The Norths Meet Murder Read online

  “Berex remembered having told Brent of the invention sale, when they were discussing Edwards and the trust fund. Berex had said something about his satisfaction with Edwards’ handling of that matter, and told Brent he was getting three thousand a year out of it. Thinking back, he remembered that Brent had looked a little surprised, and said something to the effect that he would have expected it to be more, considering the size of the firm. There Berex stopped. Then we got hold of Recording Industries—this was all day before yesterday, after we had arrested Edwards. It took only a few minutes, there, and we had it. They weren’t paying Berex three thousand a year; they were paying him around fifty thousand. Or they thought they were. We subpoenaed Edwards’ records and got the whole story. It was straight theft.”

  Weigand swallowed more coffee and lighted another cigarette. The Norths nodded, encouragingly.

  “Edwards,” Weigand went on, “was simply rooking Berex. He’d sold the invention, all right, and signed the royalty contract in Berex’s name. He had Berex’s power of attorney, you see, because Berex was out of the country. The contract provided for royalties running around fifty thousand a year. Then Edwards forged another contract, calling for royalties around three thousand, and that was the one he showed Berex. He kept the difference.” Weigand paused. “It was a neat difference,” he added. “Now we go back to Brent.

  “Brent was surprised that Berex wasn’t getting more, but he didn’t say anything to Berex about it. Instead, he checked with the corporation, which was easy since his firm were its lawyers. It probably didn’t take him as long as it took us to uncover the scheme. His first thought was to go direct to the District Attorney with it, and he called up that Monday and made an appointment. Then—we have to guess a bit here—he decided to give Edwards a chance to explain. Or—” He broke off, and looked at the Norths.

  “That is the official version,” he said. “The one we’re using. It’s also possible Brent thought not better, but worse, of it after he had made the appointment with the D.A. Maybe he thought he might get in on it.”

  “Blackmail?” Mr. North asked.

  Weigand nodded, and said it could be.

  “But we’re not trying to prove it,” he said. “All we’re going to prove, and we’ve already proved it at Edwards’ office, is that Brent called Edwards on the telephone early Monday afternoon. There’s no doubt that, then, he told Edwards enough to show that he had the goods on him. Then Edwards began to think fast. The first result of his thinking was to make an appointment with Brent. He may merely have wanted to have the meeting where nobody would be apt to stumble on it; more likely he decided, almost at once, that Brent would have to be killed. At any rate, he fixed your house—the Buano house—as the place of the meeting, remembering the vacant apartment and the ease of getting in. Then he must have kept on thinking fast; anyway, we can figure out what he did.

  “First, he must have prepared the slip to go into the slot by the bell, getting it to size by guesswork, and being sure he made it, if anything, too large. He could always snip it down, after he got there. He cut it out of the top of a letter Berex had written him about the trust fund and was careful to leave part of the X on it. By then, anyway, he knew he was going to kill. He couldn’t know that Berex’s fingerprints were on it, but there was a good chance. He was careful to see that his own weren’t. He printed his own name on it—”

  “Why,” Mrs. North interrupted. “And why did he leave it?”

  “Obviously he had to use his own name, since he was the one Brent was coming to meet,” Weigand said. “I’ll get to the rest later.

  “Then he went home, arranging to get there and receive the lobsters, which he knew pretty well wouldn’t get there before the latest hour he’d fixed, three o’clock. He had arranged to have them come by that time merely so he would have time to prepare them, but now it fitted in. He was there when they came, took them into the kitchen, sent Kumi upstairs to clean, and threw the lobsters down the incinerator.”

  “Oh,” said Mrs. North. “Of course!”

  “Precisely,” Weigand said. “Then he took an old suitcase with him and went down the service stairs and over to the Buano house, which is only a couple of blocks. He had to chance being seen, but he was lucky. We still haven’t found anybody who saw him, but we’re still looking. The appointment was, probably, for three-thirty, and again he had to chance Brent’s being on time. But if Brent wasn’t on time, there was no real harm done. Edwards would only have to think up another plan. But Brent kept his appointment.

