The Dishonest Murderer Read online

  He paused while attention focussed on him.

  “I’m a lieutenant of detectives,” he said. “My name is Weigand. I’ve been assigned, with others, of course, to try to discover the circumstances of Senator Kirkhill’s death. The exact circumstances.” He paused, and looked around. “I know this is difficult for some of you,” he said. “For Miss Kirkhill and Mrs. Haven, probably for all of you. I’m sorry about that, but it can’t be avoided. I mean, I can’t avoid asking you to help me, to tell me what you know.” He paused again. “You see,” he said, “the circumstances of the senator’s death are very difficult to understand. To make any sort of sense of. I don’t know whether you all know what the circumstances were. It was like this—”

  He told them, in bare, flat words, of the finding of Bruce Kirkhill’s body, of the way the body was dressed, of its identification.

  “It appears,” he said, “that the senator was engaged in some—masquerade. That he dressed himself, outwardly, for a certain part, presumably that of a man out of work, sleeping in cheap rooming houses, cadging drinks. He was found in, or near, a part of the city in which men like that are—numerous. He had been given a heavy dose of chloral hydrate. Perhaps it would not have killed him except that he had a weak heart.”

  He looked around at them.

  “You all knew his heart wasn’t good?” he asked. “Was that fact widely known?”

  He paused, to give them a chance to answer. He looked from one to another, and one and then another shook his head. He raised his eyebrows at that, as if he were surprised. But the surprise, Freddie Haven thought, did not go deep; it was professional surprise, leaving the man himself untouched. His confidence was untouched, his assurance. He’s very intelligent, Freddie thought and then, belatedly: Was there really something the matter with Bruce’s heart?

  Freddie looked at Celia, because Lieutenant Weigand’s gaze had stopped at Celia. The girl with all but youth washed out of her face looked at Freddie and shook her head, her eyes wide, and then at Weigand and said, “No. I didn’t know. He—Dad never—” Her head went down, then, her face in her hands.

  “Mrs. Haven?” Weigand said, and Freddie shook her head, in turn, and said, “No, Lieutenant, I didn’t know.”

  And the others said they did not know. Fay Burnley, who had kept house for Bruce Kirkhill for years; her daughter, who perhaps once, briefly, had known him very well indeed; Howard Phipps, who had sometimes said that he lived in the chief’s pocket; the admiral, who was to have been Bruce’s father-in-law and Curt Grainger, who certainly had hoped to be his son-in-law—none of them knew Kirkhill’s heart had been (what did they say?) “involved.” It must, Freddie thought, seem unlikely to Lieutenant Weigand. It must seem—

  “Apparently he was very reticent,” Weigand said, his voice without inflection. “However.”

  Of course, he told them then, Senator Kirkhill might, under circumstances as they were, have died in any case of exposure. But, if his death was intended, the person who intended it could not have been entirely sure of that. The weak heart might have provided the assurance.

  He seemed content to leave it at that. He went on. He was succinct, unemotional; he seemed to apply no pressure. He is very sure, Freddie thought; he is very confident. The thought disturbed her; she looked at her father. To her, Admiral Satterbee’s face showed nothing. Did it show more to this undisturbed, intelligent man who seemed so sure? Was her father’s face, in its very absence of revelation, revealing?

  As he understood it, Weigand said, Senator Kirkhill had been expected at the New Year’s Eve party about ten o’clock, expected to check in at the Waldorf some two hours earlier. He had not come to the party. He had not checked in at the Waldorf. “Right?” Weigand said, and let silence confirm.

  “Apparently,” Weigand said, “he came up from Washington on an earlier train. As he had planned?” The question was for Phipps. Phipps looked puzzled, but did not speak. “Where he went then, we don’t know,” Weigand said. “He went somewhere and changed into this—into this masquerade. He went somewhere and had several drinks, one of them full of chloral hydrate. He walked a while, got sleepy, collapsed in a doorway, died, we think, rather quickly after that. That is all we know—now.”

  He stopped, and looked at them, looked around at them.

  “I hope one of you, perhaps several of you, know more,” he said. “Can help us fill in. Right?”

  But nobody offered anything. Freddie looked around at the others, saw their faces blank. But then Phipps spoke.

