Curtain for a Jester Read online

  In the end, she told the most of it, and her version was not substantially changed by any of the others.

  She, Mary Burton, senior of the clerical force, had reached the office at nine. Precisely at nine. Mrs. Lynch had been a few minutes late; Phyllis Moore a few moments later still. Cuyler had come in at a little after nine-thirty; Karn immediately after him. Reginald Webb had arrived at about ten and had called almost at once for Mrs. Lynch and the morning mail. All these arrivals were as customary; there was, at the beginning, nothing to indicate that Tuesday, February 9, was to be different from any other day.

  But then Forbes Ingraham had arrived at ten-thirty, and that was a little unexpected, being half an hour before his usual time. He had said “good morning” to Mary through the information window, as he usually did.

  “And seemed as usual?”

  “Yes. Oh yes.” She dabbed at her eyes.

  Ingraham had gone on into his office and, after a brief lapse of time—“I always waited until he had time to get settled”—Mary had called him on the telephone and given the day’s schedule. His first appointment was at eleven, and with Matthew Halpern. “The labor leader, you know. The firm was representing him.”

  “Right,” Bill Weigand said. “Go on, Mrs. Burton. Then?”

  Forbes Ingraham had thanked her; had asked about her health, and how things were on Staten Island. (Things had been cold that morning—cold and blustery.) He had hung up, then.

  But, about five minutes later, which would have made it about a quarter of eleven, Ingraham had called the switchboard back and this time he had asked for an outside line. And that had been strange, almost unprecedented. “He always asked me, or sometimes one of the others, to get whoever he wanted, but this time—it was—I don’t know—almost as if he didn’t—” She did not finish this, or need to. Forbes Ingraham’s last telephone call had been a secret one—too secret to be shared with Mary Burton. “Almost as if he didn’t trust me,” she might have said, been going to say. She dabbed at her eyes.

  “You don’t know who he called, then?”

  “Of course not. How could I?”

  Bill Weigand could think of a way, but did not mention it. Mary Burton was, he decided, not then in any condition to consider a suggestion that she might have listened at the switchboard.

  Ingraham’s call had been short. She had supposed that he had not found available the person with whom he had wished to speak.

  “You and Miss Moore were still in the office? I mean, the office you share?”

  She shook her head at that. It had been, she thought, a few minutes before Mr. Ingraham asked for the outside line that Mr. Cuyler had had Miss Moore sent in to take dictation. She would have been alone, unless—“I don’t remember whether Eddie was here then. Mr. Karn sent him out on an errand, but I don’t remember whether it was then or later. He’s the office boy.”

  Bill Weigand nodded.

  Mr. Halpern had been a few minutes late for his appointment—five minutes late, perhaps a little more. He had apologized; Mary had told him that she was sure it wouldn’t matter, and that she would let Mr. Ingraham know he was there.

  “Halpern was alone?”

  “Why—yes. At least, I didn’t—”

  “Right,” Bill said. “Then?”

  She had telephoned Forbes Ingraham. And the telephone had not been answered. She had tried again, and had still not been answered. She had assumed the telephone was not ringing properly.

  “Then—” she said, and once more covered her face with her hands, and once more Weigand and Mullins, sitting with her in Cuyler’s office, waited.

  Then she had gone into Mr. Ingraham’s office, knocking first and receiving no reply; still assuming that something must have happened to the telephone.

  “You went through the reception room? And the library?”

  She had not gone through the reception room; she had only crossed the corridor, going through a door from the clerical office and then through one, directly opposite, into the larger office where she had found Forbes Ingraham dead.

  “He was—it was—” she said, and seemingly could not go on. She was told she need not. The body had been untouched when Weigand arrived. Ingraham had, apparently, been leaning forward in his chair, toward the desk; possibly talking to someone who stood on the other side of the desk, and may have leaned toward him. When he was shot, in the middle of the forehead, with a bullet from, it appeared, a thirty-two calibre revolver—they did not have the bullet, yet—he had slumped forward on the desk, his head on the blotter, on the yellow pad. His right arm rested on the desk, his left hung beside him. He had, the assistant medical examiner assumed, lost consciousness so near instantly as to make no difference; he had almost certainly been dead in seconds. Except to fall forward, he apparently had not moved after he was shot.

