Hanged for a Sheep Page 21

  “Because,” Weigand said, “he had underestimated Craig. Craig hadn’t much money—and he hadn’t much respect for life. He was in danger of being charged with attempted murder, on evidence which seemed pretty convincing. And—”

  “And I think,” Pam said, her voice coming from thoughts a long way off, “that Ben must have hated Anthony anyway and—oh, been glad to kill him. Glad for a reason to kill him. Because Anthony was what he was and had married Aunt Flora and because that was—oh, humiliating. It made them all ridiculous. Like a practical joke, in a way. And Ben can’t bear to be ridiculous. It does something to him.”

  Weigand nodded and said that, probably, there was something in that; that Ben didn’t mind killing Anthony. And, whether that was true or not, Ben was in a spot; framed into a spot. Then—

  “Well,” Weigand said, “probably he decided he’d as soon be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. If it came to that. So he shot Anthony—maybe enjoying it—as Anthony stood there, gloating. Craig didn’t even get up. He shot from where he was, sitting down in the chair.”

  And then, Craig admitted in his confession, he had forgotten two things. First, that the absence of other prints would be in his favor, rather than against him. He remembered that later, when he made his “confession” to Weigand, and tried to make the most of the point.

  “He must have been surprised when he gathered that we had already thought of it,” Weigand said. “One other mistake he made was in underestimating the police.”

  But that was not the mistake Craig had realized, and set down in his final confession. He had forgotten when he fired that Anthony still held the bottle.

  “Obviously, I should have seen that I got the bottle before I shot him,” Craig had written in his confession. “It was a mistake.”

  It was a mistake because, when Anthony fell, he dropped the bottle and because, since it was a round bottle, it rolled. And even that might not have been fatal for Craig if, in the silence which followed the shot, he had not heard somebody at the front door, entering the house.

  “That was Clem,” Weigand reminded them. “She got in in time to smell the cordite smoke, which she didn’t recognize.”

  Alone with the body and with the gun in his hand, Craig couldn’t risk being discovered. He put out the light, dodged into the drawing room and hid. He waited for a few minutes after Clem had gone upstairs, wanting to be sure the shot hadn’t wakened anyone—it was a thick-walled old house, he had closed the door of the breakfast room behind him, everybody was sleeping on the upper floors. He had guessed the shot wouldn’t be heard, but he couldn’t be sure; he had to be in a position to appear, as innocently as possible, if the shot had been heard. Probably as if he had just been coming in, since he was fully dressed.

  When he decided the coast was clear, he went back. His first thought was to conceal the body, chiefly to gain time. The opportunities for concealment weren’t good, but Craig used what there were, propping the body on a chair behind the table, where it was not, at any rate, instantly visible to anybody who might happen to enter the room. He did this without turning on the light; his eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, which was not complete because windows in the breakfast room let in a little of the light of the city, and he could see to move the body. The less light the better, for his purposes.

  But he was just finishing with the body when he heard movement in the pantry which adjoined the breakfast room. And that frightened him—he still couldn’t explain himself if he was found; he didn’t know who was behind the door. He decided to go up to his room, make himself innocent in pajamas and robe, and then come down and find the bottle. He could do it innocently then—if anybody found him, he had come down for an early morning snack. And apparently, as it was, the person in the pantry had no suspicion of what had happened. Presumably, Craig decided, whoever was there had come down while he was in the drawing room, gone from the hall into the pantry and was probably pouring himself a drink. Craig decided not to investigate.

  “Let sleeping dogs lie,” Pam said. Weigand agreed.

  So Craig did as he planned. He changed to pajamas and robe and came back down openly, went into the pantry—he didn’t care then whether it was occupied—found it empty, got himself some crackers and cheese for protective coloring and went back into the breakfast room. Since the body was not in plain sight and—

  “But the carpet,” Pam said. “It would have—have showed where Anthony fell.”

  It did, Weigand agreed. It showed the next morning. But it was a dark red carpet and the light was not strong. Even by daylight, Pam herself had not immediately noticed it. And if somebody came and saw the marks, Craig could always help them discover it. So Craig, feeling reasonably safe, turned on the lights, expecting to have little trouble in finding the bottle.

  But the bottle was gone! Craig looked everywhere, in growing desperation, but it was gone.

