Murder Out of Turn Read online

  “What did she have?” Thelma demanded. “Nothing a hundred haven’t; nothing I haven’t. She wasn’t clever, or kind or honest. But there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do—not anything. There wasn’t anybody she wouldn’t hurt, and like hurting. I ought to know!”

  There was more of it—for a time it appeared that there would be no end of it. Piecing it together afterward, the four who heard her could reduce to some order a catalogue of Jean Corbin’s unfairnesses, her ruthless cruelties. There had been, at least in Thelma’s mind, a long series of stolen men, of whom Blair was the last. Now—until yesterday—she had been tiring of Blair and moving in on Dr. Abel. She had known that Mrs. Abel was aware of what she was doing, and had laughed at her. “Openly.” She had gone ahead in business at the expense of others than Thelma Smith. “Everybody knows she got Hardie Saunders out,” Thelma told them. “She got him out—lied about him—and got his job. Oh, she could plan things like that!” And she was never content, never generous to the defeated. “She was torturing Johnny, even when she was through with him,” Thelma told them. “She didn’t care what she did. She’d have got Hardie Saunders again, too.”

  She—she—she—It went on and on. Then it began to repeat; then the angry, shrill voice quieted and suddenly, in what seemed full course, halted. She sat and stared at Heimrich and Weigand and pushed her hair back uncertainly. Then she was on her feet.

  “Oh!” she said. “Oh—why did you make me?” There was something like entreaty in her voice and a strange, fixed look in her eyes as they swept over and beyond the two detectives. Then, suddenly, she turned and, even while Heimrich was getting up to stop her, she was out of the cabin. Heimrich moved to go after her, hesitated.

  “That’s right,” Weigand said. “Let her go. She’s told us about everything.”

  “Well—” Mrs. North said, from the shadow of the couch. “She—she’s something, isn’t she,” Mrs. North’s voice sounded entirely incredulous. “Who’d have thought she’d do that.” There was distaste, too, in Mrs. North’s voice.

  “She certainly hated her,” Mr. North said, quietly. “It’s not pretty, is it?”

  Weigand said it wasn’t.

  “Excitement,” he said. “The strain—everything. She hated her, of course. And of course there was something else.”

  “Something else?” Heimrich said. “What else?”

  Weigand hesitated for a moment.

  “Well,” he said. Then, “She loved her too, of course. Didn’t she?”

  The question, if you could call it a question, was directed toward the Norths. There was no answer for a moment, and then Mrs. North spoke.

  “Oh,” she said, “yes, I suppose so. People are—well, they frighten you sometimes, don’t they?”

  Nobody answered and after a moment Mrs. North got up. She got up briskly, as if she were shaking free from something, and said they couldn’t do anything more until they had food.

  “It’s after eight,” she said. “And I’ve started nothing. Shall we try Ireland’s?”

  They went out, and now it was almost dark, and very quiet. It was quiet and there were deeper shadows and in one of the shadows, against the far side of the cabin, there was a shaft of darker shadow. They might have taken it for a post, if they had seen it—and if the Norths had not realized that there was, just there, nothing that was at all like a post. But nobody noticed it and the Norths and the two detectives drove down the road to Ireland’s and had coffee and sandwiches. Then they came back and, avoiding for the moment any further discussion of Thelma Smith’s tirade, sent the trooper named Pete to bring Hardie Saunders around. They smoked while they waited, and Mr. North, Mrs. North suggesting it, put another log on the fire. It burned up brightly, and a modified sort of cheerfulness edged back. It was not dissipated by the arrival of Hardie Saunders.

  “Well,” he said, standing at the door. “You look mighty comfortable in here.”

  There was robust sanity apparent in Mr. Saunders. He supposed they wanted to ask him some questions—about yesterday, perhaps? He was, it was clear, a cooperative witness. Heimrich guided him, starting the morning before. He and Blair had slept rather late, it developed. Then they had had breakfast, had cleaned up the cabin, filled the lamps.

