Curtain for a Jester Read online

  “Hadn’t seen him for months,” Parsons said. “We had a blowup—when was it? Early last fall. Said I was a drunken bum and needn’t expect anything from him. I said he was an objectionable old fool, or something like that.” Parsons paused. “Could be we were both right,” he said.

  But now, Frank had told him, Wilmot, suddenly very ill, had had a change of heart. He wanted to see his only kinsman, wanted “to make things right.”

  “How, did you think?” Bill asked the white-faced man.

  “What do you think?” Parsons asked him. “The old boy had a lot of money. Last time I saw him he was going to make a will and leave the whole business to charity. Charity, for God’s sake! Leave out his only relative—me. I told him what he could do with it.”

  “You meant it?”

  “Then, sure. But—well, who wants to have a fight with a lot of money? If he’d decided blood thicksher—thicker than water, s’all right with me.” He paused again and looked around the room. “Mother’s brother anyway,” he said. “Old fool, but still—” He looked at Weigand. “Things get mixed up,” he said. “Not just one reason. Know that?”

  “Yes,” Bill said. “You came here. At about ten?”

  “Sometime around then, little later, maybe. Found this party going on. Everybody singing and dancing. The old—Uncle Byron laughing his head off. Saying he knew I’d come running if I got the idea he might—Well, there it was. Joke on me. Thrown in with a lot of people I didn’t know, looking like—like a poor relation. So he says, ‘Stay for the party. May as well get what you can.’ Then he has Frank bring me a drink. Putting it up to me—like saying, ‘You poor sap. Can’t take a drink like everybody else, can you?’ So—I took the drink.”

  “And went on.”

  “Whata you think? Sure I went on. He knew I would. Six months without it. On a job three months so—phooey! Funny, wasn’t it?”

  “Why?” Bill asked. “What was the point of it?”

  “Made a fool of me,” Parsons said. “What do you want? What did he want? Make fools of people.” He seemed to grow abruptly more sober. “He made a career of that,” Parsons said. “Don’t you realize that, captain? Maybe a psychiatrist could tell you why. He started on me when I was a kid.” He paused again. “Maybe I didn’t laugh hard enough,” he said. “He liked people to laugh when they—oh, tripped over a wire and fell in a lake. Used to call me—what was it?—‘that sullen brat.’ When I wanted to get in the—” He stopped. “Skip it,” he said.

  “Specifically,” Bill said, “you thought he wanted you to come and make things up? You gathered he was going to change his will?”

  “All right,” Parsons said. “Something like that. Make a will, I guess. Anyway, last fall I got the idea he hadn’t made one. Maybe he did later. I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t learn last night?”

  “When I start to drink,” Parsons said, “it hits me fast. A couple, and I’ve had it. Don’t remember all he said. Don’t—well, there’s a lot of things about last night I don’t remember.”

  “When you came in,” Bill said, “you said something about being next of kin. You are?”

  “Yes.”

  Weigand waited for the thin young man to pick it up. When he did not, Weigand said, “Meaning, if there’s no will you’d inherit?”

  “Could be,” Parsons said. “Is there a will?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Parsons,” Weigand said. “It may be in his safe. We haven’t opened that yet. It may be at his lawyer’s. Perhaps, as you think, there isn’t a will.”

  Parsons said, “Yeah.” He did not seem greatly interested. He said, “The radio said he was stabbed. That right?”

  “Right,” Bill said. “When did you leave here last night, Mr. Parsons? Or was it this morning?”

  “Leave?” Parsons said. “Oh. I don’t know. Aunt Trudie can tell you. I went when she did. She wanted me to go home with her. Wanted to sober me up. Everybody wants to sober me up.”

  “You went with her?”

  “Not me,” Parsons said. “Went looking for a bar, I guess. Seem to have found one.” He closed his eyes. He looked ill. “Found several, probably,” he said. “I don’t remember. When I get to drinking, I don’t, usually.” He opened his eyes. “Remember going down from here,” he said. “Something about a taxi-cab. Aunt Trudie wanted me to get in, and I didn’t. Don’t think I did. Then I was home—maybe it was an hour ago—and turned on the radio and heard about—this.”

  “That’s all you remember?”