  “Edwards got there a few minutes ahead of time, put the slip in the slot by the bell, and then got in by pretending to be a messenger boy. He disguised his voice, probably by using his handkerchief. When you went back into the apartment after talking to him, Mrs. North, he went on up, quietly—the carpet is heavy, remember—and got into the apartment on the top floor. He probably had to wait a few minutes, and noticed how hot and close it was. He opened one of the windows, sure he wouldn’t be seen—the windows on that floor aren’t overlooked by any other buildings. Also, since he was going to leave the body there, he wanted an air circulation. Then Brent came.

  “I don’t imagine Edwards gave Brent any time. He opened the door and stepped to one side, and Brent went in. Then Brent must have stopped, astonished that the apartment wasn’t furnished, because Edwards had undoubtedly explained that he had just moved from his old apartment to this one. And that was probably the last thought Brent had, because then Edwards hit him. He’d put the ice-mallet in the suitcase and brought it too, you see. Then Edwards dragged Brent into the bathroom, hit him a couple more times to make sure, banged the face a bit and stripped the body. He put the clothes in the suitcase, wrapped the mallet and wallet and a few other articles up in something—a piece of newspaper he had brought along, perhaps—went over to the subway and checked the case. Then he went by a market in Eighth Street and bought frozen lobster.”

  “Can you prove that?” Mrs. North wanted to know.

  Weigand nodded. They had, he explained, made a store-to-store check when they knew what to look for, and found the clerk who had sold the lobster. He wasn’t sure about the time, but he could come close enough, and it was around four. He had, subsequently, identified Edwards as the man who had bought the lobster, remembering him because it was unusual to sell so much lobster to one customer.

  “Then Edwards went back to his apartment, up the service stairs, and threw the mallet and other things that would burn down the incinerator. He’d replaced the mallet with a mechanical ice-crusher by the time I got around, incidentally. Then he thawed the lobster and threw in some other ingredients—probably the ones you named, Mrs. North—and there he was. It wasn’t, as you afterward discovered, Mrs. North, very good Spanish lobster, but it looked all right and the chances were a good many to one that nobody would notice—or, if they did, would think anything except that he was a bad cook. He could take that, proud as he was of his cooking, under the circumstances—which were that he had a perfectly good alibi, all the better because it seemed to be such a casual, faulty one—at first glance, that is. When you examined it, it seemed perfect, because he couldn’t be doing two things at the same time in different places, and it seemed obvious he had done one of them. He’d eliminated a man who might have sent him to jail, he’d kept his forty-odd thousand dollars and he was probably feeling pretty good—felt pretty good until he remembered something.

  “When he went out of the Buano house, with his suitcase, he had, undoubtedly, walked past the mail-carrier, Barnes. Probably he didn’t pay any attention at the time, because mail-carriers rather blend into the background, but afterwards he thought of it and realized that Barnes might be able to identify him. So, when he was supposed to be at another cocktail party Wednesday afternoon, he followed Barnes and killed him. That, however, we’ll probably never prove; as things stand now, we won’t even try to.”

  “But the slip,” Mrs. North said. “I still don’t see why he left it.
He must have left it when he went out, mustn’t he?”

  Weigand said, “Yes.

  “That was a slip,” he said. Mr. North winced visibly, and Weigand grinned at him and said he hadn’t meant it. “But probably it seemed like a fine idea at the time,” he went on. “He figured it this way:

  “His first hope was obviously that we wouldn’t find the body until it was too late to identify. That was why he took the clothes, of course. But if nobody found the body, the slip wouldn’t be found, either or, as we agreed earlier, wouldn’t have any meaning if it were. That was the hope you spoiled, the two of you.