  “Not what you would call cleaning up, I suppose, Pam,” he said. “Just bachelor cleaning up. No kitchen scrubbing, or anything like that. No chimney cleaning. Just a couple of males, getting along.”

  Mrs. North said, politely, that everything had always looked very neat when she had been in the Saunders-Blair cabin. She said she only wished she could get Jerry to fill the lamps in the morning, instead of when they ran dry, and had to be blown out.

  “Leaving everything dark,” she said.

  Saunders agreed that that was one thing they did do. Or Blair did, rather, and always spilled kerosene on the kitchen floor. “Like yesterday, trying to get the last drops into the Aladdin,” he said.

  “All right,” Heimrich said. “And then?”

  Then, leaving a few odds and ends of waste disposal to Blair, Saunders had driven into Brewster to market. He said he wanted to be exact, however, and that wasn’t quite exact. He had driven out of his way to pick up some mint over by the dam, so that they could have the last juleps of the season that afternoon, if they brought people back with them. He still had the mint, since they hadn’t brought anybody back.

  After he had got the mint he had driven on to Brewster and—oh, yes, had the car tank filled on the way—bought meat and vegetables for the stew, run across Kennedy and Helen Wilson shopping and said “Hello” to them, driven back to camp and found that Blair was gone. “He’d gone over to see if he could get in a set before the match, I found out afterward,” Saunders told them. After Saunders put things away he went on over to the courts too, and, finding them occupied, had “strolled around” for a while and ended up at Ireland’s for a bottle of beer and a sandwich, eating early so as to give digestion a chance before he played tennis. Then, when the others were ready, he and Jean had taken on the Norths.

  His voice sobered as he mentioned Jean. He said it was a tragedy, all right. “She was a fine girl,” he said. “She was going places.” There was nothing but sadness and admiration in his voice, Weigand thought. He interrupted.

  “We gathered from somewhere,” he said, “that she was—well, rather ruthless in getting somewhere. Did you find her so?”

  Hardie Saunders looked surprised and puzzled. He said he couldn’t guess who had given them that idea unless, as an afterthought, Thelma Smith? He read the truth of that guess in Heimrich’s face, and laughed without enjoyment.

  “I wouldn’t take what she says too seriously,” he advised them. “She’s—well, she collects grudges. When life isn’t seamy enough, she sits down and runs herself a seam.”

  Weigand said that Jean Corbin hadn’t, then, had anything to do with Saunders’ leaving Bell, Halpern & Bell? Hardie Saunders looked surprised and shook his head. He said of course not.

  “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I saw a chance to pull out and take a pretty good account with me and start for myself. So I pulled. What gave you the idea Jean had anything to do with it? Thelma again?”

  “Partly,” Weigand said. “Chiefly, I guess. You wouldn’t agree, then, that Miss Corbin was the sort of person to make a good many enemies?”

  Saunders said he certainly wouldn’t. That was what made it so baffling. Everybody liked her, except Thelma, of course—it was incredible that anyone at camp should want to harm her. That was why he thought it must be some person from outside. Had they thought of that?

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “We’ve thought of that, of course. Or it may have been merely that she stumbled on something about the other murder and had to be got out of the way.”

  Saunders nodded, slowly, agreeingly.

  “Only,” he said, “if that’s the case why should anybody want to kill Helen Wilson?”

  “You can’t think of any reason?” Heimric
h asked. Hardie Saunders, big and red-faced and jovial-looking, but just now grave, couldn’t think of any reason.

  They led him on through the day. After tennis he had gone back to the cabin and put on the stew over a slow fire, then came to the Norths and had a drink or two, then returned to his own cabin and found Blair already there. They had had another drink or two, and then the stew and then, toward nine-thirty, gone to the party at the Fullers’. There, like everybody else, he had been in and out a couple of times, and could not remember the times. He waited inquiringly, and when there were no more questions for a moment started to rise. Then Weigand said there was one thing more; rather a personal thing.

  “We’ve gathered,” he said, “that you and Jean were—well, call it quite friendly, at one time. Right?”