  “And then I realized,” Craig wrote in his confession, “that I had made another mistake. I should have taken the chance, turned on the lights and looked for the bottle at once. But I don’t blame myself for that; I made the best decision I could at the time, and that is all any man can do. The chances were that the bottle wouldn’t be found until I found it. In the same circumstances, I would do the same thing again.”

  That was all very well, Weigand pointed out, but all the same it was a mistake. Because, venturing out of the pantry to which he had gone for a drink, in which he had stayed while he listened to voices on the other side of the door, in which he had cowered when he heard the shot, little Harry Perkins had stepped into the breakfast room, in fascinated fear of what he would find. (This was reconstruction, but it must be very near the truth.) He had found Anthony’s body. And he had stepped on the little bottle, perhaps almost fallen and caught himself, certainly picked the bottle up. By the cork, since he heard of fingerprints.

  And then, Harry, terrified by the enormity and danger of what he knew, had hidden while he thought it over, decided to tell Pamela North and to give her the bottle—which he wrapped up to protect the prints—and had made the fatal mistake of standing in the hall outside her room while he told her. And then Craig, coming up the steps behind him, and coming only by chance, had overheard—had heard the first whispers and had stopped on the stairs with his head below the hallway, and had heard enough to know who had been in the pantry and to guess that Harry was a danger.

  “And that did for Perkins,” Weigand said. “Craig had been looking for the person in the pantry, anyway, and had realized he might have to murder again. He had picked up Nemo’s leash, idly at first, and then thought of it as a weapon, in case circumstances required a quiet killing. Well, after he had followed Harry Perkins upstairs, circumstances did require a quiet killing.”

  Weigand stopped and looked at his empty glass. He pulled out the olive and nibbled at it and nobody said anything.

  “And that’s all of it,” he said, after a moment. “Was that the way you thought it was, Pam?”

  “Yes,” Pamela North said. “Just about. After I thought that Anthony was the logical person to send Ben arsenic, but not enough. Because all it did was look bad—I mean, it wasn’t real. It was just—embarrassing. And then I thought of blackmail. And then it was easy. Only I didn’t see how we’d ever prove it. And if Craig hadn’t confessed, I still don’t see.”

  Weigand nodded and said it would have been hard.

  “But we had the outline,” he said. “When you have the outline, you know what you need to fill in. And you can get it; you can always find what you want. It’s always somewhere.”

  “That’s because New York is such a big city,” Pamela North said.

  They were still staring at her in a kind of wonder, when the waiter brought the next round of drinks. Bill and Dorian Weigand and Jerry sipped hurriedly, as if they were grasping at reality.

  Then Jerry ran a hand through his hair and spoke.

  “What gets you,” he said, “is that it sounds so damn logical.
That’s what’s frightening about it. Sometimes I—”

  But he took a deep drink instead of trying to go on. You could never tell where words might lead.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries

  1

  Thursday, October 8, 7:30 P.M. to 8:45 P.M.

  Mrs. North was consoling. It wasn’t, she pointed out, as if he really had to make a speech. Not a real speech. There was no sense in his carrying on so, and not eating any dinner.

  “Actually,” she explained with the air of one who has often explained, “actually all you do is tag Mr. Sproul. Then he’s it and you just sit down and look interested and try not to wriggle. And don’t pull at your hair.”

  Mr. North felt in his jacket pocket. The notes—notes which now represented, he dimly felt, all that he knew or would ever know about anything—were still there. This was reassuring, but it also reinforced his horrid conviction that this was real. In—Mr. North looked at his watch—in fifty-seven minutes he would have to stand up before five hundred people and open his mouth while five hundred mouths remained closed. He shuddered and took his hand away from the notes.

  “Michaels should have done it,” he said, angrily. “Why me, for God’s sake?”

  “Five minutes,” Mrs. North said. “Or ten at the outside. You could do it standing on your head.”

  That, Mr. North assured her, would give just the touch. That would make it lovely.

  “Mr. Gerald North,” he said, “of the firm of Townsend Brothers, introduced Mr. Victor Leeds Sproul, noted author of That Was Paris, while standing on his head.”

  “There, dear,” Mrs. North said. “What’s five minutes?” She paused. “He didn’t go to Paris while standing on his head,” she added, reflectively. “That came afterward. Is he really good, Jerry?”