  Mary Burton had screamed, and screamed again, and then run clumsily out of the office by the door which led to the library, and cried for help—cried that something had happen to Mr. Ingraham, that he was “hurt—terribly hurt!” She did not remember what she had said, but others remembered it so. Webb had run from his office across the library; Cuyler from his into the corridor which separated library from reception room. Saul Karn had come, but less rapidly.

  And at some point during this confusion, unnoticed in the confusion, Matthew Halpern had walked out. No one admitted knowing when, or being able to guess why. Mrs. Burton was sure that he had been there from a few minutes after eleven until, failing to get an answer to her telephone call, she had gone into Ingraham’s office. After that, she was sure of nothing about him, nor were the others. He had, apparently, been in the reception room only five minutes, perhaps ten.

  No one had heard the shot which killed Ingraham, or would admit to having heard it. With the sound-proofing of the office, this was possible, although it still bore looking into. When Mary Burton had gone into the office, one of the big windows had been partly open, so that street noises entered. If an explosion had, dimly, been audible outside Ingraham’s office, it might have been dismissed—subconsciously dismissed—as a truck backfire.

  When Mrs. Burton screamed, Webb and Mrs. Lynch had been working in his office; Cuyler and Miss Moore in his. Karn had been alone in his. Phyllis Moore had been in Cuyler’s office for about fifteen minutes. Before that, he had been alone there. She had been in the library. Webb and Mrs. Lynch had been at work longer, but not without interruption. He had got a long distance telephone call, which promised to take some time—and did. During it, Mrs. Lynch had first gone to the file room to get certain papers he wanted; then, taking advantage of the break, briefly out of the office and down the outside corridor to the women’s toilet. Webb had, they both agreed, been finishing his conversation when she returned. She was back, they both guessed, although neither could be sure, at about eleven.

  It would have been possible for any of the five, if their denials were disregarded, to go into Ingraham’s office unnoticed. Mary Burton could have seen anyone who went along the corridor, and through the library, if she had been looking in that direction from the information window. She did not remember that she had been, at least until Halpern arrived, and then only briefly.

  It was not, Weigand had begun to suspect by then, going to be one of those direct cases, agreeably supplied with physical clues, which Deputy Chief Inspector Artemus O’Malley so much admired, and which Sergeant Mullins admired equally—to which Weigand had, certainly no objection. The slug might have usable markings, when got out of Ingraham’s head; more probably, it would have been damaged by the bone it had damaged irreparably. They had not, as yet, turned up the gun. They did not seem, again at the moment, to be on their way to establishing anything like exclusive opportunity. They had found plenty of fingerprints, but none which signed confessions, or indicated anything with any clarity.

  And they knew by then that there was another entrance to Ingraham’s office, and that it quite possibly had been used by his murderer.

&n
bsp; The office had three doors—one from the library, commonly used by clients; one from the corridor, used by the stenographic people; a third, opposite the library door, which had been used, presumably, most often by the late Samuel Schaeffer and the now late Forbes Ingraham. It opened from one office into the other.

  This door was unlocked when the police tried it, after the knob had been dusted for prints. A precinct man went through it first, and into another large office which had an atmosphere of settled non-occupancy. This office, also, had three doors—one from the corridor; the one through which the precinct man went out of Ingraham’s office and, directly across from it, a door leading—

  Arranging that the fingerprint men dust ahead of him, the precinct man had discovered where it led. He had been surprised. It led out.

