Murder Is Suggested

by Frances

  “Her own mother,” Mrs. Oldham said, as if she had not heard. “The poor, poor child. What have they done to her, Mrs. North? What have they done to her?”

  She seemed to be working herself back into the mood of near hysteria. Certainly she was proceeding in anything but a straight line.

  “Who?” Pam North said, seeking to direct traffic. “Who do you think has done something to her?”

  “And for that matter,” Jerry said, “done what?”

  Now she looked at both of them, first at Pam, then at Jerry. Her eyes were very light blue; they did not hold tears. Her sobs, then, must have been part of a kind of nervous chill. She had not really been weeping. Probably it would be better for her if she could. But—about what?

  “I’m sorry,” Mrs. Oldham said. “It’s the shock of—of realizing. I’m afraid I’m not very coherent. But—”

  And then she started to get up from the chair.

  “I’m terribly sorry to have barged in this way,” she said, the idiom contemporary, the tone unexpectedly formal. “So late in the evening. Bothering you with things which can’t possibly interest you, really. Although you have been very kind. Very kind. Since Faith isn’t here—”

  “Mrs. Oldham,” Pam said, “if there’s anything we can do to help.” The young-old woman hesitated. “Look,” Pam said. “Your daughter’s gone away somewhere and you don’t know where. You’re worked up. But probably nothing’s happened to her. Of course nothing’s happened to her.”

  Pam got assurance into her clear voice; spoke as if she knew.

  “It isn’t—” Mrs. Oldham said, but then let herself sink back into the chair. “I do feel you want to help. Both of you.”

  “You speak,” Jerry said, “as if something violent had happened. As if your daughter had been—taken away. But you surely didn’t think we—we had done anything to make her come here?”

  “Like,” Pam North said, to her own surprise, “dragging her by the hair?”

  Mrs. Oldham did not appear to hear that, which was probably as well. She said, to Jerry, that she hadn’t meant that, of course, and that he didn’t understand.

  “I don’t,” Jerry said. “If there’s any way we can help. But we’ll have to know, first, what’s happened.”

  They would, of course, think she was only a foolishly worried woman. She realized that. Anybody would think that who didn’t—well, really know how things were. Because on the surface nothing had “happened” except that Faith Oldham had got a telephone call and, afterward, gone out without telling her mother where she was going.

  “As if,” Hope Oldham said, “she didn’t trust me. And, didn’t care how much I worried.”

  “Well,” Pam said, “she isn’t exactly a child, Mrs. Oldham. It’s more considerate to tell people where you’re going, of course, but one can’t always.” Her remark started a faint echo in Pam’s echo-prone mind. Of course, “after every meal.” It is pleasant to settle such things as one goes along.

  “For all you know, then,” Jerry said, and he was very calm. “For all you know some friend called her and said, come over for a drink. Or a cup of coffee. And you weren’t around and—”

  Mrs. Oldham was shaking her head from side to side. She had been around.

  She had, to be sure, been in the tub. This had been—oh, about ten. “I always take a hot bath before I go to bed,” Mrs. Oldham said. “It makes it so much easier to sleep. Because of course I never take anything.”

  Pam nodded her head, acknowledging the rectitude of that non-behavior, resisting the temptation to remark that she didn’t either, for the most part, but did not regard this as a special mark of virtue.

  “You were in the tub,” Jerry said, “and?”

  She had heard the telephone ring. She had got out of the tub as quickly as she could, and dried herself briefly, but by then the telephone had quit ringing—

  “You didn’t know your daughter was in the house?” Pam asked her.

  “Why do you say that?” Mrs. Oldham said. “Yes, I knew she was downstairs. Reading, probably. She has to read a great deal for all these courses she’s taking.”

  “Then why—?” Pam began, but stopped, because Jerry was shaking his head at her.

  “You got to the phone,” Jerry said. “And?”

  She had gone to the extension on the second floor, and found that her daughter had already answered. She heard her daughter say, “All right, I’ll come over,” and then cut the connection.

