Hanged for a Sheep Page 9

  She didn’t say anything.

  “You went out to meet Brack,” he insisted. “Did you meet him?”

  Still there was no answer.

  “Or did he stand you up?” Weigand went on, pressing. “As he did earlier in the evening.”

  The girl stared up at him. She was flushed.

  “Leave me alone, can’t you?” she demanded. “Leave me alone!”

  “When you tell me,” Weigand said. “You went to meet Brack. He didn’t show up. Where?”

  He waited, giving her time, leaving it up to her and leaving her conscious of the weight of time and of his certainty.

  “All right,” she said. “All right. Damn you! The Grand Central.”

  “Why?” he said. “Why the Grand Central?”

  “Oh,” she said. “Because there are always people there—and a girl can be alone there without attracting attention. We—we often meet there. And maybe go into the oyster bar and then go some place else.” She defended herself, unexpectedly. “Lots of people do,” she said.

  Weigand nodded. It seemed reasonable.

  “And he didn’t come,” he said, stating a fact. “How long did you wait, Miss Buddie?”

  “About half an hour or—longer.” Her voice was low, but she wasn’t fighting him now. “Then I knew he wasn’t coming. The way he hadn’t come for cocktails, after he promised.”

  She sounded miserable.

  “Somebody’s done something,” she said. “Somebody’s made him change.”

  Now she sounded, as well as looked, like a little girl. Pam wanted to go to her, and her wish was reflected in the small beginning of a movement from her chair. But Bill Weigand caught her eye and shook his head, just perceptibly. She looked hard at him, trying to tell him something.

  “Don’t tell her about the money,” Pam tried to tell Bill Weigand with her eyes. “Don’t tell her he was paid not to meet her.”

  There was something in his eyes which made her sure Bill had caught her message. Or had not, even without it, planned to tell Clem Buddie that Brack was for sale; that, to him, she was for sale.

  “So,” Weigand said. “You went to meet Brack. You didn’t meet him. You waited half an hour or so. Then you came home?”

  “I had an oyster stew,” Clem said, her voice very small. “I was hungry.”

  It was disarming, Pam thought—utterly disarming. And it made her feel better about her young cousin. Something which wanted to be a smile twitched at Bill Weigand’s lips and was sent packing. His voice was quiet and level, and revealed nothing.

  “Then you came home,” he said. “After the stew. When did you get here?”

  She didn’t know, exactly.

  “I wasn’t thinking about time,” she said. “It was late. It was—wait a minute. It was about one when I left the station. I remember a clock. I took a cab home. It took about—oh, ten minutes. Perhaps fifteen, from the time I saw the clock. It must have been about a quarter after one when I got here.”

  Weigand was interested. Pam could tell it from his voice, and from his eyes.

  “And you saw nothing?” he said. “Heard nothing. In the breakfast room, I mean?”

  The girl shook her head.

  “I didn’t notice,” she said. “There wasn’t, anyway, anything big enough to notice. I didn’t see anybody, or hear anything. I suppose you mean a shot?”

  “A shot,” Weigand agreed. “Or anything else.”

  She shook her head. Then she seemed to remember something.

  “There was a funny smell,” she said. “Like—like Fourth of July, in a way. That—” She broke off then, and her eyes grew wide. She was very much like a little girl, now.

  “Yes,” Weigand said. “A powder smell, but this time not from fireworks. You got here—well, within a few minutes. Anthony had just finished dying.”

  “But I didn’t see anyone,” the girl insisted. “Or hear anyone.”

  “Then,” Weigand said, “you were lucky.”

  She waited, saying nothing. After a moment he told her that was all, for now.

  “But,” he said, “I may have to have the whole story—later. Be thinking that over, Miss Buddie.”

  She still said nothing. She was still lovely when she went out, but she was no longer defiant.

  “The poor child,” Pam said, watching her and looking after her still when she had gone out of sight down the hall. “The poor child—what a mess!”

  “You believe her, don’t you?” Weigand said. His voice held no comment.

  “Of course,” Pam said. “Anybody could tell. It was just as she says. Don’t you?”

  “It would be nice to know, Pam,” Bill told her. “You think it’s obvious?”