  “It wasn’t as he planned,” Phipps said. “The time he came, I mean. He planned to take the Congressional. I suppose he found he could get away earlier.” He paused, shook his head. “Of course,” he said, “he must have planned to get here earlier. To give time for this—what you call this masquerade.”

  “Whatever I call it,” Weigand said, “have you any ideas about it, Mr. Phipps? No hint? He didn’t say anything that, now, has a new meaning?”

  Phipps seemed to hesitate. Then he shook his head.

  If Weigand noticed hesitation, he did not choose to put emphasis on it. He merely nodded, he looked around at the others; at Fay Burnley, at Breese, at Celia, who was looking up, now; who was looking in front of her, at nothing. Will there be something in my face? Freddie wondered. Will he—

  “Mrs. Haven?” Weigand said.

  She made up her mind.

  “I may have seen him,” she said, and was surprised that her low voice was steady. She felt the eyes of all the others looking at her, but she looked only at Lieutenant Weigand. “I—I thought it couldn’t be. But perhaps it was.”

  She told of the man she had seen, walking with the wind behind him, on some street far downtown; of the man who had reminded her of Bruce Kirkhill, might have been Bruce Kirkhill. “I don’t know,” she said. “I knew it couldn’t be Bruce but now—now—”

  “Right,” Weigand said. “It might have been. Probably we’ll never know. About what time?”

  “I was home a little after six,” she said. “It might have been about six.”

  She could not remember where the car had been when she had seen the man who reminded her of Bruce Kirkhill. She shook her head while Weigand waited. Perhaps on Lafayette Street, she thought; probably on Lafayette Street. But where, where more precisely, she could not remember.

  Weigand nodded. He did not seem surprised.

  “You got here a little after six,” he said. “Here in the apartment. You stayed here after that, Mrs. Haven? Had dinner here?”

  The question seemed, somehow, to grow out of what had gone before. But it doesn’t, Freddie thought. Not really. Where were you when Senator Kirkhill was fed chloral hydrate? Where were you, Freddie Haven—Mrs. John Haven—when the man you were going to marry was killed?

  “I didn’t go out again,” she said. “Until—” She broke off. There was no use telling this quiet, confident man what he already knew. “I had dinner here, saw that everything was ready, dressed for—for the party.”

  Weigand nodded. He said, “Right.”

  “Dinner alone?” he said. “With your father?” The question was to both of them. Admiral Satterbee answered it.

  “I dined out,” he said. “At my club. Keeping out of the way, y’know? Got here at nine-five. Changed. Talked to my daughter a few minutes. Came down here.” He indicated the living room.

  “What is your club, Admiral?” Weigand asked. Admiral Satterbee looked surprised, almost indignant. Weigand merely waited. The admiral told him.

  “Mean you’ll check?” the admiral asked Weigand.

  “We check everything we can,” Weigand said, equably, ignoring the admiral’s tone. “Mr. Phipps?”

  “Where was I?” Phipps said.

  If he didn’t mind, Weigand told him.

  “When?” Phipps said.

  “In the evening,” Weigand said.

  “As a matter of fact,” Phipps said, “I was one place most of the day. The public library.”

/>   Weigand looked at him, waiting.

  “I came up from Washington Thursday night,” Phipps said. “On the midnight train. I went to the Waldorf, checked up on the reservations, checked in myself. I had breakfast and went over to the library. Got there a little after ten, probably. I was there most of the rest of the day. Working. Getting together material for a speech the chief’s going—was going to make next week. I left the library around nine in the evening, went to the hotel and changed and came here.”

  “A long day,” Weigand said.

  “I’m used to it,” Phipps told him.

  “You went out for food?”

  Obviously, Phipps said. For lunch, to an Automat on Sixth Avenue, behind the library. For dinner, to some place on Fifth, just above Forty-second. A big place.

  “None of this you can check,” he said. “Unless the library slips? Would they show times?”

  “Oh yes,” Weigand said. He smiled faintly. “At any rate, we’d know where the books were,” he said.

  “Fine,” Phipps told him. “Wonderful.”

  Weigand smiled again and went on. “Mrs. Burnley?” he asked.