  “That’s all. You think I came back and killed Uncle Buzzard?”

  “I don’t know,” Weigand said. “Did you?”

  “Don’t know either,” Parsons said. He seemed momentarily more cheerful. “Might have seemed like a good idea. But, on the other hand, I was probably pretty drunk. Probably he’d just have pushed me and I’d have fallen down. Anyway, they say I don’t usually get that nasty when I’m drunk. Never knifed anybody I know of.”

  He leaned forward a little in the chair, clutching the chair arms.

  “Not very satisfactory, is it?” he said.

  “Not very,” Bill Weigand said. “You know of anybody who might have wanted your uncle dead?”

  “Anybody who knew him, I’d think,” Parsons said. (Parsons was, Bill thought, sobering rather rapidly, which was interesting.) “Specifically, no, I don’t. If Aunt Trudie wanted to kill him—but she wouldn’t kill anybody—she’d have done it years ago. Used to put snakes in her bed, just for a laugh.”

  “Actually?”

  “He did once. Four or five years ago. She didn’t like it. Went to Reno.”

  “But was here last night?”

  “Seems to have been. Sure—she was.” He paused. “I don’t know why,” he said. “Ask her.”

  “Right,” Bill said. “We will. You were here when there was this—incident of the dummy?”

  “Sure. Anyway, I was partly here. I didn’t—well, I didn’t pay much attention. Lot of banging and people yelling. Knew it was one of uncle’s gags. Usually, there was one big gag—one real knock-’em-dead thing.”

  “The dummy had red hair,” Weigand said, and was surprised to hear himself saying, “Does that mean anything to you?”

  “Mean anything? What’d it mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Bill said. “Nothing, probably. Later, the dummy fell off the terrace. Landed on the sidewalk. Fell off accidentally, your uncle said.”

  Parsons said he knew nothing about that. He said that it would be his guess his uncle pushed it off. For a gag.

  “Possibly,” Bill said. “You know a man with red hair?”

  “What the hell?” Parsons said. “Probably known half a dozen.”

  “Connected with your uncle in any way?”

  Parsons appeared to consider. Absently, he took a pipe from his jacket pocket, looked at it, put it back. In the end he shook his head. “If you’re thinking about the dummy, it was just a gag,” he said. “You wouldn’t wonder about it if you’d known my uncle.”

  “Probably not,” Bill said. “You haven’t any ideas, Mr. Parsons? Any that will help us?”

  Parsons shook his head. But then he hesitated. He said, “No,” but dragged the word. Then he leaned forward again.

  “I had a feeling he was up to something,” Parsons said. “Don’t know what.”

  “Your uncle? What do you mean, Mr. Parsons?”

  “I don’t know,” Parsons said. “I got to feeling that way last summer. Before we had this—disagreement. Felt he was up to—something. I don’t know why. It was just a feeling I got. Doesn’t help much, does it?”

  “It’s vague, certainly,” Weigand said. “You mean—in business? In his personal life? What do you mean?”

  “You know,” Parsons said, “I’m damned if I know. Probably something I just made up. Maybe he’d just thought of a new line of gadgets. Maybe—I tell you I don’t know. Don’t even remember what got me started thinking that.”

  “Try to,�
�� Bill told him, and it seemed, for a minute or more, that Parsons did try. But he ended by shaking his head. Then, uncertainly, he stood up. For a moment, standing, he swayed. He smiled faintly, uncomfortably.

  “All right if I go?” he said.

  “Right,” Bill told him. “Go home and get some sleep.”

  Parsons said, “Sure.” He pulled his tie straight; he brushed ineffectually at his suit jacket. He said, again, “Sure.” He went. He was not, Bill thought, going to sleep. He was going to the nearest bar.

  “The safe man’s here,” Mullins said. “He tell you anything?”

  “Parsons?” Bill said. “I don’t know, sergeant. Probably he’s Wilmot’s heir if Wilmot didn’t make a will. Parsons thinks he didn’t.”

  Mullins said, “Hm-m.” He said, “He’s working on it.”

  They walked to the end of the room and watched the safe man work on the safe. He got it open, without too much trouble.