  “He’s wonderful,” Jerry told her. “He’s immense. Five big printings. Total sales ninety-three thousand as of yesterday. He’s colossal. Townsend Brothers loves him. Fifty-three minutes.”

  Mrs. North told him to try not to think of it. Or to think that, in an hour, it would all be over. Except, of course, Mr. Sproul, who would be beginning.

  “Think how good you’ll feel then,” she said. “Duty done, audience contented, Mr. Sproul in full flight.”

  “And,” Mr. North said harshly, “the platform covered with old vegetables. Thrown at me. Or me still standing there with my mouth open, trying to think of something to say. Or forgetting Spread’s name—Victor Leeds Sproul. Victor Leeds Sproul. Leeds Sproul Victor. Oh, God!”

  “Five minutes,” Mrs. North said, looking worriedly at her husband. “Only five minutes, Jerry. Not as long as we’ve been talking about it.” She sighed. “Not nearly as long,” she added. “And it isn’t as if you hadn’t done it before. You’re a very good speaker, really. Once you get started.”

  Gerald North put out a cigarette, reached for another, fingered his notes instead. He held his hand out and watched it tremble. He besought Pamela North to look and she looked and said, “Poor dear.”

  “Once I get started,” he repeated. “But you can’t get started in five minutes. I’d rather talk half an hour. An hour, even. I’d rather be Sproul.”

  “No,” Mrs. North said firmly. “Over my dead body.”

  For now, Mr. North pointed out. Not permanently. He would rather be Sproul making a speech of an hour than North introducing for five minutes. Because five minutes was too long or not long enough; in five minutes you could only talk at an audience, and nothing came back, because the audience hadn’t the faintest idea who you were or what you wanted it to do; because in five minutes you could not catch your second fluency and had only to rely, frantically, on what you had written down. And because you were too scared to see what you had written down.

  “Even fifteen minutes is better,” Mr. North said. “Oh, God!”

  He stood up and looked around the living room. Toughy raised an inquiring head from the chair cushion on which he had, no doubt only momentarily, allowed it to relax. He made the interested sound of a loquacious cat which observes things in progress.

  “Look at him!” Mr. North commanded. “Does he have to make a speech before five hundred people, introducing Victor Leeds Sproul? He just lies there!”

  Mr. North glared at Toughy, who repeated his earlier remark.

  “I’d like to be a cat,” Mr. North said. “Just sleep and play and be fed. Where’s Ruffy?” He looked around. “Off sleeping somewhere,” he answered himself, bitterly. “Does she have to make a speech?” He looked at Mrs. North. “Do you have to make a speech?” he demanded. “Does anybody else in the world have to make a speech except me?” He stared around wildly. “Why me?” he demanded of the world and, it seemed probable, its Creator.

  “There, dear,” Mrs. North said. “It’s only five minutes.”

  Mr. North glared at her.

  “Five minutes!” he repeated. “Is that all you can say? Five minutes?”

  “Ten at the most,” Mrs. North said, serenely. “After all, you’ve done it before.” She paused. “And always made just the same fuss about it,” she added. “And afterward never could understand why you were so worried. I’d think you’d learn.”

  “So help me,” Mr. North told her, “this is the last time. After this it’s Michaels or nobody. Or all the Townsends—or—or anybody. But never me. So help me.”

  “You know there aren’t any Townsends,” Mrs. North told him. “Since 1873.”

  “Eighteen seventy-four,” Mr. North told her. “Old Silas.”

  “And Michaels would have, only he’s in the army,” she pointed out. “He’s being a captain.”

  “And if,” Mr. North said, “he can see one bit better than I can I’ll—”

  “Jerry!” Mrs. North said. Mrs. North was firm. “There’s no use going over that again, darling. It’s just one of those things. You can’t help it, and they can’t help it and so you buy bonds and—and introduce Victor Leeds Sproul, so he can tell people about how lovely Paris used to be and make them want to make it that way again and—” She broke off.

  “All right, baby,” Mr. North said. “I’m sorry. I’ll go make my little speech.”

  Mrs. North smiled at him.

  “After all—” she began. Mr. North held up his hand.

  “Don’t go on,” he warned. “Don’t say—‘after all, it’s only five minutes.’ Just don’t.”

  Mrs. North smiled again. She said, all right, she wouldn’t.