  “Of course,” Pam said. She was very decisive. “Nobody could make up the oyster stew.”

  Weigand smiled. Oddly enough, he told her, that was the point he had hit on. Nobody could make up the oyster stew—or, rather, nobody would make up the oyster stew. Pam said she was pleased with him.

  “Now what?” she said.

  Now, Weigand told her, some odds and ends. An automatic to be sent to ballistics; reports to listen to. “And,” he said, gloomily, “Deputy Chief Inspector Artemus O’Malley. Dear old Arty. He likes to be in on things. And George Sand to talk to.” He hesitated over the name.

  “At first,” Pam said, “I always used to think of George Eliot. And once I called him Silas Marner. Although they were really quite different, except for the names.”

  Weigand was already thinking of other things.

  “It sounds dull,” Pam said. “Particularly Arty. I think I’ll go see the cats. The poor morsels aren’t seeing anything.”

  Bill did not object. Pam went up to her room and talked to the cats. But the cats were engrossed with each other, and merely used her to run across. They were so active that it tired her to watch them, and then she thought of telephoning Jerry. It was thoughtful of Aunt Flora, Pam thought, to have an extension in the guest room.

  There was somebody—some policeman, probably—talking on the phone when she first tried. She hung up, waited a moment and tried again. This time the line was clear. She dialed the operator.

  “I want Houston, Texas,” Pam told the operator. “Mr. Gerald North. At the hotel.”

  Pam waited. There were small buzzes and distant voices, one of which said “St. Louis.” Then there was a snapping noise, which apparently was Houston. Then Pam’s own operator said, “What hotel for Mr. Gerald North?”

  “Oh,” Pam said, “the—the—” And then she couldn’t remember it. Because surely she had known it. “The best one, I guess,” she said. There was a little, baffled pause. Then the operator spoke, apparently to Houston. “She says the best one,” the operator said. “She doesn’t know the name.”

  There was another long pause, and then a distant operator.

  “Mr. North was registered at the Gladstone,” she said. “He has checked out.”

  “But he can’t have,” Mrs. North said. “He’s reading a book.”

  “Our report is that Mr. Gerald North has checked out,” the operator said, formally. “Excuse it, please.”

  “All right,” Pam said. “Only” she added as she cradled the telephone, “I don’t understand it. It isn’t like Jerry.” Then, as if it were answering her, the telephone bell rang and, knowing that it was for her, she took the instrument out of its cradle.

  “Is Mrs. Gerald—” a voice began, but Pam interrupted.

  “Jerry!” she said. “I knew you hadn’t. Was it?”

  “No,” Jerry said, in a voice that was small and distant. “It wasn’t a ‘Gone With the Wind,’ baby. But what hadn’t I?”

  “Checked out,” Pam said. “They just said you had.”

  Even over the telephone, and from a long way off, Jerry North’s voice had a familiar sound in it.

  “Who said I had checked out?” he said. “Of what, Pam?” Pam could almost see him. He was running a hand through his hair. “That’s why it’s
getting thinner,” she said. “Because you rub it so much.”

  “On the contrary,” Jerry said, “massage is supposed to be very good for it. Who said I’d checked out of what, Pam?”

  “The hotel in Houston,” she said. “But there you are.”

  “Houston?” Jerry repeated. “I’m in Kansas City.”

  “But look,” Pam said. “I called Houston. How did you get to Kansas City?”

  “I flew,” Jerry told her. “I just got in. I’m at the airport now.”

  “You know,” Pam said, “I think the telephone company is wonderful, don’t you?”

  “What?” Jerry said,

  “The telephone company,” Pam repeated. “To follow you all the way to Kansas City. By air.”

  “Darling!” Jerry said. “The telephone company isn’t following me.” He paused. “Listen,” he began, slowly and carefully. “I called you up to tell you I was on my way home. It was so early when I left Houston that I didn’t want to waken you. Now I’m in Kansas City. At the airport. Talking to you. How’s everything?”

  “Listen,” Pam said. “I’m calling you. Everything’s fine. Except for the murder and Aunt Flora’s arsenic.”

