slightly embarrassed; remembered Pam’s cats and was reassured. Nemo, it could be assumed—it was comforting to assume—smelled nothing more outrageous than cats. Nemo went to Mullins and was less rewarded. He turned, without comment, and trotted out.

  “You don’t smell good,” Weigand told Mullins. “I smell very good.”

  Mullins was arranging his thoughts for an answer when Major Buddie came in. He came in bristling and he did not seem as pleased with Weigand as had Nemo. His ears did not flap, but his eyebrows bristled. He said: “Young man!”

  “Yes,” Weigand said, assuming that the major meant him, and mildly gratified. He didn’t, he assumed, have many more years of being called “young man,” even as a reproach.

  “Damned nonsense!” the major told him. “Some man of yours says I can’t leave. Eh? Got my duties, Lieutenant! Can’t have this sort of nonsense, you know. War on. Eh?”

  “Right,” Weigand said. “I can’t keep you, Major. You’re perfectly free to go, if you want to. I’ll have to have a man go with you, of course. Wherever you go. Just a matter of routine, but I have to be able to get in touch with you if it becomes necessary.”

  “Eh?” the major said. He looked a little deflated. “Mean to say you’d have a man following me all over the post? Look damned silly.”

  “Yes,” Weigand said, “I suppose it would. But the alternative is for you to stay here—I hope not for much longer.”

  “I could have him kept out, you know,” the major said, thoughtfully. “He’d be a civilian, of course. Eh? Couldn’t wander all over the place, you know—couldn’t have that.”

  Weigand looked up at the major, who stood and bristled quietly.

  “Yes, there’s that,” Weigand said. “You could try, anyway. You could report that the police were following you, in connection with a murder case, and that you found this annoying. That might hold us up—until we got an order. But I’d think you’d find that rather embarrassing, too. Right?”

  The major bristled down at Weigand, who continued to smile.

  “Think you’ve got me, eh?” the major demanded. He stared at Weigand and then a smile broke fitfully on his face. “Maybe you have at that, Lieutenant. Won’t be long, you say?”

  Weigand said he hoped not. He couldn’t promise, but he hoped not.

  “On to something, eh?” the major said. He sounded interested. “Think you’re getting somewhere?”

  Weigand shook his head, still smiling. He said that, obviously, the major did not really expect him to answer that. The major thought it over a moment, and nodded.

  “Well,” he said. “Get on with it, eh? There’s a war on.”

  Weigand nodded and the major, after another stare—but this time not a belligerent stare—turned in military formation and made for the door. In it he met his half-brother, Ben Craig, and made a sound which sounded like “Huh!” The major went on. Ben Craig came in and said “good morning” pleasantly, and sat where he was told to sit. Weigand stood up and half sat on the edge of a table and looked down at him.

  “You told me, Mr. Craig, that you were a yeoman in the Navy,” he said. “Didn’t you?”

  Ben Craig was comfortable. He began to make designs with his fingers, and to look at Weigand as if the detective were being considered for a loan. Then he nodded and said “yes.”

  “But you didn’t tell me that you enlisted as a seaman,” Weigand said, flatly. “You were transferred to yeoman at the end of three months. Right?”

  Craig seemed faintly puzzled, but he remained polite.

  “That is quite true, Lieutenant,” he said. “I enlisted as a seaman in the U.S.N.R.F. ‘Seaman for yeoman’ they called it, or some such thing. After a few months—three is probably right—I was transferred. But why does it interest you?”

  “I take it,” Weigand told him, “that you’re saying you don’t know why it interests me?”

  Craig made another design with his fingers, contemplated it, and shook his head.

  “I’m not good at guessing, Lieutenant,” he said. “It’s a little hard to see what all this ancient history—” He broke off and folded his hands. It was as if he had snapped his fingers. “Of course,” he said. “How obvious, when you think of it. Perkins was hanged. To hang him, somebody had to make a noose. Somebody made a noose expertly, or at least as if he had had training in tying knots. Now let’s see—a bowline would be simplest, wouldn’t it, Lieutenant? Somebody tied a bowline in the leash and hanged Perkins. And I was in the Navy.”

  He smiled up at the lieutenant and seemed pleased.

  “But really, Lieutenant,” he said. “How—how obvious. I was in the Navy and presumably learned something about knots when I was training; presumably learned how to tie a bowline. And so when a bowline shows up, I’m your man. Is detecting always so easy?”

  He seemed honestly amused, and a little, politely, jeering.

  “No,” Weigand told him. “Only the easy things are easy, Mr. Craig. Like, for example—why did you let me infer that you had been only a yeoman—a clerk—and never learned anything about knots? The easy answer is: You thought the bowline would give you away and that you could get away by implying that you didn’t know anything about knots. You thought the bowline would give you away because you knew a bowline had been used. You knew that; since nobody had told you, because you had tied it. See how simple detecting is, Mr. Craig?”

  Weigand’s voice was placid, as of a professor expounding an academic theory. Craig made steeples with his fingers and nodded over them.

