by Frances
“Hell,” Mullins said. “Sometimes guys is bright and the next minute they ain’t. You know that, Loot.”
“Right,” Weigand said. As Mullins indicated, it was an abstract point which faded as you examined it. But the alibi did not fade. On evidence they couldn’t, at the moment, go behind, Ann was alive after Elliot had left her. She died while Elliot was sitting in Dan Beck’s comfortable apartment, talking comfortably with Dan Beck.
“Unless this Beck guy is lying,” Mullins pointed out.
“Why?” Weigand asked.
Mullins shook his head. Then he brightened.
“Why not?” he said.
Weigand shook his head this time. He didn’t know; he didn’t know either way. He tapped his desk softly.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll take Beck off your list. That leaves only eleven or twelve. Take Beck off, unless something comes up. That leaves ten or eleven. I’m making things easy for you.”
“Yeah,” Mullins said, without conviction. “O.K., Loot.” He ruminated. “You know, Loot,” he said, “it ud better be Elliot. On account of if it isn’t, who have we got?”
Weigand shrugged. Mullins had put a finger on it. Or call it a thumb. They suffered from a paucity of everything, except the obvious. And Dan Beck’s alibi stood in the way of the obvious.
“Somehow,” Mullins went on, pressing his point, “this guy Elliot got around Beck. Maybe it was a phonograph.”
Weigand looked at Mullins, as sometimes he looked at Mrs. North.
“Maybe what was a phonograph, for God’s sake?” he said.
“The voice,” Mullins said. “That Beck heard on the telephone. Maybe it was a transcription, sort of. Of the Lawrence girl’s voice.”
It was, Weigand pointed out, quite a transcription. It had carried on a conversation with Beck. It was not a transcription; it was a mechanical miracle.
“Yeah,” Mullins said. “You got something there, Loot.” He paused for a word. “A flaw,” he said, finding it. “But maybe he did it some other way. Maybe—maybe he fooled with a clock somehow.”
Weigand looked at Mullins with growing suspicion. He accused Mullins of having been reading books. Mullins, indignant, shook his head. He said, “What I read is newspapers, Loot. And reports on guys who had dinner with the Lawrence girl before she was cooled.”
“Right,” Weigand said, dismissing it. “Sorry, Sergeant. So we have Elliot, if we can break his alibi. Opportunity; motive. We have Mrs. Pennock. Opportunity. No motive we know of. We have Franklin Martinelli. Motive, possibly. Opportunity—possibly. And there’s this to be said for Martinelli—he’s violent. If he killed it would be—convulsively.”
Mullins considered the word and nodded.
“Now,” Weigand went on, after a moment, “for the other murder. We have Martinelli to begin with. Motive—yes, if he is lying about a reconciliation between him and the girl, and if he killed her he would be. Opportunity—not if his alibi is good. And his alibi is pretty good and it doesn’t depend on somebody’s telling the truth, unless—” He broke off, contemplating.
“Unless, of course,” he said, “the Harper girl is lying. Come to think of it, his alibi does depend on the truth of what somebody says. It’s good—if he was coming out of the restaurant when the Harper girl went in. But—”
Mullins was looking negative. He shook his head heavily.
“She wants him to fry,” he said. “She wouldn’t help him out of anything. If she saw him frying she’d think it was funny as hell.”
“Or,” Weigand pointed out, “she wants you to believe that. But suppose she’s just acting you a little play, with Martinelli helping her. Suppose they worked it out between them, he to kill Frances and she to give him an alibi. Not an obvious alibi—one that would look accidental and unwilling. What do you think of that, Mullins?”
“Lousy,” Mullins said, with emphasis. “Why?”
“Because they both wanted to get rid of Frances,” Weigand said. “Because they wanted to get together and she was in their way. Maybe she was going to have a baby. Maybe she and Martinelli were really married.”
“Hell,” Mullins said. “It’s you who’s been reading books, Loot.”
Weigand paid no attention to him, but tapped on the desk.
“Or,” he said, “she might have killed Frances herself and alibied the boy without knowing it. Because Frances was leaving her for the boy, before you come in with your ‘why?’ How do you like that one, Mullins?”