  She had got a robe on, and gone out into the stair hall and called her daughter’s name down the stairs and been just too late. The front door was closing, closed. She had gone downstairs, then, hurrying, and opened the door and looked out, and not seen anyone.

  “Of course,” she said, “I couldn’t go out on the sidewalk and really look because I wasn’t dressed.”

  It still, to Jerry, sounded as if Faith Oldham might have been invited to join a friend—for a drink, for a cup of coffee. He said so. He said that, possibly, Faith had thought her mother already asleep and had not wanted to waken her. It was, also, he pointed out, possible that Faith was home by now and wondering where her mother was.

  “I wish I could believe that was all it was,” Hope Oldham said. “I do wish I could.”

  Part of it, at any rate, could easily be checked. Jerry asked for a telephone number, got it and dialed it. A telephone rang in the Oldham house. Jerry let it ring for some seconds before he hung up. It didn’t, he pointed out, prove anything.

  “No,” Mrs. Oldham said. “It’s no use. She’s—she’s gone to him. That’s the dreadful thing. Deep down, I knew it all the time. He’s—he’s made her come to him. The poor, poor child!”

  Jerry spoke for both of them. Jerry said, “He?”

  The expression in the pale blue eyes seemed one of surprise.

  “Why,” she said, “that Carl Hunter, of course. That dreadful—evil—man.” She looked from one to the other. “You didn’t even suspect,” she said, and her tone was incredulous. “He—took you in, too.” She shook her head, slowly, as if in despair. “He and the professor,” she said. “Two evil men. And evil turned against evil.”

  The Norths looked at each other and Jerry shrugged. It was Pam who repeated. “Evil?”

  “Twisting people’s minds,” Hope Oldham said. “Making them do—horrible things. Getting into their minds, breaking down all the right things—the true things.” She paused; she looked at them and shook her head again. “You don’t know about such things,” she said. “I tried to tell that friend of yours—Weigand? His name’s Weigand, isn’t it?—what kind of a man Jameson Elwell was. I could tell he didn’t understand. Didn’t even believe me. And this Hunter—”

  She stood up suddenly.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said, and her voice now was shrill. “I’ve got to find her before he makes her be—makes her do some other dreadful thing. I’ve—”

  It was obvious to Pam that hysteria had once again gripped Hope Oldham.

  “Wait,” Pam said. “There’s something you’ve forgotten. Mr. Hunter—whatever he is, if he’s all you say he is—can’t do anything to anybody. Not now. He’s in the hospital.” She paused and repeated the word very slowly. “Hospital. Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps Faith has gone to him. But—don’t you see?—there are all sorts of people at the hospital. Nurses and doctors and—and all sorts. So—what can he do? Supposing he wants to do anything?”

  “They couldn’t stop him,” Mrs. Oldham said. She spoke quickly, almost feverishly. “Nobody could. Anyway—I called the hospital. He’s got around them, too. They said he couldn’t be disturbed. She’s there with him and—”

  She did not finish that. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “Find them.”

  Jerry said “Wait,” this time. He said that, too, was something easy to check on. Probably Hunter was asleep; he might have been given a sedative. It should be easy enough to find out. He looked up the number, he dialed. Answered, he said that he wanted to enquire a
bout a Mr. Carl Hunter. He waited for some time.

  “Mr. Hunter,” a mechanically pleasant voice told him, “is doing as well as can be expected.”

  “I wonder,” Jerry said, “if I could be connected with his room? I realize it’s late, but it’s rather important for me to talk to him. And I understand his injury isn’t—”

  “One minute, please,” the pleasant voice said.

  It was a minute—it was more than a minute. And the next voice was not a woman’s formally soothing voice. A man spoke. He said, “I understand you want to talk to Mr. Hunter?”

  Jerry said he did.

  “Who’s calling?” the man said, and Jerry told him who was calling.

  There was another long pause. It was as if the man had turned away from the telephone, covering the transmitter with his hand. But then he spoke again.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Mr. Hunter can’t be disturbed.”

  Hung up on, Jerry hung up. He turned and looked at Pam, at Hope Oldham. His face was puzzled, reflecting a puzzled mind.

