Death of a Tall Man Read online

  “What?” Pam repeated.

  Bill Weigand shook his head. He said he didn’t know. He said it was always interesting when people began to volunteer things.

  “Helpful,” Mullins said. “Helpful guys. Where would we be without ’em, Loot?”

  “Right,” Weigand said. “Where indeed, Mullins?”

  “Maybe he does just want to help,” Pam said.

  Bill Weigand said there was no doubt of it. He wanted to help—somebody. The question was, who?

  They waited, then. It was not a long wait. The door opened and Nickerson Smith came in. As he came in, Bill looked at his watch again.

  “Quick work, Mr. Smith,” he said. “Four minutes, on the nose.”

  “Really?” Mr. Smith said. He seemed pleased. “I was lucky with the elevator,” he said.

  He came across the room to them and, when Bill Weigand motioned, he sat down beside the desk. Bill sat in Debbie Brooks’s chair. He said, “Well, Mr. Smith?”

  It took Nickerson Smith a time to get started. He said that he felt himself to be in an unfortunate situation; he said he had hesitated. But what he had to tell would come out sooner or later, whatever he said. He thought it would be better all around to have all the facts available from the outset.

  “Know where you are, that way,” he explained to Bill Weigand.

  He realized that what he said might be misunderstood, that his saying it might be misunderstood. “Look as if I’m trying to direct suspicion,” he said. It wasn’t that.

  “Actually,” he said, “Dan’s the last man in the world to do anything like this. Even now. I know him, and any suspicion of him would be absurd.”

  Weigand was patient. He did not follow any of the alleys Smith opened for him. He agreed in general; he agreed in detail; he praised Smith’s attitude, and mentioned how much better it would be if all people were as reasonable and straightforward. But he did all this in few words. Gently, he nudged Nickerson Smith from generality toward particulars. He got him there.

  Dan’s mother—“my sister, that is”—had been a wealthy woman. “From our father, you know.” She had left her estate to her son, Dan. Her estate amounted to about two million—“then,” Smith added. The income was to be used for his education, and other needs; the principal to go to him when he was twenty-five. “In six months—no, nearer five, now.” She had made her husband, Dr. Andrew Gordon, and her brother executors.

  “Now,” Nickerson Smith said, “I’m the sole executor, of course. That’s the pinch.”

  Weigand nodded and waited.

  “Because,” Smith said, “it isn’t anything like two million now. That’s the catch. It’s not more than half a million, if that. Gone with the wind.”

  Weigand made regretful sounds.

  “What wind?” he said.

  That, Smith told him, was really the rub. “It’s embarrassing,” he said. “I feel guilty as hell. The fact is—I left things to Andrew. Too much to him, I realize now.” Smith diverted himself; explained. It would be easy to explain if Weigand had known Andrew Gordon, alive. He was—“forceful.” He was a man who got his own way. And, of course, Dan was living with him as his son. It was natural that he should have the greater share in controlling the estate; it was simpler for him, for example, to pay school bills, and college bills; to fix Dan’s allowance as a boy. “But,” Nickerson Smith said, “I realize that these are merely excuses. I was negligent. I can’t deny that. Easygoing. And Andrew was not the businessman he thought he was.”

  Under the terms of the will, Smith explained, the executors were allowed considerable latitude. Gordon had taken it—unwisely. He had invested the money—“with the best intentions, understand” and, to be brief, he had lost three quarters of it. At least three quarters.

  “Actually,” Smith said, and he sounded morose, “actually, I’m equally liable, of course. Subject to censure. Perhaps to legal censure. But there it is—spilt milk. Anyway, that’s the setup.”

  “And—?” Weigand said.

  Smith looked at him.

  “That’s all,” he said. He looked relieved. “Maybe I’ve been worrying myself too much,” he said. “Not about the money itself. I don’t mean that. There I worried too little, obviously. But about any possible connection of all this and—what happened to Andrew.”

  “You thought there might be a connection?” Weigand said. He was polite, interested.

  “No,” Smith said. “Not really. I’m glad there isn’t.”