  “One of us is crazy,” Jerry said. Then, apparently, he heard her. His voice got much louder and nearer. “Murder!” he repeated. “Aunt Flora murdered somebody? With arsenic?” Then he spoke very hurriedly. “Go straight home, Pam,” he said. “Don’t get in it. It’s bad enough when I’m home.”

  “Bill Weigand’s here,” Pam told him. “And both cats. I can’t go home. You come here, Jerry. And help. It wasn’t with arsenic, but with a gun. And Aunt Flora took it, not gave it.”

  “Listen, Pam,” Jerry said. He was being patient, now. “You said arsenic. And nobody can take a gun—I mean, not that way. Not fatally.”

  “I don’t,” Pam said, “see how you get things so mixed up. Somebody tried to poison Aunt Flora with arsenic. And then somebody shot Stephen Anthony. Her last husband. And now she’s Mrs. Buddie again.”

  “Listen, Pam,” Jerry said. “A plane just came in. Right by the booth. I didn’t hear anything you said. Who did she poison?”

  “Whom,” Pam said, using the one she had been saving. “She was poisoned, darling. Maybe you’d better come right home, because you sound sort of—jumpy. And don’t worry. Mullins is here, too.”

  “That’s—that’s fine,” Jerry said. “I think I’d better. I’ll be there some time tonight. Only it’s just started to snow here.”

  “Jerry!” Pam said. “Weather information. It’s—wait a minute.” She put down the phone and went to look out the window. “It’s starting to snow here, too,” she said. “Maybe you’d better come by train.”

  “No,” Jerry said. “Not unless I’m grounded. I think I’d better be there. Listen, Pam—be careful what you eat. Hear?”

  “Of course,” Pam said. “I haven’t had any bread for days. Goodbye, darling.”

  There was a slight intermediate sound from the other end of the wire. Then, “Goodbye, Pam.”

  It is wonderful Jerry’s coming home, Pam thought. He really understands things better than anyone. She sat, patting the telephone, for a moment and then made up her mind. It was a fine time for a bath.

  Pam had finished her bath and was doing her hair, wearing a long robe, when somebody knocked at the door. She said, “Yes?” And Mullins opened it. Mullins looked embarrassed and said, “Oh. Sorry, Mrs. North.”

  “Why?” she said. “I’m covered. Come in, Mr. Mullins.”

  “That’s all right,” Mullins said. “I won’t come in. The Loot says do you want to go to lunch with him. And me?”

  Pam said she thought it would be lovely, and in ten minutes. Mullins went away from the door, still looking a little embarrassed. He’s sweet, Pam thought, and finished her hair. Men were funny about things; it was her not having her hair done, and being in the act of doing it, which had embarrassed Mullins. It was very funny about men.

  8

  WEDNESDAY

  12:45 P.M. TO 6:15 P.M.

  They had lunch at a Longchamps not far away, Bill Weigand and Pam sitting on a bench along the wall and Mullins facing them. Pam said that, as long as they were detectives, they could tell her how the telephone company followed Jerry from Houston to Kansas City and got him in a telephone booth at the airport. Mullins looked at her and said, “Huh?” Bill Weigand got the rest of the story.

  “Oh,” he said, “obviously coincidence. He just happened to call you at about the same time. It was odd, of course.”

  “Do you suppose,” Mrs. North said, “telepathy? Sometimes I think so. Because often Jerry says something I’m thinking, just when I’ve begun to think of it and when it’s a long way off. I mean, when nothing leads to it.”

  Bill said he didn’t know, but that there were usually easier explanations. Sometimes trains of thought, starting from a given station—a spoken remark, say—followed parallel tracks and reached the next station—perhaps another spoken remark—simultaneously.

  “Do you,” Pam enquired, “call that easier?”

  Or, Weigand said, there was always coincidence. Simon pure. Pam nodded.

  “The other night,” she said, “we were playing bridge and the first four cards I picked up in a hand were aces. All there together, in a row.” She smiled, reminiscently. “Very nice, too,” she added. “I bid slam, of course.”

  “Right away?” Mullins asked, doubtfully. He had played bridge once with Pam North and it had ranked as an experience.

