The Dishonest Murderer Page 21

  And now he had a gun. It would be a thirty-eight, Pam North thought.

  “Don’t be noisy,” he said, and then, only then, Pam realized she had been about to cry out, to cry for help. Because surely Bill—Jerry—surely they would not let this happen. “Don’t be noisy, Mrs. North. Unless you’re in a great hurry.”

  Pam looked only at the gun. It seemed enormous.

  “But—” she said. And then she felt movement in the body she still half supported with one arm; felt muscles tightening; felt Breese moving away from her, slowly, cautiously. Pam did not dare to look, she could only guess. But she had to—

  “Sleight of hand,” she said. “That’s what it was. To make us look in the wrong place. In all the wrong places—at Breese, at the senator’s brother; but most of all at some ordinary thug on the Bowery. Wasn’t that it, Mr. Phipps? Was it about the bribery, Mr. Phipps? Was that what it was?”

  “Give her the coffee,” Phipps said. “It wouldn’t help you to know.”

  “About the bribery, then,” Pam said. “I can guess. I can—”

  There was no pressure at all against her arm, now. But still Phipps did not seem to notice. I’ve got to talk, Pam thought. It’s sleight of hand again. Keep him from—

  “Or maybe it was this way,” Pam said. “Maybe you and this brother—this George. Maybe you had cooked up something together to—oh, to get money out of the senator. Something dishonest. Maybe George pretended he’d done something he would be arrested for. Stolen some money? But if he restored the money he wouldn’t be arrested and of course the senator wouldn’t want him to be because he was a senator.” She paused, but only momentarily. “I mean the senator was a senator,” she said. “And he found out about this and—and was going to do something about it. Prosecute you for fraud or—or—”

  I have to think of something else, Pam North thought. I’m running out of that. In a moment he’ll look, he’ll see what Breese is doing.

  “Or something,” she said. “And then you and George enticed him down there and—”

  Then it happened. The movement beside her was swift. Breese Burnley was throwing herself forward on the sofa, reaching—reaching for the cup of coffee. And even as Pam threw herself back on the sofa, out of the way, Breese had the cup, hurled it upward, spraying, into Howard Phipps’s face.

  Breese kept on going, in a kind of falling dive for Phipps’s knees. Pam saw the gun start to point downward, yelled, “Jerry!” desperately, as loudly as she could, and jumped for the man’s arm. She half fell, coming up from the sofa, grabbed something and was conscious of other movement beside her. Phipps kicked and tried to bring his arm down and Pam North frantically dug her fingernails into the wrist, trying to stop the arm. She heard Phipps swear, felt him pulled back from her, realized dimly in a kind of red confusion that Freddie Haven had leaped up, somehow, from the floor and was pushing at Phipps’s face.

  Then there was a loud noise, almost against her face, and the sound of something crashing and the room was a confused melee of people. I’ll bite him, Pam thought and started to, and then all tension went out of the wrist she was holding. She still held on and thought, I’ll bite him, I’ll bite him, and then, finally, realized that Phipps was falling, and pulling her with him. She let go then and thought, Why, I’ve had my eyes closed all the time, and opened them.

  Sergeant William Blake was holding a revolver so that its butt made a club, and Jerry was coming toward her and then she heard Bill Weigand speak.

  “All right, ladies,” Bill Weigand said. “You can let up on him, now.” He sounded excited, but at the same time amused. “Leave us the pieces,” he said.

  But what surprised her more than anything else was that Sergeant William Blake, still holding the revolver in his right hand, had put both arms around Freddie Haven and was saying, in a hurried, anxious voice, “You’re all right. You’re all right.” Freddie Haven did not, so far as Pam North could tell, seem to mind this. She did not, indeed, seem to be as surprised by it as Blake did himself.

  “And,” Bill Weigand said, seeming not to notice this, “you’ve spilled the coffee.” He looked down at Howard Phipps who, no longer in the least immaculate, was lying on his back. “But probably,” Bill said, “we can get enough out of his shirt.” Pam looked at Phipps. She thought they could probably get enough out of his shirt.

  “There was something in it,” she said. “In the coffee. This—these knockout drops.”