  There was nothing in it but money. There was a little under thirty thousand dollars in fifty and twenty dollar bills, none of which was new. It took them a time to count it, but that was what it came to—twenty-eight thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars. It appeared that Mr. Wilmot had not wanted to run out of cash.

  V

  Thursday, 1:30 P.M. to 3:20 P.M.

  Arthur Monteath sat on a sofa, against a wall, in a corner of the Algonquin’s lobby. Pam and Jerry North saw him before they were themselves seen; Mr. Monteath looked, waiting, precisely as Pam had always sought to look herself—not like a person waiting, not perched; observant but relaxed. He did better at it than she ever had, she thought, preparing a smile as she walked toward Mr. Monteath, with Jerry behind her. Monteath looked up; Pam smiled. Monteath rose, without struggle, although the sofa was deeply cushioned. He stood awaiting them and did not put hands in pockets. She must remind Jerry of that, Pam thought, and wondered whether Mr. Monteath had sat with his back to a wall because of senators. After all, Pam thought, he’s State Department, and held out a slim hand, which was taken, just perceptibly bowed over.

  They sat, after greetings. Monteath tapped the plunger of the little bell on the table and, across the lobby, a white-jacketed waiter heard at once and came toward them. Waiters, even at the Algonquin, did not always hear at once. Perhaps it was, Pam thought, a tribute to Mr. Monteath’s tailoring. Even now, as he sat again, Mr. Monteath’s gray suit jacket did not bunch at the back of the neck. Pam looked quickly at Jerry’s jacket. Probably, she thought, it’s the way people sit. She said, “A very dry martini, with lemon peel, please. No olive, please. Just a twist of lemon peel.” “A martini,” the waiter said. “Without an olive,” Pam said.

  “We knew a woman once,” Pam said, “who put olives in all the glasses and then poured the liquid in the bottle—the stuff olives live in, you know—into the shaker with the martinis. Ugh!”

  “Ugh!” Mr. Monteath said, politely. He offered Pamela, then Jerry, cigarettes from a leather case. He told them it had been pleasant running into them again. He said he had spoken to the maître d’ about a table. He said that, walking to the Algonquin, it had felt like spring. He said it was pleasant to be again in New York, even if briefly. He said, “Ah,” when the drinks came, and raised his and smiled over it and said, “Cheers.” He said, “Get much tennis these days?” to Jerry, who said he didn’t. Monteath said he had passed where the Park Avenue courts had been and there was an apartment house there now and sighed briefly.

  “Somehow,” Jerry said, “I always turned up on the court without any back run. Remember?”

  Monteath did. He remembered the pro at the courts, who could, and sometimes did, play with a racket in either hand. Jerry also remembered him. Well, Pam thought, sipping her drink, they’re better than golfers, but not much. Mr. Monteath had got in a little tennis in the south of France the previous autumn. Jerry hadn’t played since last September. “No overhead at all, any more,” Jerry said. Arthur Monteath hadn’t either. “Overhead goes first, of course,” he said, and the two nodded agreement to that. Pamela smiled a little fixedly, and continued to sip. She had, she was forced to admit, expected more. “What,” Mr. Monteath enquired, “ever happened to Harry? Harry Cunningham. Remember him?”

  Jerry did.

  “Isn’t it,” Pam heard herself saying, “terrible what happened to Mr. Wilmot?”

  It sounded a little gauche. She felt that Mr. Monteath must be wincing, although there was no outward evidence of this. Well, Pam thought, there’s no use letting somebody set the pace if they won’t.

  “A shocking thing,” Monteath said, and both he and Jerry looked at her, and waited.

  “Right after we were all there,” Pam said. “And—” She paused, because there was suddenly a picture in her mind. “I’m afraid I’ll never forget the way he looked,” she said, and then knew, coldly, that she never would. She put her glass down and, as he saw her face, Jerry reached out to touch her hand, to hold it, for a moment, under his.

  “My dear!” Monteath said. “I hadn’t realized.”

  Pam nodded.

  “I did,” she said. “The elevator man and I. Of course, Miss Evitts first but she—well, she didn’t do anything. So we—we had to. I made the squeal, really.”

  “Squeal?” Monteath said. There was blank astonishment in his voice, diplomacy having slipped.

