Murder within Murder

by Frances Lockridge

  “Well,” Frost said, “Nora didn’t. I didn’t.”

  “By the way,” Weigand said, “speaking of you, Major. Just how much earlier was this earlier plane you caught?”

  “Four hours,” Frost said. He looked hard at Weigand. “I wasn’t here yesterday afternoon, if that’s what you’re getting at,” he said. “I was in Kansas City, arguing about a priority with some civilian.” He paused and seemed, somehow, to be looking at himself. “Hell,” he said, and there was surprise in his tone, “I’m next thing to a civilian myself.” It seemed to astonish him.

  “And you telephoned your wife from LaGuardia?” Weigand said. “When was that?”

  “About ten,” Frost said. “I told her not to come out. I came here and we went out to lunch. We got back about three and have been here since. Why?”

  Weigand told him why. He told him succinctly.

  “I never heard of the girl,” Frost said. “It seems like a tough break. But I never heard of her.”

  “Mrs. Frost?” Weigand said.

  She shook her head, her softly curled brown hair floating about it. She had never heard of Florence Adams. Her face reflected a kind of concern. She said it was too bad about the girl. She sounded as if she thought it too bad about the girl.

  “Where did you lunch?” Weigand said. He saw hardness in Frost’s face.

  “Major,” he said, “I’m doing a job that has to be done. I’m a policeman, looking for a murderer. I never saw you and Mrs. Frost before in my life, or heard of you. I don’t know whether you are the most truthful people in the world, or whether you’re liars. All I know—know, Major—is that you are wearing an Army uniform with wings and ribbons and a Major’s leaves.”

  The major looked annoyed. Then he smiled suddenly.

  “Want to see my I.D. card, Lieutenant?” he said.

  “Yes,” Weigand said. He looked at it. When he returned it, his own badge was cupped in his hand. He let them both look at it.

  “All right,” Frost said, “We’re both who we say we are, apparently. We had lunch at Twenty-one.”

  “Did you see anyone you knew?” Weigand asked.

  Frost smiled, but his wife answered.

  “I’m afraid we only saw each other, Lieutenant,” she said. Her voice was soft.

  “And would rather now,” Weigand agreed.

  Frost nodded. There was emphasis in his nod. He was, Weigand thought, alternately mature and very young.

  “We don’t have to hurry,” Nora Frost said, and her voice was soft. She was speaking, Weigand thought, to her husband rather than to him. “Not any more.”

  Kennet Frost smiled at her. Weigand thought they were very much in love, and had already waited a good while. Frost brought himself back, sharply, youthfully. He was very matter-of-fact, suddenly.

  “Obviously,” he said, “Nora inherits money now that her aunt is dead. You know that, I suppose?”

  “Oh yes,” Weigand said. “Naturally.”

  “And you think it’s a possible motive?” Frost said. he was still matter-of-fact.

  Bill said that money was always a possible motive. Particularly a good deal of money; particularly if somebody needed money.

  “We don’t,” Frost said. “You can check on that.”

  “Right,” Bill Weigand said. “So we can.”

  “Why don’t you?” Frost wanted to know. “Then if you find out we are broke and have to have Nora’s money so badly we can’t wait a couple of years, and find out that I was really in New York yesterday and not in Kansas City, come back?”

  “Yes,” Weigand said, “if I find out those things, I’ll come back. Meanwhile, there’s a point I want to clear up with your wife, Major.”

  “Well,” Frost said, “clear it up.”

  Weigand hesitated a moment. He wished Major Frost would go out and buy a package of cigarettes. He obstructed. But Weigand doubted that Frost would go.

  “Right,” he said. He turned to Nora Frost, his movement excluding her husband. “You wrote a letter to your aunt the day before she died, Mrs. Frost. It seemed to us an odd letter, under the circumstances. Do you remember it?”

  The girl’s eyes seemed to flicker for a second. She picked up her glass and she was stalling for time. The glass trembled slightly in her hands and, although she raised it to her lips, Weigand did not see her swallow. He had seen that happen before; a glass can clink against teeth if the hand holding it trembles.

  The girl waited too long, and then, knowing it had been too long, spoke too quickly.