  “Oh yes,” Bill said. “I’d suppose so.”

  “Then,” Pam said, “we were right.” She nodded at Freddie Haven, who was no longer in William Blake’s arms. She looked at Blake, who was putting his gun back in its holster, and who looked very surprised and somewhat bewildered. “All along.”

  “Well,” Bill said and hesitated. “In a manner of speaking,” he said. He looked at Breese Burnley, who had gone back to the sofa and was sitting up. Breese had a compact in her hand, she was already making restorations. She did not seem particularly interested in anything else. For heaven’s sake! Pam North thought. No wonder I thought—

  “Well,” she said to Bill, “not all the time. I mean after I got over being wrong. About—” She nodded toward Breese, who continued to restore. “Before you all came in—” She stopped. Her eyes widened. “Where,” she said, “did you come from?”

  “The fire escape, Pam,” Jerry said. “You mean—you didn’t notice?”

  “Naturally, I had my eyes shut,” Pam said. “I was going to bite him and—well, so of course I shut my eyes.” She looked now. One window was still open; the venetian blind which had shielded it was tangled on the floor. “You must have come fast,” she said. She looked up at Jerry suddenly. “You were there all the time,” she told him. She was accusing. “You let—”

  Jerry shook his head. He nodded toward Blake.

  “He was,” Jerry said. “Bill and I were there only a few minutes. Blake was there all the time?” Bill Weigand nodded an answer to the question in Jerry North’s voice.

  “But then,” Pam said, as she looked at Bill, and there was a new accusation in her voice. “Then you knew all the time! And you let me—” She abandoned it. “How?” she said.

  Bill Weigand grinned suddenly.

  “There were a number of things,” he said.

  Pam merely waited.

  “Well,” Bill said, “for one thing—a man doesn’t shave just before he goes to bed. What would be the sense of it?”

  XII

  Sunday, 8:15 P.M. to 9:30 P.M.

  They had started to eat before Bill Weigand joined them.

  “It’s practically breakfast,” Pam North said and looked at the food on her plate. “How funny to have a broiled lobster for it. Here he comes.”

  The others had slept; Bill Weigand did not look as if he had slept at all. His face was gray with weariness. But it was also relaxed. A captain came behind him, carrying martinis on a tray. He put them down when Bill was seated and waited. “Anything,” Bill said. He looked at Pam’s plate. “A lobster,” he said.

  There were four martinis. Bill drank deeply from one glass, almost finishing it. He waved at the other drinks, at Pam and Jerry North, at Dorian. “Had ours,” Jerry said. “Of course—” He watched Bill reach for a second glass. “Nice of you to think of us, though,” Jerry said. “Well?”

  Bill Weigand shook his head.

  “Not yet,” he said. “I’m not sure he ever will. What’s he to gain?”

  “They never have anything,” Pam said. “Still, they do. Maybe he will. Do you have to have it?”

  Bill Weigand said it would help. He said a confession, duly signed, duly delivered, always helped. He said Phipps could make them trouble if he remained obdurate.

  “Too much?” Dorian said.

  Bill hesitated a moment. He shook his head. He said he shouldn’t think so.

  “After all,” he said, “there’s a weapons charge, which is open and shut. There’s assault with intent, which ought to be easy. For the big
ones—well, we’ll find it.” He finished his drink. “Because,” he said, “we know where to look, what to look for. And somebody, in the end, always turns out to have seen something. It’s a great comfort to the police.” He looked at the third glass and looked away. “You know,” he said, “I don’t think I’ve eaten all day.” He seemed mildly surprised. Nobody said anything for a time.

  “You know,” Pam said, “I really thought it was Miss Burnley. It was all very—very confusing. I still don’t—what about men not shaving before they go to bed?”

  “A tip off,” Bill said. “One of several, actually. Blake noticed that one. When Phipps showed up at Miss Burnley’s apartment, said she had called him. He made a great point of how he had rushed over, made quite a picture of it. Spent the evening in his room working, he said; gone to bed, been waked up. Dressed ‘like a fireman,’ he told Blake. And—he was cleanly shaven. Why? He’d got over from the Waldorf in twenty minutes, he said. Obviously, he hadn’t taken time to shave. He’d been working alone all evening. No man shaves for a second time during a day if he’s going to stay in his room. No man shaves before he goes to bed. But—Phipps has a very heavy beard. If he hadn’t shaved since morning, he’d have had visible stubble. So—he was lying somewhere. He’d shaved a second time; he’d been out somewhere. And, lies aren’t purposeless.”

