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Murder Is Served Page 8


  It was a familiar face. It was John Leonard’s face. Jerry pulled at his coat, opening it. The shirt was red around the left shoulder. More blood was seeping into the shirt from a wound under it.

  The movement seemed to arouse Leonard. His eyes opened slowly and he looked up at Jerry North.

  “Lie still,” Jerry said. “You’ll be all right. You’ve been hurt.”

  “Knife,” Leonard said. “A knife. Wasn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” Jerry said. “How do you feel?”

  Leonard started to get up.

  “No,” Jerry said. “You’d better lie still. We’ll get somebody.”

  “I feel all right,” Leonard said. “It just—stings. I remember, now. He had a knife—whoever it was had a knife. I was—” Leonard could look down, now, at the blood on his shirt. He closed his eyes suddenly and let himself slip back onto the floor. “Makes me faint,” he said. “Always did. Since I was a boy. One of those things, I guess.”

  But his voice sounded stronger.

  “I’ll get somebody,” Pam said. “Where?”

  “Through the theater,” Leonard said. “There’ll be somebody at the information desk in the lobby. Have him call the Medical Office. Only I don’t think it’s anything. Just the blood.”

  Pam went, her heels clicking on concrete. She came out on the other side and the young man at the information desk said, “Hey, you’re lost again. I told you—” and then stopped when Pam spoke, talking fast.

  She was back only minutes when a doctor came. Jerry had taken his own coat, rolled it, slipped it under Leonard’s head. Leonard did not seem in much pain, and his voice was quite strong. But he kept his eyes closed. “The blood,” he said. “I don’t want to pass out again.”

  It took the doctor only minutes. And the wound was nothing, almost nothing. A slash by a knife, not much below the skin, nicking the muscle in the upper part of the left side of Leonard’s chest. The bleeding was slow; gauze and adhesive tape covered it, seemed almost to stop it.

  “You’re all right,” the doctor said. “You can get up, now. We’ll fix you up at the office.” He looked at Leonard, who sat up. “Not that you weren’t lucky,” he said. “What happened?”

  It did not become entirely clear, then or for some time later, what had happened. Re-bandaged, his left arm in a sling, Professor Leonard told the Norths, and the doctor, what he thought had happened.

  He had been at his desk, advising students, at about twenty minutes after four. A friend had telephoned him from the bookstore and suggested he take a breather and come over for coffee at the fountain. Leonard had agreed. He had finished with a student, told the next that he would be back in a quarter of an hour, and gone out of the office and down the stairs toward the street. When he had reached the double doors of the exit from the theater he had noticed that one of them was partly open and had decided to cut through the theater auditorium.

  He had opened the door further, stepped through and almost at once felt a slashing pain in his chest. It was dim inside the doors but there was enough light for him to see that his coat was cut and then, in an instant, to see blood coming out of a wound. He had more heard than seen someone starting to run across the auditorium and had started in pursuit. And then, apparently, he had fainted and fallen.

  He had seen the back only of the running figure, and that through the swirls of darkness which began to converge on his mind when he saw blood seeping through his shirt. He started to shrug his shoulders, winced with the pain, and said he couldn’t even tell whether it was a man or a woman.

  “You say you started after him,” Pam said. “But you were just inside the doors when we found you. Against them, almost. And they were closed.”

  Professor Leonard shook his head. He managed to smile faintly. He suggested he might have come to, partially, tried to reach the doors, fainted again against them. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “This man who called you,” Pam said. “This friend—”

  “Paul,” Leonard said. “Paul Weinberg. In the philosophy department. My God, do you suppose he’s still waiting?”

  A telephone call answered that question. Professor Weinberg was not waiting in the bookstore. He was in his office. He had been in his office all afternoon. He had not been at any time at the bookstore. And he had not called his friend and colleague, Professor John Leonard. He had been too busy even to think of it.

  “Well,” Leonard said. “Well. Think of that. So it was—intentional. Planned.” He passed his free hand through his thin blond hair, in a gesture which made Pam North think of Jerry. He looked at Jerry North, then at Pam. “Who?” he said. “Why?”