  “His second hope was that, if the body was found and identified, the slip would be found and would mean something; would, as a matter of fact, lead us to him at once. He figured that, if the body was identified, the investigation would come around to him sooner or later, because of Brent’s part in the trust fund investigation. He wanted it sooner, if it was coming, for a couple of reasons. For one thing he figured, rightly I think, that if we investigated him with the trust fund in mind, we would be bound to clear him and that, having once given him a clean bill, we would have a tendency to leave him out of it later. He knew we’d have to clear him on that ground, because the trust fund was perfectly all right. And, up to a point, it worked out as he had planned.

  “His other reason for wanting to be questioned early was even more important. He wanted us to hear and check his alibi as soon as possible, because it was an alibi which depended entirely on the memories of two disinterested people—Kumi, who doesn’t seem to have any dog-like devotion to his master, and the boy who delivered the lobsters. He knew—and went so far as to tell me—that Kumi’s memory isn’t to be depended on, and of course the boy couldn’t remember one delivery, out of many, for very long. Edwards wanted us to come after him, if we were coming at all, while those memories were fresh, because while the memories lasted he had an alibi. And that worked out as he planned, too, up to a point.”

  The Norths thought it over, and nodded. Then Mrs. North thought of another question.

  “Would you have caught him if he hadn’t tried to—to get me?” she said. “Wasn’t that foolish of him?”

  Weigand said it was very foolish, as it turned out.

  “But you have to remember,” he said, “that he had no way of knowing I had stumbled on the frozen lobster trick. You were the only danger he saw, and he thought he could get away with it—and with you. As he might have. Nobody knew with certainty where anybody else was at the party, as I gather it. And all the suspects were there. If he wasn’t actually caught in the act, it might have been any of them.”

  Mrs. North thought a moment.

  “But how did he know I was going to be up there, alone, where he could get at me?” she said. “Was it just luck?”

  Partly, Weigand assumed, it was luck; partly it must have been quick thinking. Naturally, Weigand pointed out, Edwards wasn’t saying. Edwards wasn’t saying anything.

  “But I imagine I can come close to it,” Weigand said. “He saw the cat.”

  The Norths looked at him.

  “He may really have intended to go,” Weigand explained. “When he guessed that Mrs. North knew, his first thought—almost anybody’s first thought—would be to get away. But then he saw that Pete had got out of the apartment and was following upstairs. He followed along to see if what did happen would happen, guessing that any cat would want to explore any place that was dark. He saw Pete slip past you, Mrs. North, and probably heard you speak to him. Then he saw you go back into the apartment after the cat. The rest was easy—he had only to lag behind the others, which was easy in semi-darkness and confusion, and go back upstairs when the rest went into your apartment.” Weigand paused. “We can bet it was that way, or close to it,” he said. “Edwards liked to plan things out, but he could be an opportunist, too. If he could get you out of the way, he figured, he wouldn’t have to run.”

  “And you think you can convict him?” Mrs. North inquired. Weigand nodded emphatically.

  “Verndorf may make it a self-defense plea,” he said, “and that may give us trouble, because it will be hard to prove that Brent didn’t jump him first. But with the motive and the planned alibi and the attack on you—well, I’m glad I’m not in Mr. Edwards’ spot. Very glad.”

  “And all the others?” Mrs. North said. “They weren’t in it at all? They all told the truth?”

  “Within reason,” Weigand said. “Berex and Claire Brent clipped the truth a bit here and there, undoubtedly, for their own purposes. They certainly tried to hide that they were out together the night Barnes was killed. Mrs. Brent is more conventional than you’d think. The rest undoubtedly told the truth; or thereabouts. For example, North, I really believe you were walking in Central Park when Brent was killed.”

  Mr. North looked up sharply and then grinned.

  “Well,” said Mrs. North. “Well—”

  They all stood up and Mr. North went over to pay the checks. Mrs. North and Weigand stood waiting for him, and Mrs. North said she had a fine idea.

  “Let’s go up to the house and have cocktails,” Mrs. North said.

  They all thought it was a fine idea, and went up to the Norths’ apartment and had cocktails. It had turned much cooler, and they could have a fire with only one window open, and it was very comfortable. After the second round, Mrs. North said she didn’t know what they thought, but she thought this was very nice.