  “Such a little thing,” Pam said. “Was it the same time that he didn’t have the key? But really did? The thing that worried Freddie there at—at the end?”

  “Right,” Bill said. “The same key opened the downstairs door and the apartment door. The usual arrangement. Both doors were locked, locked automatically. Blake himself had to ring from the vestibule before he could get up. But—Phipps didn’t. He’d let himself in downstairs, therefore he had a key. He didn’t, of course, expect to find anybody in the apartment. When he heard voices, he knocked. He’d obviously planned to let himself in. But, with Mrs. Haven, he’d made a point of not having a key. Another little lie, not purposeless. Blake noticed that, too, and wondered about it.”

  “A noticing young man,” Dorian said. “Are you terribly tired, Bill?”

  “His business,” Bill said. He smiled at her. “I’m all right,” he said.

  “Of course,” Pam said, “he still might have expected Breese to be in the apartment. Maybe that was his way of—I mean, maybe he just unlocked things and—popped in. Rude, of course, whatever their—” She stopped.

  Bill nodded. He said it could have been that way, although he agreed it wasn’t the usual way.

  “However,” he said, “Miss Burnley has filled that in, now. He did have a key. Nevertheless, he always rang downstairs.”

  “Like the postman,” Pam said.

  “Not like the postman,” Bill said. He took the third drink. “Three times,” he said. “Three and a nubbin. But you’re right, we didn’t know that then. We—well, we just had to guess. From what Blake told me, I guessed Phipps had been sure the apartment was empty. Which meant he was sure Breese wasn’t in it. Which might mean—”

  “That he knew where she was,” Pam said. “Of course. Where was she?”

  “In his car,” Bill said. “The car he had rented from a drive-yourself outfit. In his car, asleep, moderately full of chloral hydrate. Destined, I imagine, for a park bench—a doorway—any place cold enough to finish her off.”

  “But why—?” Pam said, and Bill shrugged. There, he said, he would have to guess. There were two possibilities. One—that Phipps, about to drive off, had seen the arrival of Freddie and Celia, then of Mrs. Burnley, finally of Blake. He had got curious, and had figured he could find out what was up and, at the same time, underline his own innocence, if it was in doubt, by the story of having just been telephoned by Breese.

  “Foolish,” Pam said. “Not to let well enough alone. And, anyway, you said he thought the apartment was empty.”

  “Right,” Bill said. “So I like the other theory better. We found a bottle containing chloral hydrate in the girl’s kitchen. With Phipps’s prints on it, not hers. That’s why I said the assault with intent charge ought to be easy. The second theory is that Phipps was merely going back for the bottle, which he had fogotten. To put her prints on it. And, possibly, to give her more chloral, if she seemed to be coming out of it. Sitting in the car, he probably checked over the things he had done—washed and put away one of the two glasses they drank from, left the one with her prints, got her out and down as soon as she got drowsy. Then—he remembered he had forgotten to put her prints on the bottle. So—he had to take her back up, or bring the bottle down. Naturally, he chose to bring the bottle down.”

  “And then couldn’t,” Jerry said. “Because the place was full of people.”

  “Right,” Bill said. “I’d guess that.”

  “A confession would help,” Pam said. “For points like that.” She paused. “Not,” she said, “that I don’t think logic is a fine thing. And then he decided, after all, to take—to take Breese to the bottle? And—make her drink?”

  Bill nodded.

  “He figured an alarm would go out,” he said. “He didn’t want to drive her around the streets, try to put her some place. And—the police had already been in the apartment. They knew she wasn’t there. So, why not put her back? And then, he improvised. Why not get Mrs. Haven over to help find her unconscious, to see him trying to revive her with black coffee, which is fine for chloral hydrate poisoning—unless the coffee happens to be full of chloral hydrate.”

  “It was?” Pam said. “From his shirt?”