  “And don’t come,” Mr. North said. “Don’t get a taxicab after I leave and show up at the Today’s Topics Club and think I won’t see you in the audience. Because I will. And forget everything I was going to say. If anything.” He looked at her. “Promise, Pam?” he said. There was a note of entreaty in his voice.

  “Jerry!” Pam said. As she said it she looked, with sudden anxiety, at the little ball watch which hung around her neck. “Jerry, you’ve got to go! It’s—it’s after eight!”

  There was no difficulty in distracting Jerry. He looked at the watch on his wrist and shook the wrist and looked at it again. “Ten of,” he said. “That’s what mine says. Do you suppose—?”

  “You mustn’t take the chance,” Pam told him. “Maybe it stopped. Jerry—you’ll have to run! Have you got your notes?”

  He felt again, although the touch of the folded sheets of paper was still reminiscent on his fingers. The notes were there. He picked up his top coat, spread on the sofa beside him, and Ruffy tumbled off, landing on her feet and making cat comments. But she saw her brother in his chair and went over quickly. She jumped up beside him and fell to washing his face. He closed his eyes in ecstasy.

  “Ruffy,” Pam North said. “You are a fool. Make him wash himself!”

  Ruffy did not pause. Toughy opened one eye partially and looked at Pamela North and there seemed to be a kind of amusement in the amber eye. He closed it again and Ruffy washed behind his ears.

  “I’ve got to go,” Gerald Nor
th said. “I’ve got to go and make a speech.”

  The horror of the situation, now all at once so immediate, overwhelmed him. “I’ve got to go now!” he repeated, in a kind of horrified disbelief. “It’s almost now!”

  That, he thought as he went down the stairs to the street door, and out into the street, was the thing about agreeing to make speeches. You agreed absently in August, when it was suggested to you—when it was only suggested, and yours to take or leave, when you could get out of it easily. You said, perhaps, “Sure, I’ll introduce the bloke. Now, Miss Casey, if you’re ready—” And then, instantly, it was October and the speech was now. Because time before speeches—even speeches of only five minutes—did not flow smoothly and evenly along, as time sometimes did. Time tricked you, giving no warning. A week before the speech, the speech was still almost as remote as it had been in August; even on Thursday a speech to be given on Friday was comfortably distant. It was not until Friday morning that you discovered you could eat no breakfast. And then it was Friday evening and you were on the sidewalk of Greenwich Place, alone in a hostile world, in which no one of all you saw bore your dreadful, immediate burden; a world divided between people who did not have to make a speech in half an hour—less, maybe—and you.

  Gerald North caught a glimpse of the Jefferson Market Clock between two buildings. It said five of eight. Sometimes, he had heard, they let the condemned man give the signal to the fire squad. Or was it the headsman? The condemned man lifted his hand—and what whirling anguish went on in the still living brain as it commanded the hand to rise was something it was not comfortable to imagine. Gerald North imagined it. He lifted his hand and a taxi in the stand at the corner came to life. It leaped the intervening quarter block and engulfed Gerald North. Clutching the sheaf of notes in his inner pocket, his mind a cloudy swirl, the man who was about to make a little introductory speech rode northward along Fifth Avenue, toward his doom.

  Normally traffic would have held them up, but that night there was no traffic. The cab dashed through the half-lighted streets like a meteor. It whirled east at Fifty-seventh, and up Madison, and the lights were all green before it. It did not break down. It did not careen into another car, wrecking itself and providing Mr. North with welcome lacerations and contusions which would make the giving of speeches impossible. The driver did not get arrested for exceeding the speed limit, nor was he held up by altercations with a traffic policeman until it was too late to reach the Today’s Topics Club—why, Mr. North wondered dimly, not Today’s Topics Clubs? Or even Klubs? The cab swirled up to the club’s dignified four-story building, which looked so oddly as if it must house some lesser department of the government, and stopped. Mr. North, dazed now, got out and paid. He saw people going into the main entrance—people who were going to hear a lecturer, and the introducer of a lecturer, and had bitter, rapacious faces—and shuddered. He went into the smaller, narrow door reserved, on such nights as these, for the condemned. He entered the small elevator and was jerked to the third floor. He turned right down a cold, white corridor and came to a door marked: “Speakers’ Room.” With a shudder, Mr. North opened the door.