  Neither of them could answer that.

  “Maybe Bill can,” Pam said. “Lieutenant Weigand. Eventually.”

  “Tell me again,” Weldon Carey said. His voice was rough, he sounded angry. “Tell me again. Make it better if you can.”

  She told him again. She had got a telephone call from Tony Mott, asking her to come to his office. “From my husband,” she said. “My dear husband.” Weldon Carey told her to skip that. “Skip the whole line,” he said. His voice was still rough. But he reached out across the table and covered one of her hands with his.

  “You got this call,” he said. “You’re sure it was Mott?”

  “I thought so,” Peggy Mott said. “It sounded all right.”

  “Go on,” Carey said. “Tell me again.”

  She had gone to the office, getting there perhaps five minutes before her appointment with Mott. She had gone in the back way, as she had done before, as he suggested she do. She had knocked, thought she heard him speak—she was not certain now that she had heard anything—and had opened the door. “I was keyed up,” she said. “I thought—I hoped—”

  “All right,” Carey said. “I know. Go ahead, Peg.”

  “He was lying there,” she said. “He’d—he’d fallen forward across his desk. There was—was blood all over the desk.”

  “He was dead?” Carey said.

  “I thought so,” the girl said. She began to shake; he could feel the movement in her hand. “I thought so.”

  “You didn’t touch him?”

  “Oh, no! No!”

  “And you went out. Did you run?”

  “I think I walked.”

  “You didn’t tell anybody? Go for help?”

  “I was afraid. Oh, don’t you see? Don’t you see, Weldon? I was afraid.”

  “You found him, you don’t know whether he was dead, you didn’t call anybody. Sure I know. It’s what I’d have done, or anybody. But you’ll be talking to cops, Peg. Don’t you see? You’ll be talking to cops.”

  She kept on shivering. Her wide eyes were fixed.

  “It was that way,” she said. “What shall I do?”

  They were in a booth, in a little restaurant near Fourth Street. There were cocktails in front of both of them. He finished his in a kind of fury.

  “Drink your drink,” he said. “For God’s sake—drink your drink.”

  She took the glass, raised it to her lips, set it down again as if she had forgotten why she lifted it. Her eyes were fixed; she was not using them to see with. Damn those eyes, Weldon Carey thought. Damn those beautiful eyes. Oh, lady, but you’re lovely! He was furious at her, trapped by her loveliness; resentful of her loveliness. Good God, Weldon Carey thought, haven’t I had enough of the big things? Can’t I just have the little, easy things? The pleasant, trivial things? Do I have to beat my brains out all my life?

  He was a dark, angry man. His black hair was disordered and there was a kind of fury in his black eyes. He leaned a little toward the girl; even seated, his whole body had a kind of thrusting, forward movement. Now he snapped his fingers, holding his hand up in front of her face.

  “Drink your drink, I said,” he told her. “Drink your drink, Peg. Drink it!”

  The girl’s eyes came back.

  “Why do you bother?” she asked him, and her voice was suddenly quiet. “It’
s hard on you—wrong for you. You ought—”

  “Shut up,” Weldon Carey said. “Shut up, Peg.” He made her eyes meet his. “Don’t be a fool, Peg,” he said. “Don’t be a fool, darling,” he paused. “Darling,” he said again, very slowly, very carefully, as if it were a word which held some special magic.

  “Start over,” he said then. “Drink your drink.” He waited, making her conscious that he was waiting. She lifted the glass again, and this time she drank from it. She put it down and looked at him, and now she smiled.

  “It’s a mess, Weldon,” she said. “Maybe I’m a mess. Tony—and all.”

  “Quit it,” he said. “That doesn’t count. We’re not a mess.”

  “In a mess,” she said. “You could—” She saw his face darken.

  “All right,” she said. “I won’t say it again.”

  “Don’t,” he said. “Not any time.”

  “The only thing is,” she said, “I love you. For what good it is.”