  Mrs. Burnley had been, she said, with her daughter, in her daughter’s apartment.

  “We had a little dinner,” she said. “And talked until it was time to come here. I see Breese so seldom, Lieutenant.”

  Weigand nodded.

  “There was a maid?” he said.

  Mrs. Burnley shook her head, and earrings swayed.

  “Just us,” she said. “I fixed us a little dinner.” She paused. “Lamb chops,” she said.

  “You were there all afternoon?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, and then Breese spoke.

  “Fay was,” she said. “I was working. Modelling bathing suits. Doesn’t the very idea make you shiver?”

  Weigand looked at her and waited.

  “I got home about six,” she said. “Such an awful day. Then we had dinner.”

  Weigand looked at Curtis Grainger. “Mr. Grainger?” he said.

  “Wh-why?” Grainger said. “Not that I give a damn, but why?”

  “There are certain things I’m supposed to find out,” Weigand said. He was patient, unperturbed. “Meaningless things, most of them. But we’re supposed to cover all the ground.”

  Grainger hesitated, then shrugged. He had gone out the previous afternoon for a late, long lunch with some of the men at the office. He had got to his apartment after four. He had taken a nap. At about six, he had telephoned Celia and suggested dinner, been told she had been out all afternoon and now wanted to rest for the party. He had loafed around the apartment for a time, gone out to dinner, returned and changed. “I picked Miss Kirkhill up at the Chatham and came here,” he said. “We planned that when I called her.”

  He looked at Weigand.

  “And,” he said, “I was alone, didn’t see anybody, pr-probably wasn’t seen by anybody, except a waitress who wouldn’t remember.”

  His tone was a little combative, but Weigand did not appear to notice it. He merely said, “Right.” He said, generally, to all of them, “Thank you.” He recapitulated.

  “None of you, then, has any idea why Senator Kirkhill was dressed as he was, was where he was,” he said. “None of you knew he had a weak heart. None of you saw him in New York yesterday afternoon or evening.” He looked at Freddie and nodded. “Barring the chance you saw him, Mrs. Haven,” he said. “None of you saw him to speak to, to get anything which will help now.”

  He looked around. They looked at him and nobody said anything.

  “Then—” Weigand began, and interrupted himself. It was as if, belatedly, he had thought of something of little importance. “By the way,” he said, “does any of you know a man named Smiley. Arthur Smiley?” He looked around again, and got no answer. He did not appear to be surprised. “A private detective,” Weigand said. “An investigator. He has a partner, a man named Briggs. Harry Briggs?” He seemed to feel that this might prompt a memory. He waited again. He seemed very patient, Freddie thought, very—

  Harry, she thought, then. The man who was here said something about “Harry.” He had said to her father, in his buttery voice, something like amusement in his buttery voice, that Harry wasn’t he—“Harry ain’t me.” That was what he had said. Then the man who had come to see her father was the man called “Smiley.” A private detective, an investigator—a soft, buttery man, with a kind of oily assurance in his voice, a kind of gloating; with a kind of assurance, too, in his manner; a kind of confidence that he could enter an apartment, this apartment, when he chose, say what he chose. The turmoil in her mind would show in her face. She tried to pull a shade, an expressionless shade, over her face. But instead she found that she was looking at her father, that her eyes were demanding something of her father, some explanation.

  “Mrs. Haven?” Weigand said. “You don’t know Smiley?”

  There was only one thing to say. She made herself say it. “No,” she said.

  Weigand looked at her for a second, and then looked away.

  “Right,” he said. “Probably not important. Somebody thought he’d seen him around in—in the neighborhood.” He smiled; he appeared to extend a confidence.

  “A very able man, Mr. Smiley,” he said. “In his way, that is. In—getting his way. Very odd team, Smiley and Briggs. Briggs might be a lawyer, you see. Very respectable, inspires confidence. None of you has met this Briggs?”

  He looked at all of them; he looked at Admiral Satterbee.

  “No,” Weigand said. “Why should you?”

  He turned away, then; he talked to the big man who looked like a policeman in civilian clothes. He turned back and said he thought that was all, for the moment.