  “Right,” Bill said. “We—well, we soaked enough out of the shirt before he came to. Blake hit him rather hard. Plenty of chloral hydrate. His point, of course, being to convince everybody that Miss Burnley had the stuff, had figured we were about to catch up with her, had decided to give the whole thing up in a—well, in a nice, easy way. Phipps hoped we were already suspicious of her and—”

  “I was,” Pam said. Her voice was rather small. “Weren’t you ever, Bill?”

  Bill Weigand shook his head. He reminded her he had said from the start that they needed a man, not a woman.

  “Also,” Bill said, “Mrs. Haven thinks that he had begun to be afraid she knew too much, had become suspicious. Because of something about perfume.” He told them about the perfume. “She thinks he may have planned to find out how much she knew and, if she knew too much, well—include her. She may very well be right. He could have shot her, put Breese’s prints on the gun and got out, leaving us to assume Breese had killed Freddie, presumably because Freddie had found her out, and then herself.”

  “In the end,” Pam said, “he was going to include us both. Was Blake on the fire escape all the time?”

  Bill nodded.

  “He waited long enough,” Pam said. “You all did.”

  Bill told her they had wanted to get what they could. He told her that Blake had had his gun ready, and would have used it in time. “But then,” he added, “you all three jumped in and he couldn’t. So we came in, instead. Blake had unlatched the window beforehand, of course, and lowered it a couple of inches from the top, so that he could listen.”

  Bill’s lobster came. He looked for the fourth martini, and found that Dorian was sipping it. She smiled at him. “Sacrificing myself,” she said. “Until you’ve had food, my dear.”

  Bill made a face, dug into a claw, dipped lobster into melted butter, and ate. The others had finished. Pam waited until she saw Bill swallow.

  “Between bites,” she said. “What was it all about? At bottom? Because, so far, we’ve just got the top. I mean—well, what was it all about?”

  Bill said he knew what she meant. He said they were still piecing it together. But, at bottom, it was about the effort to bribe the senator to change his position on the hydro-electric project.

  “But,” Pam North said, and looked puzzled. “I thought—I mean, in addition to everything else, he already had so much money. Why—?”

  “Right,” Bill said. �
�Precisely right, Pam. Also, I take it he was an honest man. Which is no doubt why Phipps never took it up with him at all.”

  The other three looked at him. He looked at his lobster, speared the other claw, let them wait.

  “Some people,” Pam North said, “can’t think of anything but eating.”

  Bill swallowed, smiled at them, and said that it was still bits and pieces. He said they had got a good deal of it from Breese Burnley, who had got the first intimation some time before from Julian Grainger. “I told you she had been seeing him,” Bill noted, in parenthesis. “She was a pretty young thing to see when he was in New York, to take to dinner. And so forth. And so forth.”

  “Delicately put, darling,” Dorian said.

  Bill Weigand said he was not precisely putting it. He said he didn’t know.

  “However,” he said, “he did tip her off. She says she doesn’t remember how, exactly. Senator Kirkhill’s name came up and the elder Grainger said something to the effect that she didn’t really know him; that he wasn’t any knight in shining armor. I don’t know whether he thought that would make any particular difference to Breese, or whether he cared. She was just a girl to take to dinner.”

  “And so forth,” Pam said.

  “And so forth. Anyway, Breese got enough from him to make her curious. Enough to make her think she might get something on Kirkhill. Which she wanted—well, because Kirkhill had ditched her. Ditched her, as she figured it, for Freddie Haven. She wanted to get her own back. Maybe get him back. If she could get enough on him to stop the marriage—well, call it love, call it revenge. She would have enjoyed it.”

  Breese knew better than to try to get anything more from Grainger, Bill told them. But she figured that, if there was anything in it, Phipps would know. So she cultivated Phipps. Bill pointed out that she did not put it so directly, admit it had been so direct. He was summarizing. She had cultivated Phipps and—got him to talk, got him, in the end, to boast.

  “Not in specific terms,” Bill pointed out. Roundabout—hints. But enough to convince her that Kirkhill was being bribed, with Phipps acting as go-between, and with Phipps making a nice thing out of it for himself. So she took a chance and wrote the anonymous letter.”