  “Yes,” she said. “I remember it.”

  “You will understand, then, why we want an explanation,” Weigand said. His voice was no longer casual.

  “That’s why you came, isn’t it?” Nora said.

  “Wait a minute!” Frost said.

  Weigand turned to him.

  “You’re not in this, Major,” he said. “Unless you also know about the letter. Do you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Frost said. “But you can’t—”

  “Your wife wrote her aunt a letter which requires explanation,” Weigand said. “I expect to get that explanation. Don’t think I can’t, Major. If you interfere, I shall have to take Mrs. Frost somewhere else to get the explanation. If it’s a simple one, I’d rather not. But you can have it either way.”

  The major looked at Weigand for a moment. He looked puzzled.

  “Hell,” he said, “you talk like the colonel.”

  Weigand did not smile. He said, “Well, Major?”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Major Frost said. “If anything needs explaining, I know Nora can explain it.”

  “Right,” Weigand said. “I have a copy of the letter here, Mrs. Frost. Do you want me to read it?”

  The girl spoke very quickly. She spoke almost as if she were frightened.

  “No!” she said. “Oh no, please!”

  Then, involuntarily, she looked at her husband and looked away again. Weigand’s eyes followed hers. The young face of Major Frost was very young—and very puzzled.

  “Look,” Frost said, and his voice was puzzled, too. He held out his hand, tentatively, as if for the letter. “Let me—”

  “No,” Nora said. “Please, Ken. I don’t want you to.”

  Bill Weigand was glad he had not insisted on having Frost go out for cigarettes. He was very glad.

  “Well, Mrs. Frost?” he said. “What is the explanation?”

  The girl hesitated. It was obvious she was trying to work out a story. It was pathetically obvious. It was also obvious that she had not expected this, and had no story ready. Which might mean she was innocent. Or might merely mean she underestimated the police.

  “I.…” she said. “It wasn’t anything important.”

  Weigand shook his head.

  “It had to be important, Mrs. Frost,” he said. “You can’t remember the letter. You said something that your aunt was going to do was …” he referred to the letter … “‘wicked and barbaric, no better than murder.’ It had to be important.”

  The girl shook her head. But there was no assurance in the gesture.

  “I was excited,” she said. “I … I thought … she was trying to … to come between Ken and me.”

  Weigand waited, but she did not continue. He thought she could not continue. She was clearly frightened now, and no longer hopeful of hiding it. Her slender hands were working together. He looked at Frost and saw bewilderment—and more than bewilderment—in his face. Frost, he would guess, was entirely surprised by this, because he was entirely new to this.

  “How?” Weigand pressed her. “What had she found out? You wrote that—?”

  “I know!” the girl said. “I know what I wrote! I told you not to read the letter!”

  “Then tell me what it means, Mrs. Frost,” Weigand said. “Tell me what she had found out; what she was doing—what made you threaten her, Mrs. Frost.”

  “I—” the girl started. Then she turned to her husband, and a
ll her face asked his help.

  “You don’t need to explain anything, darling,” Frost said. His voice was low and steady—and it was surprisingly gentle. “You don’t need to explain anything. Nobody can make you.”

  Weigand waited.

  “Nobody can make you, Nora,” Frost repeated. “I know it was all right—I—I know it was all right. Whatever it was.” He turned to Weigand. “You can’t force her to explain anything, Lieutenant,” he said.

  Weigand shrugged slightly.

  “Obviously,” he said. His voice was cold and entirely without emphasis. “But I can make her wish she had, Major. If there is an innocent explanation, she’d better give it.” He paused, and now he spoke directly to Mrs. Frost. “Even if it is embarrassing,” he said.

  “It isn’t—” the girl began, and then the doorbell rang. Bill Weigand did not say anything, but he could hardly have been annoyed more.

  Major Frost clearly was not annoyed. He went quickly across the living-room and up the two steps to the entrance balcony. He said, “Hello, John,” with what sounded like real pleasure.

  “Is Nora here?” another male voice said—a lighter, quicker voice than the major’s. “Backley just called and the police—”

  Frost picked it up quickly.