  “Called the police,” Jerry said. “She’s just heard the—er—term. From a friend of ours who’s a detective.”

  “Oh, yes,” Monteath said. “I’ve heard something about you and him, haven’t I? A chap named—Weygand?”

  “Weigand,” Pam said. “Bill Weigand. Had you?”

  Monteath nodded. He did not amplify. Well, Pam thought, it’s not a secret, of course. But still, he’s been away. Even if we do get in the newspapers a little, sometimes, you wouldn’t think …

  “This friend of yours,” Monteath said. “He’s a Homicide man, isn’t he? Probably be in on this?”

  “Oh yes,” Pam said. “He is. He’s there now, probably. Or—or somewhere talking to people.” She paused for a moment. “People who were at the party,” she added. And she found she was watching Monteath’s face.

  But she could read nothing in it. He nodded slowly. Then he looked at their glasses, reached a hand toward the little bell. But Raul came out of the Oak Room before he touched it, found them and came to the corner. He greeted the Norths, told Monteath that their table was ready. At the table, Monteath ordered more drinks. “The perfects?” Raul asked, and Jerry nodded. “Wonderful martinis,” Pam promised. “Much better than outside. Unless they send them outside from inside, of course.”

  Monteath looked at her. He nodded again, this time doubtfully.

  “About Wilmot,” he said then. “I don’t suppose your friend will have much difficulty finding out who was there?”

  “Hardly any,” Pam said. “People will remember other people, of course. We told him about Miss Evitts and Mr. Baker. And that you were there, Mr. Monteath.”

  “Of course,” Monteath said. “I assumed you had, actually.” He looked at Pam. Now he smiled. “I’ll admit I wondered,” he said. “I realized it couldn’t be helped. Still—” He shrugged. “Won’t make me popular in the department,” he said.

  They waited.

  “Mine’s a queer job,” he said. “We’re supposed to avoid—er—unfavorable associations.” He smiled faintly. “Almost any association can be that,” he said. “And a man like Wilmot—” He ended with another shrug.

  “You mean,” Pam said, “because he got himself killed?”

  Monteath hesitated. He said, “Of course, that too.” But he did not amplify. The drinks came. They ordered food.

  “Nobody can blame you just because you went to a party and afterward somebody killed your host,” Pam said. “I mean, you can’t just not ever go anywhere. And how can anybody tell beforehand?”

  “She means—” Jerry began, but Monteath smiled and shook his head slightly. He said it was perfectly
clear what Mrs. North meant, and that her point was well taken. He hoped the department would be equally—observant. Nevertheless, a high value was placed on discretion.

  “Will it matter much?” Jerry asked and was told that, probably, it wouldn’t.

  “They’ll wish it hadn’t happened,” Monteath said. “So do I. But—it did.” He considered his drink. “Your police friend will want to see me, I suppose,” he said. “As a matter of routine?”

  “I’d think so,” Pam said, and Jerry nodded his head.

  “I don’t suppose you know whether he’s got any—leads?” Monteath asked. “Probably hasn’t. Yet anyway.”

  “No,” Jerry said, “I shouldn’t think so.”

  “He was stabbed, according to what I heard on the radio,” Monteath said. “Was that right?”

  Pam told him it was; told him something of what she had seen from the doorway to the big living room. She told him, too, why she had gone to the penthouse—something of the blank fear, or shock, in the eyes of Martha Evitts.

  “Of course,” she said, “there was the business about the dummy first. You remember the dummy? The mannequin?”

  “Oh yes,” Monteath said. “I remember the dummy, Mrs. North. Very—unpleasantly. I thought for a moment there—well, what Wilmot wanted me to think. That I’d killed a man.”

  “It was a damn fool thing,” Jerry said.

  “I thought so,” Monteath said. “Of course, I was a little—well, call it prejudiced. Probably seemed very funny to Wilmot.”

  “He must have been a strange sort of person,” Pam said, and paused while the waiter delivered, to her, corned beef and cabbage. “My,” Pam said, “I must have been hungry.” The waiter left broiled sea bass with Jerry, eggs benedict with Arthur Monteath. The waiter withdrew. “A very strange sort of person,” Pam said. “To go to so much trouble for—well, it wasn’t particularly funny, or anything, was it?”