  “Precisely,” he said. “And the alternative is equally simple. I did not tie the bowline and knew nothing about it. Your question meant nothing to me when you asked it, and I answered what first came into my mind. I said, yes, I had been in the Navy. I added—in order not to appear heroic—that I had been a yeoman. It didn’t occur to me that you would try to make anything of it. If it had I would, assuming you would investigate, have been more detailed in my answer. Right? As you would say?”

  Weigand nodded, pleasantly. He agreed that this version was equally probable. He smiled down at Craig, and seemed to appreciate him, and Craig looked at his fingers and appreciated himself.

  “Now,” Weigand said, “about the bottle—this bottle.”

  He took the little green bottle from his
pocket and held it out, cupped in his hand. Craig glanced at it, and the glance seemed to be enough. His face sobered and he nodded slowly and his hands went out to grasp the arms of the chair. He did not shift his body, but after a moment he looked up at the lieutenant.

  “So you found it,” he said. “I expected you would. And so now—now you know. Or—” Then his face lightened up, as if he had suddenly thought of a pleasant possibility.

  “Is the arsenic in it, Lieutenant?” he said. His voice was anxious. He read the answer, it seemed, before it was spoken, and his face fell.

  “Yes,” Weigand said. “There’s arsenic in it, Craig.”

  Craig’s body seemed to slump and his voice, when he spoke, was tired and hopeless.

  “Then I poisoned her,” he said. “I poisoned mother. I kept hoping—”

  Mullins started up and came over to Craig.

  “You admit it?” Mullins said. His voice was rough, but it held surprise. “So you tried to kill her?”

  Mullins stood over Craig and stared down at him. Then he looked to Weigand, and his expression was one of triumph, but still tinged with puzzlement. He looked to Weigand for instructions. Weigand looked down at Craig and his expression was one of interest. He intercepted Mullins’s enquiry and moved his head slightly, directing Mullins back to his chair.

  “Are you confessing, Craig?” he asked. His voice was unexpectedly gentle and—wary. Mullins could hear the wariness in the lieutenant’s tone.

  “Yes,” Craig said. “You can call it that. I gave her the poison.”

  “Why?” Weigand said. The question seemed not to pierce Craig’s preoccupation. “Why?” Weigand repeated.

  “What?” Craig asked. His mind seemed a long way off. Then it came back. “‘Why’?” he repeated. Then the implication seemed to make itself felt. He shook his head, almost with animation.

  “You’ve got it wrong,” he said. “I didn’t plan it—I didn’t know I was poisoning her. But I gave her the poison. I poured it out of the bottle and mixed the dose and handed it to her. Isn’t that enough?”

  The question had the sound of an entreaty.

  “You mean to say,” Weigand asked, “that all you did was to prepare the salts for her? Innocently? Not knowing there was any poison in them?”

  “Of course,” Craig said. “Somebody else tried to poison her. But they used me. My God, man, isn’t that enough?”

  Weigand looked down at him, and he seemed to be studying him.

  “Well,” he said, “no. Not in our sense. If you administered poison unintentionally, you’ve done nothing illegal. And nothing wrong. You don’t even have to reproach yourself.”

  “But my own mother,” Craig insisted. He seemed to be seeking blame. “Think of it, Lieutenant! My own mother—and I gave her poison. How would you feel?”

  “Unhappy, certainly,” Weigand said. “But not—guilty. If it is as you say, you had no way of knowing. If it’s as you say.”

  The repetition arrested Craig’s attention, distracting him from his own unhappy thoughts. But he did not seem surprised.

  “Naturally,” he said. “You don’t believe me. I gave the poison. I wouldn’t expect you to go back of that. I suppose—fingerprints?”

  “Yes,” Weigand said. “Your prints are on the bottle, Mr. Craig. We knew you had given the salts—as you might have guessed we would.”

  “Yes,” Craig said. “Of course they would be on it—I handled it. But I didn’t fill it. Why should I?”

  Weigand shrugged.

  “Why try to kill your mother, you mean?” he asked. “Well—for her money, Mr. Craig. To get your share. Perhaps you were in a hurry for it.”

  Craig did not seem horrified at the suggestion; he seemed to have been expecting it. He nodded.

  “Of course,” he said. “It’s all there—opportunity, motive—everything you need. And I didn’t do it. I swear I didn’t. Somebody—but what’s the use? Everybody says that, I suppose.”

  Weigand nodded slowly.

  “That they were framed,” he amplified. “Right—they do, often. Is that your story?”

  Craig’s shoulders dropped, hopelessly.

  “That’s what happened,” he said. “That’s what must have happened. But you won’t believe it. Unless—” He broke off, and seemed to be thinking. Thought apparently brought a ray of hope.

  “Listen,” he said. “Just my fingerprints. Doesn’t that prove it? Wouldn’t there have been mine—and somebody else’s? If I’d known what was in the bottle, wouldn’t I have rubbed my prints off? If there were any prints, wouldn’t there have been a lot?”