  “Somebody from the police is here, John,” he said. “Lieutenant Weigand. He’s been asking Nora a few questions.”

  John Gipson was in by that time. He stopped and looked down into the living-room. He was a slim man, slighter than his brother-in-law, quicker in movement. You could have guessed the relationship between him and the girl on the sofa. Their hair was of the same brown and their brown eyes were similarly set. And as John looked across at his sister, he smiled quickly, and there was warmth as well as enquiry in his smile. He turned to Weigand and did not smile.

  “I suppose you think we were in a hurry for the money,” John Gipson said. His tone hinted that that was the obvious thing for a policeman to think; that, being obvious, it could not be true.

  “I don’t know,” Weigand said. “You’re John Gipson? The nephew? I did hear you were in a hurry for the money, as a matter of fact.”

  “Backley talks too much,” Gipson said. “Have you been badgering Nora?”

  “I’ve been asking her questions,” Bill Weigand said, mildly. “If they badgered her I suppose it was because they were hard questions to answer. You were in a hurry for the money? You wanted it to develop a new process you’ve discovered?”

  “Backley’s an old fool,” Gipson said. He spoke chiefly to his sister. “I always said he was an old fool.”

  “Backley is sworn to uphold the law and assist the police,” Weigand told him. “He’s an officer of the court. Did you want money in a hurry?”

  “Not that much of a hurry,” Gipson said. He did not, Weigand thought, seem alarmed. “Anyway, I wouldn’t kill Amelia. Hell, we’ve known her all our lives.”

  Weigand told him that that was hardly proof.

  “However,” he said, “I haven’t suggested that you killed your aunt. When did you see her last?”

  “Days ago,” Gipson said. He crossed over to the table and mixed himself a drink. He looked at his sister’s glass and saw it was half full. Then he looked at Frost’s glass.

  “Pour you some of your liquor, Ken?” he said. Kennet Frost nodded, and Gipson crossed to the sofa, picked up Frost’s glass, poured Scotch into it and put in soda and brought it back. “Days ago,” he said. “However, I talked to her on the telephone yesterday. Asked her if she wouldn’t change her mind and come through with my share. She wouldn’t. Seemed perfectly natural; perfectly in character. I didn’t think she would.”

  “Why wouldn’t she?” Weigand said. “Didn’t she believe in your discovery? Invention? Whatever it is?”

  “A new process,” Gipson said. “Having to do with plastics. Do you want to hear details?”

  His voice implied that Weigand would not understand them if he did. Weigand shook his head. He said he did not want to hear them. He said if they became important in any connection, Gipson could explain them to somebody in the department who would understand.

  “Of whom,” he said, “there are several, Mr. Gipson.”

  “Are there?” Gipson said. “As to Amelia—I don’t know what she believed. All I know is she wouldn’t give me the money.”

  “Which,” Weigand said, “probably annoyed you.”

  John Gipson drank and said Weigand was damn right it did.

  “Whereupon,” he said, “I brought her some nice fresh poison and said, ‘Drink this, will you, auntie?’ and she said, ‘Of course, dear boy. Anything for a nephew,’ and there we were.”

  “Do you think it’s funny, Mr. Gipson?” Weigand said. “It wasn’t, you know. It wasn’t at all funny.”

  Gipson looked at Weigand, and Weigand’s expression did not encourage light-heartedness.

  “No,” Gipson said, “I didn’t think it’s funny, Lieutenant. Amelia wasn’t a dream aunt in all respects, but I’d like to see you get the guy who killed her. Very much.” He paused and examined Weigand’s face. “I didn’t kill her, if you really think I did,” he said. “I don’t know who did, except that it wasn’t Nora and it wasn’t Ken and it wasn’t me.”

  “All right,” Weigand said, equably. “Where were you today from noon until two o’clock—at about the time you were supposed to be meeting the major at the airport?”

  John Gipson looked at the major, surprised.

  “He got in on an earlier—” he began.

  “I know,” Weigand said. “I understand why you weren’t at the airport. Where were you?”

  “Why?” Gipson said.

  Briefly, Weigand told him why.