  “Obviously,” Pam said. “There’s no use fooling around when the gods give four aces in a row. And if Jerry’d had anything, we’d have made it. Anything but tens. That would be coincidence.”

  Bill said he supposed she meant the aces. It would, he said.

  “But,” Pam pointed out, “you don’t believe in coincidences in murders. You’ve said so.”

  “It isn’t,” Weigand told her, “that I don’t believe in coincidences. I do—every case is full of them. Coincidences in time, for example. You find some person, not really involved in the case but exposed by the investigation, doing some strange, unrelated thing. It is coincidence that he happened to be doing it, perhaps, just when somebody else was doing some related thing, like killing. And then you may get coincidental results. Sometimes rather tragic results. But you can never investigate on the assumption that these things are merely coincidental. You always have to assume relationships until you have proof to the contrary.”

  “Like,” Pam said, finishing her cocktail and embarking happily on lobster thermidor, “Aunt Flora’s arsenic and poor Stephen being murdered. You’re going on the assumption they are related, aren’t you?”

  He was, Bill Weigand told her. Obviously.

  “How?” Pam enquired.

  He shook his head. There she had him. He looked tired, suddenly. He said he wished he knew.

  “It’s a screwy one, Loot,” Mullins told him. “A sure enough screwy one.” He thought. “Ever since we met the Norths,” he said, thoughtfully, “they’ve been getting worse.” Mullins stared at his chops. The other two watched him, smiling faintly, as his face reflected nostalgia for the good, pre-Northian days of murder that was simple and direct.

  “When you could round them up and give them a going over,” Pam said. Mullins looked startled. “Trains of thought,” she said. “Making simultaneous stops.”

  “Local stops,” Bill added. “A very short trip, that.”

  “Listen, Loot,” Mullins began. Then he saw their faces and grinned. “O.K., Loot,” he said. “Where were we?”

  “Arsenic,” Weigand told him. “And shooting. A couple of weeks apart and different people. But the same setting, same cast. What do you think?”

  “I’d think the same play,” Mullins said. “Right?”

  “Right,” Weigand said. “So would I.”

  “Well?” Pam said, and waited.

  Well, Bill Weigand told her, they’d picked up a few things while she
was away. One of them was not, however, Harry Perkins. He was still missing.

  “But,” Pam said, “it couldn’t have been Harry. He’s a little, thin man, about my aunt’s age. He wouldn’t kill people.”

  Neither the administration of poison nor the use of a gun required physical strength, Weigand pointed out. Or, for that matter, youth. It was quite possible that Harry Perkins had tried to kill Aunt Flora, for some reason they didn’t know, and had succeeded in killing Stephen Anthony, for the same reason or for another reason they didn’t know. It was also possible that somebody had killed Harry Perkins, and hidden his body. Again for reasons they didn’t know.

  “And,” Mullins said, “maybe he knows something and is hiding out.”

  “Right,” Weigand said. “Maybe he knows something and is hiding out. If he’s alive, he’s certainly hiding out. But we’ll find him, given time.”

  “If you’re given time,” Pam commented.

  There was always that, Weigand agreed. On the other hand, it might be of no importance. Another coincidence, like four aces in a row.

  “But you don’t think so,” Pam said.

  Weigand agreed he didn’t. And that, he said, was all about Harry. They had sent out an alarm for him. Weigand had also talked to Inspector O’Malley, who had wanted news for the press.

  Then Weigand had talked to the servants—to the cook, the maid and Sand, the butler. From the first two he had got nothing of importance; from Sand a curious thing. A puzzling thing.

  It had come out more or less by accident, and because Weigand was covering all possible ground. Sand had been asleep in his room on the ground floor, had been awakened by something and not known what, and had gone back to sleep, not bothering to look at his watch. He had not seen the body until after Pam and the maid had discovered it, although he had gone through the breakfast room to the drawing room a few minutes earlier. Since the body was partially concealed behind the table, this was not remarkable.

  Weigand had taken him back to the morning of the poisoning, and at first got nothing. The maid had taken Mrs. Buddie’s breakfast up and insisted that there had been no opportunity for anyone to put arsenic in any of the food.