  Weigand looked down at Craig, curiously. The detective’s fingers, reaching out to rest on the table top, began a slow, rhythmic patting of the surface. Finally he nodded.

  “You have a point there, Craig,” he said. “I wondered if you’d think of it. You suggest that the real poisoner—the one who put the arsenic in the bottle—wiped off his own prints, and any others which might have been there, and left the bottle clean for your prints?”

  “Yes,” Craig said. He sounded eager, now. “He did that—before he sent it to me. And then nobody touched it but me. That’s what happened, Lieutenant.” He searched the lieutenant’s face, and his own fell. “But you don’t believe me,” he said. “I knew you wouldn’t. I hoped the bottle would never be found. Then I could have lied and—fooled him. Because mother didn’t remember!”

  Weigand was interested. What didn’t she remember?

  She didn’t, Craig explained, remember who had prepared the dose of salts that morning. To be sure of that, Craig had tried to help her remember—or pretended to—meanwhile denying by implication that he had prepared the dose himself. He was convinced that she now would never remember. But, meanwhile, the bottle had disappeared. Craig was terrified by this. Convinced that the bottle with his prints upon it would point straight to him as the poisoner, that his previous silence would count against him, that the police would never believe his story of a frame-up—he had searched desperately for the bottle for days. He had begun to hope that it had been thrown away, and that he was wrong in thinking the real murderer had taken it, to be used against him if it became necessary. And now—here it was.

  “Who gave it to you?” he demanded. “The man who gave it to you planned to kill mother. And to make you believe I had done it. Who gave it to you?”

  Weigand shook his head. It wasn’t, he said, as simple as that. Assuming Craig was telling the truth, it wasn’t that simple.

  “We found the bottle,” he said. “Nobody gave it to us. But—I may as well tell you this—we think that Perkins had it for a while. Probably until shortly before he was killed.”

  Craig seemed utterly astonished. His eyes opened and his hands again parted company and sought the security of the chair’s arms.

  “Perkins?” he repeated. “Perkins? But that can’t be. It—it doesn’t fit.”

  “Why?” Weigand wanted to know.

  Craig seemed to be fighting a point out in his mind. His fingers formed a bridge over nothing and he studied them, as if for guidance. Then he made a decision and looked at Weigand for a moment and seemed to stiffen.

  “All right,” he said. “I don’t know why I should protect him. Wesley. Wesley sent me the bottle. So it must have been Wesley. For the money.” The idea seemed to grow upon him, as he expressed it. “That’s it!” Craig said. His voice was stronger, more confident. “He wanted to kill mother and get his share of the money. He wanted me convicted, and then he would have got his share of the part I inherited. Two birds with one stone. That’s it, Lieutenant. And then I suppose Anthony found out about it and he killed Anthony, and Perkins knew something and he got Perkins, too. And now, now he’ll have another try at mother!”

  Craig sounded excited, almost triumphant.

  “That’s it!” He repeated. “After this is all over, he’ll try again. And now—now he’ll have to get me, too, because I know. You’ll have to stop him, Lieutenant!�
��

  Weigand looked down at the round, excited man, whose fingers now were lacing and unlacing convulsively. Weigand looked across at Mullins, who was nodding slowly in agreement.

  “We’ll be careful,” Weigand promised. “There’ll be no more murders. You say he sent you the bottle?”

  Craig did say so. Often, he said, Dr. Wesley Buddie sent him sample bottles of remedies, some for his own use and some to be passed on to Mrs. Buddie. The little green bottle of Folwell’s Fruit Salts had been sent so, along with a sample of a new brand of nose drops. The salts were, the accompanying note said, for their mother. When he went to his mother’s room that morning to visit her, as he did every morning, Ben had taken the bottle with him and prepared a dose from it. He had said nothing about the change, wanting to see whether his mother would notice the difference, or find the new compound more efficacious than that she had been taking. She had apparently noticed no difference. Naturally, since she had shortly developed symptoms of poisoning, there had never been any question of the efficacy. Craig had left the bottle on the bed table; later, when he began to suspect that he had been used as an instrument of attempted murder, he had tried to find it and failed. It had disappeared.

  “That’s how it was,” Craig insisted. “Of course, he’ll deny it.”

  “Naturally,” Weigand agreed. “You say it came by mail?”

  The bottle had come by mail, in a corrugated mailing box. Craig had, after the lapse of time—he had thrown the wrappings away when he opened the package—some difficulty in remembering the details, Weigand thought. He believed the package was addressed on the typewriter; he was certain that it had Dr. Buddie’s return address typed in the corner. The note—folded and tucked into the package—had also been typed. It was, however, initialed—“W.B.” Craig had seen no reason to doubt that the initials had actually been written by his half-brother, although he admitted he had not examined them closely. They might, he agreed, have been forged—he had only glanced at the note, observed the initials, thrown the paper away with the box wrappings. Personally, he insisted, he had no doubt then, or now, that Dr. Buddie had actually sent the medicine. He agreed that his evidence might not be conclusive in court, if it came to proving that the note had not been forged.