  “You thought the son might have heard of this—this shrinkage?” Weigand said. “Possibly from Dr. Gordon himself? And that the boy wasn’t—shall we say, as understanding as you are, Mr. Smith? That he might, indeed, have been very annoyed? Furious, even? Having a notoriously bad temper?”

  Smith was shaking his head.

  “The boy isn’t really the way he seems,” he said. He spoke earnestly. “I realize how he seems to those who first meet him. He’s—so quick and—well, angry. About little things. But underneath he is really—oh, not like that. That’s all surface.” He paused. “I’m certain it is,” he said.

  Weigand said he saw. He said it slowly, somewhat doubtfully.

  “Then you don’t think, knowing young Gordon, that he might have had—well, say, a sudden attack of rage when he heard about what had happened to his money? And—well, acted accordingly?” Weigand spoke slowly still.

  “No.” Smith was emphatic. “That’s what I want to make clear. I don’t think that at all. I don’t think it’s possible. That’s partly why I decided to tell you this myself. So I could explain how I, knowing him very well, feel about the boy.”

  Bill Weigand said he appreciated that. He said he appreciated having been told about the estate; that he appreciated the cooperative attitude Mr. Smith had shown. And he was interested in hearing the opinion of Dan Gordon held by a man who knew him well. Smith grew contented under praise; his relief that it was over, and that he had done wisely, was apparent. He went, promising further cooperation up to the limit of his ability.

  Bill Weigand and Pam North looked after him. It was Pam who spoke.

  “Was he afraid you’d suspect Dan,” she said, “or—” She raised shaped eyebrows.

  “Precisely,” Bill said. “Or that I wouldn’t. I wondered, too. I wondered very much.”

  “And, of course,” Pam said, “there’s this—the doctor is dead, isn’t he?”

  There was no doubt of that, Bill agreed.

  “Dead men,” Pam said reflectively, “have so little to say for themselves, don’t they?”

  Evelyn Carr Gordon was last, and at that time she seemed also to be least. She was entirely recovered from her faint when they sent for her; she was very calm, sufficiently polite, immeasurably withdrawn. The withdrawal might have half a dozen explanations; it was a waste of time to try to choose among them. It might represent only her manner. It might represent shock. Or it might indicate carefulness—a defensive carefulness.

  She was Evelyn Carr Gordon, 32. She was blonde, her hair done high. She was attractive, in a not unexpected fashion—the fashion of straight nose, rounded chin, blue eyes framed in long lashes. She had been crying, they thought; her eyes had the look of crying. But she was not now; her voice was steady and she was composed. And she had little to tell.

  She had come to town on the ten thirty-three, driving to Brewster for the train. She had got in a few minutes after noon, had done one or two errands and had gone to the Longchamps at Fifty-ninth Street where her husband had said he would meet her if he could. He had not come; after she had waited for perhaps ten minutes, she had got a table not far from the Madison Avenue entrance and had ordered a cocktail and then lunch, keeping her eyes on the door. He had not come. It was matter of fact in her statement, and Bill Weigand probed into that. Hadn’t she been surprised? Or worried?

  She looked, then, a little surprised.

  “No,” she said. “Oh, no, Lieutenant. It was only a tentative engagement.”

  “Still
,” Bill said.

  She shook her head. She said that he did not understand. She said it often happened.

  “He met me when he could,” she said. “It was our understanding. He could never tell. An unexpected patient. An unexpected turn in some case at the hospital. I understand—and he knew I would understand. Today was like—oh, like many days. I said I was coming in. He said—or perhaps I said—we might meet at lunch. At about one. He didn’t even need to say, ‘if I can make it.’ That was understood. I would wait a few minutes, then I would get a table, then if he didn’t come I would go on with my lunch. If he didn’t come, I’d know he couldn’t come. It was merely—sensible.”

  Weigand nodded. Probably it was; any way of acting that people agreed upon could be sensible. This sounded sensible. Pam North’s eyes narrowed for an instant and then opened again. Of course it was sensible. She often wished that she and Jerry would be sensible, like that. No, Pam thought, I don’t really. But it is a sensible, quiet way to live.

  Mrs. Gordon had finished lunch, she thought, at about a quarter of two. She had gone to a little shop down Madison to do the shopping which had brought her to town. She had got some play dresses for Eileen.