  “We must do it again,” she said, nodding seriously at Weigand. “Even without murders.”

  Mr. North, also looking at Weigand, made sounds of approval, faintly tinged with inquiry, and Weigand was a little embarrassed and a good deal pleased and said it certainly seemed like a fine idea to him. So they had another round.

  After the third round they remembered to call Mullins up and invite him, too. Mrs. North said it was high time she thanked Mullins for saving her life.

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

  1

  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9:

  3:15 P.M. TO 4 P.M.

  William Weigand took a hurried look at the sketch map, decided to chance it, and swung left off Route 22 on a narrow macadam road. He drove a few hundred yards and pulled the Buick to the side of the road. He stared at the map and admitted to himself that it had him. Just here, where Mrs. Gerald North had drawn a little wiggly line, there ought to be a side road. But there wasn’t any side road. There was only a small and rather pointless brook, which approached the road half-heartedly from the right, dived under it and emerged, not perceptibly refreshed, on the other side.

  “Of course,” Weigand said to himself, “she could have drawn the brook. Though God knows why. She didn’t draw the Croton River.”

  He back-tracked on the map. Through Brewster on Route 22; that was right, so far. Turn left seven miles out, pass a little wiggly road that might be a brook, bear right at one fork—if it was a fork—and left at another around something marked “White church” and then come to Ireland. That was what it said at the terminus—“Ireland.” Mrs. North’s maps were as unexpected as Mrs. North, Weigand thought, putting the car back in gear. As one might expect, he thought, leaving the little brook, which might be a road, behind and parting company finally with the assurance which came from the black and white signs which had told him that he was, as he should be, on “N. Y. 22.”

  There was a fork, which encouraged him, and he bore right. Then there was another, but no church, of any color. Weigand stopped in the middle of the fork and looked around. No church. He sighed and got out and walked back down the road a few yards until he could peer through some low-growing trees on the left. There was something white through the trees, and Weigand climbed halfway up the bank. It was a church, sure enough—not visible from the road, only vaguely white, if you came to that, but certainly a church. Weigand shook his head over Mrs. North, who had risen superior to foliage. He went back to the car and bore left. The road wound and twis
ted, it went suddenly uphill and even more suddenly down and then it was blocked by a herd of cows. Weigand ground along behind the cows while a small boy nudged them to the side and two farm dogs frightened them back again. Finally he got past and the cows looked at him, mournfully solemn.

  He ought to be nearly to “Ireland” now, he thought, as the road turned again on top of a hill. There was a fork which Mrs. North had forgotten, but Weigand, feeling that it was the right fork’s turn, took it. He slid cautiously downhill and there, suddenly, was Ireland—“Frank Ireland’s Log Cabin. Open All Year.” Weigand pulled up and went in to ask about the Norths. Mr. Ireland, a stocky, hoarse man, walked to the door so that he could spit tobacco, beckoned Weigand to follow him and gesticulated by the gas pumps. Weigand should turn left, go about three hundred yards, and find a driveway through the wall on the right. That would be the Norths.

  “Pam and Jerry,” Mr. Ireland said, unexpectedly. “Tell them I’ve got cream if they want it.” He looked at Weigand. “Great people for cream,” he said. It seemed to be a joke. Anyway, Mr. Ireland laughed.

  “Thanks,” said Weigand. “I’ll tell them.”

  He turned left, drove about a quarter of a mile, and found a gap in the stone wall on the right. He turned in. The Norths’ car was pulled halfway up a slope to one side. It was not the car they had that spring, but it was their car, as the license plates told him. He reflected that he was probably the only person in the world who could tell offhand what the Norths’ license number was, since neither of the Norths could, and pulled up beside it. Nobody came out of the cabin a little farther up the slope for a moment, and then a large black cat came out.

  “Hello, Pete,” Weigand said. “How’s tricks? How’s mice?”