  It led into a wide corridor, evidently a public one, and so provided an entirely separate—and unadvertised—entrance to the offices of Schaeffer, Ingraham and Webb. It did, exploration disclosed, more than this—through a doorway, past an open, metal fire-door, it led into the adjacent building and, after a turning, to two elevators. (It was subsequently discovered that the party wall between two similarly elderly and dignified buildings had been so pierced at every floor level when, a good many years before, they had come under common management.)

  The knobs on the door between Ingraham’s office and that of his late partner, the knobs on the door which led to the outer corridor—on none of these four knobs was there any fingerprint whatever. The door to the building corridor was locked. The inter-office door was not.

  With all this Mullins, hearing of it, had been pleased. They knew something, anyway—the killer could have come and gone through Schaeffer’s office, wiping doorknobs as he left. Mullins was then so close to purring that Weigand hesitated to mention the obvious—that this might be appearance, not truth; that, specifically, anyone, however he had in fact entered Ingraham’s office, might take the trouble to wipe off knobs, so providing that element of misdirection understandably prized by murderers.

  It was then, although the Norths were not actually yet in it—being only names on an engagement record—that Mullins decided it was another screwy one, and so remarked.

  “Screwy?” Weigand repeated. “Isn’t porous more like it, sergeant?”

  Either was bad enough, Mullins said. And Artie would not like it.

  “Unless it’s Halpern,” Mullins added. “Artie’ll like Halpern fine.”

  Bill Weigand wasn’t sure he didn’t like Matthew Halpern fine himself. It appeared that violence had begun to build up about Halpern, and that was always interesting. They would—

  The telephone rang on the desk in the office from which Francis Cuyler had now been for some time excluded. Weigand answered it, said, “Yes,” said, “Put him on,” said, “Yes, counsellor,” and listened for more than a minute.

  “Right,” he said, then. “Thanks for passing it on. It can be very helpful.”

  He put the receiver back and looked at it.

  “The call Ingraham made,” he said after a moment, “was to District Attorney Sumner. It was to arrange an appointment for this afternoon. It went through at about ten forty-five. But—the appointment wasn’t made. Ingraham started to go into details and interrupted himself. He said, ‘Can I call you back in about half an hour?’ The D.A. was just saying ‘Sure, Forbes’ when Ingraham hung up. Seemed hurried. So—”

  “Somebody came in,” Mullins said.

  “Right,” Bill Weigand said. “I’d think so, sergeant. Enter, a murderer.”

  III

  Tuesday, 3:05 P.M. to 5:55 P.M.

  When Pam and Jerry North have lunch together they commonly spend more time about it than they plan to, or than is for any practical purpose necessary. Such luncheons, usually for no especial reason, tend to become minor celebrations—the signing of wills, after long consideration and much postponement, might well have provided occasion for celebration, or the fact that it was Tuesday. But they had not signed wills, and it was anything but a good Tuesday, for this time a friend had died.

  Forbes Ingraham had not been a close friend, but he had been a pleasant one of rather long standing. Each in his own way was thinking of Forbes Ingraham, and not of the manner of his death, as they stood on a windy sidewalk in front of the elderly, and most dignified, office building and waved at passing taxicabs. It was Pam who suggested they forego the luncheon they had planned; Pam who said it wouldn’t seem right, somehow, because, in spite of themselves, they would enjoy it. The logic might be contested, Jerry thought, and smiled down at her—the logic but not the spirit.

  So the cab, when one answered, dropped Jerry at his office, which (he thought) was certainly where he ought to be if things were to be in any sense cleaned up for holiday, and took Pam home. It would, she decided there, be a good afternoon to balance her bank statement. That should keep her mind off things. She, therefore, shut herself away from cats, who were made furious—Martini clawed at the very best chair, in reprisal—provided herself with abundance of scratch paper and went at it. If she could only, she was thinking in ten minutes, remember to do them as soon as they came, instead of a week afterward when they were harder—