  “Eileen being?” Bill said.

  “My little girl,” Mrs. Gordon said. “She’s six.” The shaped lips smiled a little. “Going on seven,” she said.

  The dresses were what had brought her to New York. But because Dr. Gordon had not joined her, she had eaten more quickly than she expected, and so had had more time. It was about two fifteen when she finished buying the dresses. She went to another shop and looked at hats.

  It should be easy to follow her, if they decided to follow her, Bill thought. As, naturally, they would. Longchamps, a shop, another shop. Somebody would remember.

  She had found a hat. She had worn it and had the hat she had been wearing mailed to North Salem. This—her slim fingers went up to her head. Then for a moment she looked puzzled.

  “Where is it?” she said. “I wore it here. I—” She remembered, then. “I fainted, didn’t I?” she said. “Somebody must have—” She looked around the room. “There,” she said, and pointed. There was a hat on one of the chairs. It was impertinent and bright, even when abandoned on the chair. Pam North, distracted, walked to the chair and picked up the hat. She held it up and looked at it; she turned it upside down and looked into it. She nodded at it and then, as an afterthought, at Mrs. Gordon. She took the hat to Mrs. Gordon, who put it on the desk and looked at it again. Then she looked at Bill Weigand.

  “And?” Weigand said.

  “I came here,” she said. “To—to show Andy my new hat. And then—” Her voice broke for the first time. She waited a moment, and swallowed. “To show my husband my new hat,” she said, clearly. “Then they told me. Grace told me.” Her voice was steady, now.

  That, for the moment, was all of it. Weigand expressed sympathy. He told her she could go.

  “Home?” she said. “Back to the country?”

  “Yes,” Bill told her.

  “And the—” she said, and balked at the word.

  They would be in touch with her, Bill said. In a day or two. “There are certain tests,” he said, phrasing it gently. She grew a little white at that, but she nodded. She picked up the hat and went to a mirror over the false mantel to put it on. When she was satisfied, she looked at Bill again as if to say something, and then said only, “I’ll go then, Lieutenant.” She went down the room to the door. She moved well. Dr. Gordon must have been proud of her.

  “And now?” Pam said, as the door closed. Before Bill could answer she spoke again. Her voice sounded worried. “Where’s Jerry, do you suppose?” she said. She was trying to keep worry out of her voice. Bill smiled at her, and said Jerry would be all right. He’d be along.

  “Now,” he said, “a hundred things, more or less. Background on everybody. But they’re already on that. A checkup on everybody’s movements. By the way, did the hat come from the shop she said?”

  “That’s what the label says,” Pam told him. “Naturally.”

  Bill agreed with that.

  “Of course,” Pam said, “labels can go in and out. On fur coats and things. But I don’t think this one did, do you? Because the hat is new, certainly.”

  Bill shook his head. He said he didn’t think this one did. He thought it belonged in the hat, and that the hat was new that day.

  “We’ll check, of course,” he said. “Detectives must be suspicious, like it says in the book. Suspicious of shopping trips, suspicious of afternoons spent at desks, suspicious of young men on the loose in building lobbies at appropriate times—young men who run away.”

  “And of girls of twenty, in love with—flighty men?” Pam said.

  By all means of girls of twenty, Bill told her. Particularly when in love.

  “And,” he said, “of six compensation patients. Of a nurse with opportunity—and in love with her doctor. At the moment—of anyone who could have met Dr. Gordon after he left here, persuaded him to return on some pretext, killed him while the nurse was out at lunch and the other girl was sitting at her desk answering the telephone, and gone away again through the back door.”

  “Where’s Jerry?” Pam said. “I thought he was coming for me.”

  “I don’t—” Bill began, and was interrupted. A patrolman—a very weathered patrolman—opened the reception-room door and looked in. He came part way in, looked behind him, and remained where he could look in both directions.

  “Lieutenant,” he said, “there’s a guy here. Been here about ten minutes, this guy has. Says you know him.”

  The patrolman’s voice scorned this ridiculous claim. Weigand raised eyebrows.

  “Want I should send him over to the station?” the patrolman said. “Or you want to see him? Been here about ten minutes, but you was busy.”