  “Except,” he said, “I’d like to have you talk to Sergeant Mullins, here. Just to fill things in. How long you knew the senator—that sort of thing.” He looked at Celia Kirkhill, then. “Not you, of course, Miss Kirkhill,” he said, and his voice sounded gentle. “Nor you, Mrs. Haven, naturally. We’ll get what we need from Mr. Phipps and Mrs. Burnley, probably.” He looked at Admiral Satterbee. “And perhaps the admiral can help,” he added, his voice without inflection.

  V

  Saturday, Noon to 3:20 P.M.

  “Jerry,” Pam North said, her voice very wide awake. “The cats want in.”

  Jerry North said something rather like “Whah?”

  “The cats,” Pam said. “They—”

  Gerald North tried to climb into his pillow. He wrapped it around his head. He said, in a smudged voice, “Tell them—” and did not finish, because he was almost going back to sleep.

  “And,” Pam said, “besides the cats, there’s the admiral.” She paused, her voice from the other bed still clear and wide awake. “Your admiral,” she said.

  It was preposterous that the admiral was outside their bedroom door, trying to get in. That, at least, was clear. Jerry told Pam it was clear. He said, “You’re crazy. No admiral. Nobody there but those—” He began to drift off again.

  Sherry, the blue-point, had the most penetrating voice. It was pitched higher than the other voices; it was very plaintive. Gin, the younger seal-point, spoke briefly, more harshly; it was almost as if she barked. There was a pause. Martini, her voice soft but still guttural, spoke in command. It was just as Jerry thought. Pam’s idea was preposterous.

  “Just the cats,” he said. “The admiral would say something.” He tried to withdraw into the pillow and, at the same time, under a blanket. Then he realized, with a kind of cold dread, that he was awake. He groaned, turned over and opened one eye toward his wife in the other bed. Pam was propped up against pillows; she was entirely wide awake.

  “What are you talking about?” Jerry said. “At this hour?”

  “Noon,” Pam said. “Don’t you remember about the admiral? Your admiral? And the senator? Anyway, it was you who didn’t want to lock them up in the kitchen, because it would be too cold.”

  “Yowowow?” Sherry enquir
ed, hearing their voices. “Yah!” Gin said. Martini scratched the door.

  “But go back to sleep, Jerry,” Pam said. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

  Jerry opened the other eye. The experience was trying; a great deal of unwelcome light came in.

  “Fine,” he said. “Wonderful. I go right back to sleep.”

  Pam looked at him. She said she was sorry. She did not, Jerry decided, look sorry. Looking at her made him feel much better. Anyway, the worst of it was over. He was awake, now. He had both eyes open. Suddenly he grinned at Pam North.

  “I thought you said an admiral was outside the door,” he said. “With the cats.” Then he remembered. He said, “Oh!”

  “For practical purposes,” Pam told him, “it’s the same thing. I’ll feed the cats if you’ll turn off the air.” She smiled at him. “And you,” she added.

  Jerry writhed out of bed, shivered, and plunged across the room. He snapped off the ventilator which was pumping cold, damp air into the room. He lifted a Venetian blind and looked out and shivered. It was still snowing. He turned on a radiator. He said, “Brrr.”

  “Well,” Pam said, reasonably, “if you wore pyjamas. In the winter, anyway.”

  Jerry said “Huh!” crossed the room hurriedly and got back into his bed. “Your turn,” he said.

  Pam North got up as if it were a pleasure. Jerry regarded her with interest.

  “Actually,” he said, “the difference is technical. I mean, if that—er, garment—is supposed to provide warmth. I mean—”

  “I know what you mean, darling,” Pam said. “Don’t you like it?”

  “Oh,” Jerry said. “As far as that goes—”

  Pam found a negligee on a chair. With quick, assured movements she became hopelessly entangled in it. She extricated herself, less quickly, looked at the negligee with irritation, said, “Oh!” and turned the sleeves right side out. This time she went into it cautiously, with evident doubt, and was pleased and a little triumphant when she had it on. She looked at herself in a long mirror and told Jerry that he had good taste. Then she let the cats in. They arched and curved around her; Gin discovered Jerry in bed and went over to lick his face, purring loudly; Martini sharpened her claws briefly on an edge of the blanket, jumped up and said “good morning” with a short emphatic sound which took getting used to.