  “They’re—” he began, and reconsidered. “It sounds,” he said, “rather as if they’re keeping something back. Maybe Hunter’s worse. Maybe—”

  He did not finish. He dialed again. After a little time he was answered by a voice—a somewhat sleepy voice—which he knew well.

  “Is he ever?” Dorian Weigand said. “No, Jerry. He was in, too late for dinner. Now he’s gone, too early for breakfast.”

  Bill had gone about ten minutes earlier. She had been in bed, three-fourths asleep; he had been undressing. The telephone had rung. He had said, “Right, I’ll be along,” and dressed again and leaned over to kiss a sleepy wife.

  “Wh—” Dorian had begun but he had said, “Go on to sleep, darling. Tell you all about it in the morning,” and then had gone.

  “The sort of thing that happens all the time,” Dorian Weigand said in the disconsolate tone of one much put upon. “Tell Pam she doesn’t know how lucky she is.”

  Bill Weigand might have gone any place, for any purpose. His sudden return to duty did not, necessarily, have anything whatever to do with Faith or Carl Hunter or, indeed, the Elwell case. But as his wife and the frail, excited woman looked at him, Jerry felt growing uneasiness. They had been very guarded at the hospital; very—careful. Because Hunter wasn’t, in fact, there any more? It seemed disturbingly likely.

  “I’m afraid—” Jerry began, but Hope Oldham, standing now, her little hands clenched convulsively, interrupted.

  “They’ve let him go!” she said. “Let him go! To kill somebody else! Faith. Because she—”

  11

  News that Mr. Carl Hunter had checked out of Dyckman Hospital, almost as easily as he might have checked out of a hotel, came roundabout to Captain William Weigand.

  To begin with, it was some time after Hunter had left that word of it reached a hospital official who realized that the police might be interested. He had, naturally enough, called Spring 7-3100, which is the number listed in the Manhattan Telephone Directory, and had got a male operator. And the male operator, also naturally enough, had never heard of Mr. Carl Hunter, the activities of the Police Department of the City of New York being many. Several other persons had met death under suspicious circumstances on that day and the day before; Professor Jameson Elwell was by no means unique. There had also been numerous burglaries, a few cases of armed robbery and no end of other matters.

  So there was no reason why the name of Carl Hunter should at once mean anything to the telephone operator. He did not say “Huh?” precisely, and certainly not “So what?” But it did take some little time for the information to reach precinct, which was interested, verified the fact and, sensibly enough, telephoned Hunter’s apartment, where it might be expected he had gone. There was no answer. Homicide, Manhattan West, was next; Weigand came then. A little over an hour had elapsed.

  There had been no hold order on Hunter, for reasons which had seemed adequate. For one thing, they had no charge to hold him on, and none in immediate prospect. A police preference that a man remain where he is has no force in law. Hunter was a free agent until somebody said he wasn’t, and said why. For another thing, a man shot in the leg at eleven-thirty in the morning does not usually get out of bed at a little before ten at night and walk away. For a third thing, Bill admitted to himself—driving toward Dyckman Hospital at a little after eleven—he had slipped up.

  Hunter had been told, first by nurse, then by interne, finally by a resident, that he was being very ill-advised. It would, they told him, do his leg no good. He would, at the least, find movement very uncomfortable. He would probably re-open the wound, which might be a somewhat bloody business.

  “Men have walked miles to dressing stations with worse wounds,” Hunter said, and signed the releases required, and smiled faintly at dubiously shaken heads. He had, however, accepted the loan of a cane.

  “Actually,” the resident Weigand talked to said, “he was quite right about men walking farther with worse. As a matter of fact, the wound probably won’t open if he’s reasonably careful. And this isn’t a jail, captain. His signature on the release frees us of any responsibility and—”

  Weigand knew. He did not blame anybody. Had Hunter said why he wanted to get up from bed, leaving comfort and medical care, and hobble off into the night?

  Nobody could answer until Weigand reached the corridor nurse. She remembered, and Weigand wouldn’t believe it. He promised to try. All right, Hunter had said he had to go see about the cats. He said it was his night to see about the cats.