  Hardie Saunders looked confused and then a little resentful and said, “Now, listen—” Then he interrupted himself and smiled, a little shamefacedly. He said he supposed there were no secrets, under these circumstances.

  “All right,” he said. “I would have liked to be—quite friendly. She thought otherwise. No grudge, or anything. Best of friends afterward and all that.” He smiled. “I could see her point,” he said. “I was sort of big and blundering to her I guess.” He was very disarming, and waited for more questions with a half-smile. But there were no more questions, as it turned out. He had a few of his own. How were they getting on? Were they sure, after all, that Jean had been murdered? They were polite in answering, uninformatively. He took the implied dismissal, said he was around when they wanted him and started out.

  “By the way,” he said, “you aren’t keeping us around tomorrow or anything like that, are you? I mean, most of us have jobs to do in town, you know. Several people have asked me, and I promised to find out.”

  Heimrich and Weigand consulted with their eyebrows, and Heimrich said he supposed it would be all right for most of them to go back to town, and that he would decide and let them know. Saunders looked rather disappointed, started to say something more and decided against it; went along.

  “That is a point,” Weigand said, after he had gone. “What do you plan to do about it? These people are all weekenders here, of course. It won’t be convenient for many of them to stay around; you’d have trouble making them, if they didn’t want to.”

  Heimrich said that, as things stood now, he was inclined to let most of them go in, provided they promised to keep themselves available in town. He said he’d see how things worked out, and that he thought they had better get on to Blair. Pete, the trooper, went after Blair.

  John Blair was in his middle twenties and his voice drawled with the South. He smoothed his dark hair with his hand as he sat down, and then ran his fingers through it and ruffled it again. He moved often in his chair as he answered questions, tracing his activities the day and night before. He had, on Saturday morning, helped Saunders straighten the cabin; then, when Saunders went to market, he had burned waste-paper and buried garbage. After that he had gone looking for tennis, and got in a set before the tournament match. He had gone to Van Horst’s afterward, left early and returned to the cabin. Then, as it was beginning to get chilly, he had built a fire and sat looking at it until Saunders came along. He was entirely alone, and the time was about an hour.

  He smoothed his hair and upset it again.

  “I was alone a good deal of yesterday,” he said, worriedly. “So if you’re looking for alibis—” He had been alone for an hour and a half between the time Saunders had left in the morning and the time he found a tennis adversary. Between their set and the match he had strolled around, looking for excitement, not finding it.

  “Did you see anybody else strolling around?” Weigand inquired, idly.

  Blair had, although not to speak to. He had seen Dorian Hunt walking, with no particular intention evident in her walk. “Where?” Over toward the dam; in that direction, anyway. She was too far away to speak to.

  He had been with others during the tournament match and afterward until he had gone back to his own cabin. And after dinner he had been with others, at the party, and had still been there when Helen Wilson’s body was found. And—

  “Well, that’s about all of it,” he said. “I don’t know whether it means anything.”

  He was nervous, they thought, watching him.

  “You and Jean were close—friends?” Heimrich asked.

  Blair shifted in his chair. Then he nodded.

  “And she was making you jealous?” There was hardly a question in the statement. “With Dr. Abel?”

  Blair sat up suddenly, and spoke quickly.

  “There’s no truth in that!” he said. “It’s a lie people have been telling!”

  He was emphatic about it, and bitter. And yet his emphasis seemed, somehow, a little hollow. Heimrich nodded, without comment, and shifted.

  “You may as well know,” he said, “that we’ve found out about the money.”

  Blair echoed it. “The money?” he said. Heimrich stared at him and waited. “You mean the Brownley money?” Their faces told him that they did. He flushed quickly, and then the color left his face. He looked startled, frightened. It was clear that he followed all the implications that went with the Brownley money, and his inheritance after Helen Wilson. It was also clear that he was frightened.

  He stood up and tried to make his voice firm, but the voice shook.

  “You can’t tie me up in it!” he said. “You’re twisting things! You’re trying to make it look—” He stopped, seeing no response in the faces. He stared at them.