  A voice came around the patrolman from the hall. It was indignant.

  “Shut up, you!” the patrolman said, facing toward the hall.

  “—your staff of half-wits,” the voice said. “Tell this damned cop—”

  “Jerry!” Pam said, and started toward the door. “Darling! Where have you been?”

  The patrolman dissolved at Bill Weigand’s gesture. Jerry North took his place. Jerry was running a hand through his hair.

  “Listen, Pam,” Jerry said. “For half an hour—”

  “You’re late,” Pam told him. “We were worried about you.”

  “This cop—” Jerry began. Pam smiled at him and said, “Darling!” in a tone of sympathy. Then she considered and looked at him again.

  “Of course,” she said, “he didn’t stop me, come to think of it.”

  There was no triumph in her tone. Or, at most, very little. Jerry grinned at her and came down the room and she went to him and told him that his hair was mussed. Jerry merely smiled at her. She took both his hands, then, and looked at him more carefully, as if to see that he was really, all of him, in front of her.

  “Look,” she said. “If we had a date for lunch you’d call me up if you couldn’t, wouldn’t you? Whatever I’d said?”

  “What?” Jerry said. Then he looked at her eyes. “Of course, Pam,” he told her. “Always.”

  “Because the other’s so sensible,” Pam said, with conviction.

  Bill was on the telephone. He was telling people to do things, now. He hung up and looked at them.

  “You,” Pam said, “call Dorian and tell her there’s a murder. Or—why don’t we have dinner together? The four of us.” Mullins came back through the door from the examining area. “And Sergeant Mullins, of course,” Pam said.

  “Hullo, Mr. North,” Mullins said. He seemed to consider a moment. “Well,” he said, “here we are again.”

  They sat at the bar in Longchamps at Fifty-ninth and Madison.

  “Before anything else,” Pam said to Jerry, who was next to her, “did you feed Martini?”

  Jerry nodded, and sipped a martini.

  “H
ow was she?” Pam said. “I hated to leave her but—”

  “You had to attend a murder,” Jerry said. “I know. She was all right. She climbed up on my back and tore some more threads out of my coat.”

  “Good,” Pam said. “Lively, then.”

  Jerry agreed she was lively. He drank again. He turned to Pam.

  “Look,” he said, “I suppose she’s all right? Mentally?”

  Pam was indignant. Of course she was all right mentally.

  “Well,” Jerry said, “she behaves very oddly about her tail. She doesn’t know it is her tail. She doesn’t have any control over it, as far as I can see. Or even recognize it. The tip thrashes around and she looks at it and moves her head when it moves, as if she were watching a tennis game. Do you think that’s bright?”

  Pam wanted to know why not. Jerry raised his shoulders and dropped them. He said he didn’t know. He said it didn’t seem very bright, somehow. After all, it was her own tail. She washed it, when she thought of washing.

  “So why,” he asked, “does she always look so surprised when she sees it?”

  “Because she has blue eyes,” Pam told him.

  “What?” Jerry said.

  “Cats with blue eyes look surprised,” Pam explained. “It’s because you’re surprised that they have blue eyes, I expect.”

  Jerry shook his head slightly to clear it. He looked at his cocktail glass. He emptied it.

  “Listen, Pam,” he said. “That’s your surprise. I mean the cat’s surprise.”

  Pam looked at him, puzzled. Then her face cleared.

  “Oh,” she said, “well, we attribute to animals what we feel ourselves. So it’s really our surprise.” She paused. “Of course,” she said, “Martini does seem to think her tail is just something that follows her around. But she’s not very old yet. She’s very bright, for her age. Do you know any other cat who retrieves alternately for two people, no matter who throws?”

  “No,” Jerry said. “All right, she’s bright. She—”

  The waiter captain came and told them he had a table for five. They went to the table. Now they could talk about the murder. Pam and Bill Weigand, but mostly Bill, told, in summary, what they knew to date. Jerry drank and listened. Dorian Weigand, her greenish eyes fixed on her husband, her cocktail glass turning round and round in her pointed fingers, listened almost without other movement. Now and then, looking at her, Bill forgot precisely what it was he was talking about. When he did, Dorian smiled faintly.