  “That was a damned dirty trick,” Gipson said. “Rope the girl in, and then kill her because you had. Did he take back the hundred, too?”

  Bill Weigand shook his head. He waited.

  “I was having lunch most of the time, I guess,” Gipson said. “By myself, not wanting to horn in on these two. Then I went downtown to see a man.” He looked at Weigand. “Still hush-hush, that is,” he said. “But it was about two-thirty that I got there, so it wouldn’t help anyway. No alibi.”

  He waited, as if for a comment, but Weigand made none. Instead he asked, for the record, whether any of them knew any reason why somebody—not one of them—might have wanted to poison Amelia Gipson. The girl shook her head and Major Frost merely looked at Bill Weigand.

  “She was a difficult person,” John Gipson said, after a moment. He spoke slowly. “She was very—righteous. She wanted other people to behave as—in accordance with her standards. Few people did. When they didn’t, Amelia thought it was her duty to make trouble for them. I’ve heard she made trouble for several people. At the college, chiefly. But I don’t know any details.” He looked at Weigand. “What I’m trying to say is that she wasn’t an unlikely candidate for what she got,” he said. “She might have stepped on somebody too hard. That’s all I can think of.”

  Bill Weigand nodded. Then he turned to the girl again.

  “I still want to hear about the letter, you know,” he said.

  She had been nervous, and Bill Weigand had seen her nervousness and waited. She had dreaded it and now it had come. And now she turned to her brother and her eyes sought his help.

  “Letter?” Gipson said. “What—” Then he broke off. His eyes questioned Nora Frost and she nodded. There was concern in his mobile face—quick concern.

  “A letter my sister wrote to Amelia?” he said. It had the form of a question, but it was hardly a question.

  “You knew about it, I gather,” Bill said. “Yes—that letter. Your sister doesn’t seem to want to explain it.”

  “I know about it,” Gipson said. “It had nothing to do with any of this. It was private.”

  Dryly, Weigand said he had gathered it was private. But nothing, he said, was private in a murder investigation.

  “However,” he said, “if it doesn�
��t mean anything, if it really hasn’t anything to do with this, it can stop with me.”

  Brother and sister conferred, without speech. Major Frost looked at his wife and then at Gipson, and his eyes were puzzled and unhappy. Whatever it was, Bill Weigand thought, he’s not in on it; it’s something they’re keeping from him. In which case—

  “However,” he said, “I can’t force it from you, as you pointed out earlier, Major. I’d advise you to change your mind, Mrs. Frost. If you do, you can telephone me. But I’d change my mind before tomorrow, if I were you.” He paused to let it register. “Talk to your brother, Mrs. Frost,” he said, then. “I’m sure he’ll advise you to get in touch with me.”

  He stood up, then. He looked down at them.

  “Of course you know it’s only begun,” he said. “Murder cases don’t stop.” He took a step toward the door and Major Frost arose and went ahead of him. “Not until they’re finished,” Weigand added. He turned, then, and went out the door Frost had opened. He would have liked to hear what the three said to one another when the door closed, but that was impracticable. He thought he would pick up the gist of it as time went on.

  9

  WEDNESDAY, 5:45 P.M. TO 7:10 P.M.

  Jerry North opened the apartment-house door and said, “Hey, Pam,” which was a way of indicating that he was not alone and that Pam North should bear that in mind when greeting him. It was not always certain precisely what Pam would say by way of greeting when she thought he was alone. This time, however, she spoke from the living-room.

  “It’s come,” she said. “And it’s the smallest—”

  She came out into the foyer and said, “Oh, hello, Mr. Hill.”

  Alexander Hill said, “Good evening, Mrs. North.”

  “What came?” Jerry said.

  Pam looked at him wide-eyed and asked if he couldn’t see it. He looked at her more carefully. A tiny animal was perched on her right shoulder. It looked at him through bright blue eyes, with bright interest. It said “yow!” It kept on saying “yow!” not in displeasure, so far as Jerry could see, but merely to show interest, awareness and presence. It had a tiny face, which at first looked dirty, and the rest of it was a brownish white. Not all of it was visible as it regarded them from Pam North’s shoulder.