  “Listen,” he said. “You can’t get away with this!”

  Still nobody said anything for several moments, and then Weigand spoke.

  “With what?” he said. His voice was soft and inquiring, but his face was not soft. Blair stared at him and he stared back.

  “Well,” said Blair, “what are you going to do about it? If you think you’ve got something on me, what are you going to do about it?” He finally got challenge into his tone, his first excitement steadying. He was, Weigand thought, getting control of himself. Weigand suspected that, at the moment, Blair would not be saying any more.

  “I don’t think we’ll do anything just now, Mr. Blair,” Weigand said, softly. “Except—” He paused and consulted Heimrich, inquiringly. Heimrich nodded. “We’d like you to stay around, Mr. Blair,” he said. “We may want to talk to you again tomorrow.”

  Blair looked at them, and then spoke explosively.

  “Sure!” he said. “Sure I’ll stick around. And you won’t do anything to me, because I didn’t have anything to do with it, see?”

  It sounded, Weigand thought, like bluster. He nodded indifferently in reply, ignoring the challenge.

  “That’s all, Mr. Blair,” Heimrich said, curtly, as Blair still stood staring at them. “We’ll let you know when we want to talk to you again.”

  Blair still hesitated, as if he meant to speak again. But then he turned and went out the door, leaving Heimrich and Weigand to look at each other. Heimrich’s look was satisfied, and he nodded.

  “So that’s Mr. Blair,” he said. “Looks like we’re getting places. Motive, opportunity, I’d guess temperament. So …”

  Lieutenant Heimrich sounded pleased. Weigand thought a moment, staring at the fire, and nodded. He said it could be.

  “He’s afraid,” Weigand said. “He’s nervous and I think he could be violent. And motive, as you say. Only I wish—”

  He did not finish what he wished, but continued staring into the fire. He looked worried and distraught, Mrs. North thought, watching his profile in the firelight. When he spoke it was thoughtfully, almost as if to himself.

  “I don’t like the setup,” he said. “Blair, or anybody else, I don’t like the setup.” He brooded, and then leaned back with a half-laugh.

  “City man in the country, probably,” he said. “I keep feeling that people are too scattered out and remote from one another in the country; that there are too many shadows and
too much cover.” He turned toward the Norths, and he was smiling, but uneasily. “Why the devil don’t you people have electricity?” he demanded. “Why don’t you light things up?”

  “Well,” Mr. North said, “we like them this way, generally. But it’s generally perfectly calm here. Calm and simple.”

  Weigand walked toward the rear door, leading out on the porch, and looked out into the night. Suddenly he stiffened, said, “Hey!” and pushed the screen open violently, running out. The others started up, and heard Weigand crashing through the bush. Then there was an oath and the sound of a fall, and Heimrich and North ran toward the sound, with Mrs. North a little way behind them, flashing a torch she had grabbed up from its place on one of the couch-ends. They went about a hundred feet before they found Weigand, sitting on the ground, rubbing his head and swearing. He looked at them and swore further, and then got up. He kicked a sumach stump disgustedly, and told them they could have their country.

  “Come on,” he said. “He’s gone now. Of all the places to chase anybody! There must be a hundred things to trip over every square yard.”

  He explained when they were back in the cabin. He had stood at the door a moment and then, perhaps twenty feet away in the darkness, seen a cigarette glowing. As he saw the light, the person behind it apparently saw him. The cigarette arched off to the side and Weigand heard somebody running off and ran after him. Weigand thought he was gaining when he tripped and fell. He looked disgustedly at the Norths and said that they could give him pavements.

  “It was somebody listening?” Mrs. North said.

  Weigand nodded, slowly, and said it looked like it.

  “But what did he hear?” Mrs. North said. “And who was it?”

  “Well,” Weigand said, “if we knew that we’d know a lot. He could have been the man we’re looking for—or the woman. And he could have heard—well, anything we’ve heard. As he did before, outside the kitchen window. Supposing it was the same person.”