  In half an hour, she had struck a balance, but it was evidently not the right balance. It had better not be. She must, she decided, be subtracting the wrong thing from the other thing, or perhaps adding a deposit to a withdrawal. Pam thought, with care, slowly. You take your present balance, and add to it the sum of the checks that haven’t gone through, and that will be what the bank says the present balance is, if you add deposits that haven’t—Was that really the right way? The way she had done it the month before, when it really had balanced, if you didn’t count the odd cents and took into account the deficit left over from the month before? Or was it better to deduct the outstanding checks from the balance the bank had decided on and then subtract the deposits—No, surely you didn’t subtract deposits. If you added what the check book showed to what—

  “This,” Pam North said aloud, “is perfectly ridiculous. I’ve done this dozens of times. You take what doesn’t show in the book and add it to what doesn’t show in the statement and then—” Pam leaned back. She put the pencil in her mouth and chewed it absently. The funny thing, she thought, is that I’ve always rather liked the taste of lead pencil since I was a little girl. Only there was that awful time when it was an indelible pencil. I’ll just keep cool and add all the ones that are out to what the book shows is in and then—

  She did this. She now apparently had in the account four hundred and sixty-six dollars and the cents—but forget the cents—less than she had thought she had. This was extremely depressing. If it was going to stay this way, it would be silly of them to try to go to Florida. Of course, they weren’t going to go on this account, but still—

  Sometimes when you added down, you got an entirely different answer than if you added up. The thing to do was to start over entirely, because otherwise you made the same mistakes again. Pam copied figures into a column, being very careful to keep the decimal points in a straight line, because if you started adding the cents in with the dollars it was hopeless. (She had done that once and come up with a bonanza of nearly a thousand dollars, but Jerry had checked her figures and lost the money. This had depressed both of them.) “And carry three,” Pam said, “and nine is twelve and six is eighteen and seven is twenty-three and—”

  It came out better. It came out too much better. Now she had a hundred and twelve dollars (and the cents) more than she ought to have. It was—

  “Damn!” Pam North said. “If it takes all afternoon I’ll—”

  But then the telephone on her desk rang.

  Phoebe James’s voice had velvet in it. She had heard only an hour before about this awful thing that had happened—about Forbes. The richly soft voice shook then. “About Forbes,” Phoebe James repeated, and it was as if she repeated the name to make herself believe. “You were friends of his, weren’t you? You and your h
usband?”

  “Yes,” Pam said. “It is hard to believe. When only last night—” She did not finish. She felt that Mrs. James merely waited, did not listen.

  “Can you,” Mrs. James said, “is there any chance you can—have tea with me this afternoon? I—” She stopped. “I want to see you,” she said. “You and Mr. North.”

  “Why—” Pam said.

  “Please. If you possibly can. About five?”

  “Yes,” Pam said. “I think so. I’m almost sure, really. Unless Jerry can’t get away.”

  “Try. Please try. I’m at the Westminster. In East Fifty-first, you know? Tell your husband it’s—I’d like to see you very much.”

  Pam looked at the telephone for a moment after she had replaced the receiver. She had thought they would be out of this one, except for what Bill told them; except for what, and that so without pertinence, they had already told Bill. But the urgency in Phoebe James’s beautiful voice—

  Pam dialed North Books, Inc.; got Jerry; heard him say, “Now listen, Pam—” finally heard him say, “All right, I suppose so. I’ll meet you there. I had thought—”

  “Good,” Pam said. “In the lobby.”

  She replaced the receiver, and was confronted with columns of figures. She shook her head; she put the pencil back into her mouth, and chewed it gently. She said, “Oh well,” and made a new listing of the checks which had not cleared. She added this column until, on two additions, she got the same total. She substracted the sum so arrived at from the balance shown on the statement. She drew a double line across the stub sheet in her check book, so wiping out all that had gone before. Below the double line she entered the new balance, dating it.

  “Let them,” Pam North said, “have it their way.” As, she added to herself, they will in any case; as they always do.

  She spent time with the cats, who then were pleased with her. She lowered them from her lap, and they were no longer pleased. She went to the kitchen, and told Martha that, the way it looked, they wouldn’t be home for dinner.