  “You’d better,” he told her. “You’d damn well better.”

  She looked at him, and again she smiled and now he smiled too. His smile was not grudging, it changed his face for an instant. Then his smile went, and he shook his head.

  “This is a funny love scene,” she said. “It wouldn’t play.”

  He did not seem to hear her, or he took what she said as an exit line from a situation.

  “The cops won’t believe you,” he said, forcing them back. “It’s an old line. Dead before you got there. And you didn’t call them. They’ll laugh at you.”

  “You believe me,” she said. She waited an instant. “You do believe me?”

  “I’m not a cop,” he said. “My believing doesn’t count.” He smiled, very briefly. “Anyway,” he said, “I’ve got to believe you. Nobody else does, you know. Nobody in the world. And—nobody will.”

  “Then?” she said.

  “Two things,” he said. “Take all the time we can grab. Maybe there’ll be a break. Don’t volunteer. The old rule. We’ll make them find us. That’s the first thing. If they do—when they do—none of this. You understand? You weren’t there. You don’t know anything.” He looked at her, hard. “You’ll do that?” he asked. “Dumb up? Most people talk themselves into holes. What you don’t say won’t hurt you.”

  “Somebody will have seen me,” she said. “They’ll prove I was there.”

  “Do you know somebody saw you?”

  “No.”

  “Probably no one did. It would be straight bad luck if anyone did. Unless—” He stopped suddenly. She waited and then said, “Yes?”

  “Unless somebody arranged the whole thing,” he said. “Unless somebody is framing you, using you.”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t believe that. It’s just—bad luck. Just a mess.”

  “We’ll play it that way,” he said. His voice was not assured. “We’ll bet it’s that way. If we’re wrong, we’ll find out, soon enough.” He stopped and looked across the table at her, leaning forward, thrusting forward. “You’ll play it this way?” he said.

  “Yes.” She looked at him. She nodded.

  “All right,” he said. “Finish your drink. Then we’ll have another and eat.” He shook his head quickly. “Don’t say it,” he warned. “You’ll eat. And like it. See?” His inflection put the last word in quotation marks. He was obviously, heavily, the tough guy.

  “Okay, boss,” she said. She lifted her drink again and he leaned forward, looking at her. For an instant they were fixed so, violent darkness against pale quiet. Then, deliberately he turned and raised two fingers to the bartender, pointed down with two fingers at their glasses.

  It was then a few minutes after eight.

  It was eight-fifteen by the clock over the door at Charles’. The Norths and Weigand sat around a corner of the bar, Pam in the middle, and Gus set a fresh glass, heaped with ice, in front of each of them. He retired a little way down the bar and poured gin and vermouth into a mixing glass. They watched with anticipation. Gus returned, emptied ice from the glasses and filled them with colorless martinis. He waited while they tasted, was satisfied with their expressions, and moved a little way down the bar.

  “So,” Bill said, “they patched him up and you talked to him. Right?”

  “Not much patching,” Jerry North said. “Not much of a wound.”

  “Which is funny,” Pam said. “Isn’t it? Do people faint when they see blood? I mean, if there’s some reason not to faint. I should think he’d have chased first and then fainted.”

  Bill Weigand shrugged at that one. Presumably people did faint at the sight of blood—some people.

  “Usually their own blood, probably,” Pam said. “However, that’s what he says. Alternatively—”

  She stopped and took a sip from her glass.

  “Alternatively?” Jerry said.

  “He could have faked it,” Pam said. “As he could have faked the paper—”

  Bill shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “That’s corroborated. By this girl in the class. Cecily Breakwell.”

  “Who only read snatches,” Pam pointed out. “So he—the professor—could really put in almost anything he wanted to. And then, of course, he would have to have it stolen, because he couldn’t really produce it.”

  They both looked at her.

  “Why?” they said, almost at once.

  “He’s attracted to her,” Pam said.

  “So he frames her,” Jerry pointed out. “Really, Pam!”