  She had supposed, naturally, that he was delirious. But he had no fever and seemed, otherwise, quite composed. He had slept for several hours; the sedation, which had been mild, had worn off. He had said, “Get me my clothes, nurse. Thata girl.” It had not been that easy, but it had been easy enough.

  And did that about cats mean anything to Captain Weigand? Because she was quite sure that that was what Hunter had said.

  It meant something. Briefly, he told her what and her relief was apparent. She was, evidently, a young woman of orderly mind. “Oh,” she said, “one of those,” and went off to respond to a light which blinked outside a door.

  Hunter had not, it was obvious, been abducted. He had, presumably, merely got worried about his cats. Dyckman Hospital is only a few blocks from Dyckman University and Weigand drove there and, after some little search, found a watchman, from him learned that psychological experiments on animals were conducted in Wing A of the Philosophy Building. Weigand crossed the campus, went among dark buildings—but here and there lights burned—and found another watchman, who said he hadn’t seen Mr. Hunter, whom he knew, but that Mr. Hunter had a key and was in and out at all hours. “Like the rest of them,” the watchman said, rather morosely. If Weigand wanted to show him his shield? Weigand did, and the door was unlocked for him, and he went up two flights and down the first corridor on his right, which ended in a swinging door with glass in it. Dim light came through the glass.

  Bill Weigand went into a sizable room which had wire cages down one side. In the center of the room was something which looked a little like a carousel, without wooden animals. There was also a long tube, a foot or so in diameter, with glass windows at intervals in its length. For cats to look out through, presumably.

  There were some twenty cages and each held a cat—a black cat here, a red cat here, here a tabby. Bill walked down beside the cages and the cats’ eyes glittered at him in the half light. One cat rose up and stretched and another spoke and a third rolled over on his back and held his legs up in the air. They seemed to be contented cats.

  Bill walked the length of the room and opened the door of a small office, with desk and typewriter and, on one wall, a chart partially filled with figures. The chart was in columns, with a name at the top of each—Pete, Bill, Betsy, Mehitabel. To each cat his column, Bill assumed. And—dates and hours. He looked. The last entries for this date had been made at 1830. It was to be assumed that,
then, the cats had been tucked into bed.

  There was nothing to indicate that Carl Hunter had been there. Certainly he was not there now. It seemed that his explanation at the hospital had been disingenuous. Bill was a little disappointed, but not unduly surprised.

  It was reasonably clear that Carl Hunter was up to something. It began to appear that the absence of a hold on Carl Hunter had been a more significant oversight than Bill liked to admit. Had he, Bill wondered—going back to his car, driving until he came to an open drugstore, finding a telephone in it—had he been taken in by the apparent candor of intelligent gray eyes, of generally straightforward appearance? Or, perhaps more specifically, by the assumption that a man shot at and wounded during a murder investigation—wounded by a bullet from the gun which previously had killed—is unlikely to be himself the killer?

  Of course, Hunter might have something else than flight in mind. He might have remembered something, and gone to check on it. He might have known, in spite of his denials, who had shot him and gone to do something about that. And he might merely have decided to go while the going was good.

  In that event, he would hardly get far. They almost never did or, if far, for long. It would be a nuisance, of course. Deputy Chief Inspector O’Malley would bellow. Bill would have to cross that bellow when he came to it.

  The telephone in Hunter’s apartment, which was not far from the university, was unanswered. Bill considered. He looked up another number, and dialed it, and again a telephone rang unanswered. He let this one ring longer—they might be asleep in the Oldham house. They might be asleep on the second floor and the telephone might ring, dimly, on the ground floor. But, given all reasonable time, nobody answered.

  Which was mildly interesting. Faith Oldham and her mother might, of course, have gone downtown to a theater, or to a movie. There is no special reason for two adult women to be home at—he looked at his watch—at eleven-forty. They might be playing bridge, or canasta for that matter, with friends. They might be—anything. It was evident that they were not at home. And Faith and Hunter might be somewhere together. And Hope might be with them? The last seemed a little doubtful.