  “I know,” Pam said. “I haven’t got it all worked out. There’s a man named Carey in it somewhere and—wait a minute. You know he said she went around with him, Jerry?”

  Jerry North said, “What?”

  “Leonard said Peggy Mott went around with this man Carey,” Pam said. “It was perfectly clear before. Now suppose Leonard’s in love with Mrs. Mott. All right?”

  “All right,” Jerry said, “All right with you, Bill?”

  “Professor Leonard is in love with Mrs. Mott,” Bill said, gravely. Pam said both of them made her tired. She suggested that Bill do his own supposing, if he didn’t like hers. Bill merely smiled.

  “All right,” Pam said. “Leonard’s in love with Mrs. Mott. So, to make her—well, available—he kills Mr. Mott. But then he finds out that she’s really in love with this Carey and that makes him mad—makes Leonard mad, Jerry—and so he decides to frame her with the murder. So he makes up part of this paper she wrote and then pretends the paper is stolen and then pretends he was attacked and—”

  “Why?” Jerry said.

  Pam finished her drink quickly and looked very alert.

  “In the first place,” she said, “the person with an obvious motive for stealing the paper is Mrs. Mott. Right?”

  “Right,” Bill said.

  “So that’s settled,” Pam North said. “Now, just stealing the paper wouldn’t be enough, because Leonard had read it and could tell you, Bill, what was in it, so the logical thing to do is to kill Leonard. Put yourself in her place. Wouldn’t you—”

  “Wait a minute,” Jerry said. “No, in the first place. And, in the second place, whose side are you on? You started out with Leonard and now you’re putting yourself in the girl’s place and what do you come up with? Attempted murder.”

  “That’s what we’re supposed to think,” Pam said. “That’s what Leonard wants us to think. I thought that was clear all along.”

  But now, suddenly, she looked doubtful, and now she looked at Bill Weigand. The gravity with which he nodded was, this time, not assumed.

  “Right, Pam,” he said. “You’ve come up on the wrong side.”

  Pam looked at Jerry and he, in turn, nodded. He said he was afraid so.

  “And remember,” he said. “Leonard sticks to it that the paper didn’t mention Mott, directly or indirectly. If he’d made it up—or made part of it up—he’d made it as incriminating as he could.”

  Pam North said, “hmmmm.” She finished her d
rink.

  “Of course,” she said, “there is that.” She did not sound happy about it. She turned to Bill. “You think it was the girl?”

  “Everything fits, that way,” he said. “No twisting. No forcing. She was married to Mott and separated from him; if he dies she comes into a lot of money. She hated him, by her own admission. She was there by this other girl’s story. Elaine Britton’s.”

  “The mink’s,” Pam said. “But the mink also said that Peggy Mott loved Mott and was trying to get him back. Didn’t you say she said that?”

  “Right,” Bill said. “Listen, Pam. I’ll grant Mrs. Britton has a knife out for Mrs. Mott. I’ll grant that, in wanting to give us a motive and not knowing the situation—not knowing there was reason to think Mrs. Mott hated her husband—the Britton girl went off at a tangent. But the significant part of her story probably is true. I think she did see Mrs. Mott go into the building. Don’t you?”

  Pam thought; she was reluctant.

  “I’d rather not,” she said. “I’d hate to believe the mink. Still—”

  “Still, you do,” Jerry told her.

  “I guess so,” Pam said. “Still—that doesn’t mean—”

  “Pam,” Bill said. “Come off it. Whose side are you on?”

  “It’s just that there’s too much against her,” Pam said. “It’s too—neat. It’s too convincing.”

  Jerry North ran a hand through his hair.

  “Look, Pam,” he said, “it’s convincing that two and two make four. It’s neat—simple. Also, they do.”

  “People aren’t like arithmetic,” Pam said. She looked at Jerry. “You can’t add up people. There wouldn’t be any—well, any fun left. Sometimes, Jerry, you talk just like a man.”

  “I—” Jerry said. He finished his drink and looked anxiously at Gus, who responded by advancing. Gus raised his eyebrows.