Mullins was not so quick, this time. Finally he nodded slowly and said he liked it better.
“But still not very good,” he said. “Who else?”
Weigand lifted his shoulders and let them fall again. Almost anybody in New York, he admitted. He pushed the papers back on his desk and looked at them. He crumpled the one on which he had started to write and dropped the ball he made into the wastebasket.
“The fact is,” he said, “we haven’t begun. And we’d better.”
“Yeah,” Mullins agreed. He stood up. “Maybe,” he said suddenly, “Elliot killed both of them. Maybe they had something on him we don’t know about so he killed them both. Because, Loot, when you come to think about it—he was the only one we’ve come across who knew them both. Martinelli just knew about the Lawrence girl, the way I see it.” He stopped and stared down at the lieutenant. “What was the matter with the McCalley girl when she was sick that time?” he demanded. “Did you think about that, Loot?”
Weigand looked at Sergeant Mullins for a moment without answering. His eyes closed a little, reflectively. He was frank, and said he hadn’t.
“But,” he said, “I think we’d better find out, Sergeant. I think it might be interesting to know.”
The telephone rang, and Weigand scooped it up.
IX. Wednesday, 9:40 A.M. to 10:55 A.M.
Roughy put her forepaws on the edge of the bathtub and stared in at Pamela North with round, interested and unblinking eyes. Roughy spoke at length. Pamela North, comfortably stretched at full length under steamy water, regarded Roughy.
“Why?” Pam said. “Why, Roughy?”
Roughy always answered when spoken to. She answered now and Pam North listened with every evidence of close attention.
“You had breakfast,” Pam told Roughy. “Hours ago. Don’t you remember?”
Roughy spoke at greater length. Her voice, which was attractive without being melodious—peculiarly without being melodious—was beyond question the voice of a Siamese cat. But Roughy was as unquestionably a small gray and white cat with nothing in appearance to suggest that she was a product of miscegenation. Roughy talked at length and, it seemed to Pam, with growing alarm.
“It’s all right, Roughy,” Pam assured her. “I won’t drown. I can get out at any time. See?”
To prove it, Pam lifted one leg out of water and waved it slightly. Roughy followed the movement of the leg with her round eyes. Pam let it subside into the water. Roughy watched it disappear, looked into Pam’s face, and wept.
“Of course,” Pam admitted, “I have been in here a long time. But I really can get out, Roughy.”
Roughy seemed to doubt it. The whole business puzzled Roughy. She looked with what Pam thought must be anxiety at the water. Then she reached down and touched the water gently with a white paw. She made a surprised and incredulous sound, withdrew the paw, looked at it, shook it and began to lick it hurriedly.
“I’m thinking, Roughy,” Pam told her. “That’s why I stay so long. Really.” The last was said with rather forced conviction. “I’m trying to think who killed the girls. Who do you think, Roughy?”
Roughy looked at her mistress and made a small, purely formal sound of acknowledgment. She lifted her paws from the edge of the tub and lowered them to the floor. She looked around the bathroom as if she had never seen it before, turned slightly and floated to the top of the clothes hamper.
“You’re the best jumper we’ve ever had,” Pam told her. “By far.”
Ro
ughy looked down at Pam from this new vantage point with fixed interest. It was so fixed as to be slightly discomforting. Pam looked away and tried to forget the small, disapproving cat. It was, Pam thought, really time she got out of the tub. It had been an hour, anyway, since Jerry had gone, and she had really done nothing in all that hour but take a bath. Probably, she thought, it constituted a record. Probably if she stayed under much longer she would dissolve. On the other hand—
Pam could, she found, reach the hot water faucet with the toes of her right foot and, with a little effort, turn it. She turned it, letting more hot water flow into the tub. The new hot water lapped her toes and advanced. By the time the line of demarcation reached her ankles, her toes were too hot. She turned the hot water off with the toes of her left foot, relaxed a moment and suddenly sat up. She hesitated a moment indecisively, decided that the time had really come and got out of the tub. She flicked water from her wet fingers at Roughy, who made a small, startled sound, bounced from the clothes hamper and made a soft thud on the tiles. Pam opened the door and Roughy rubbed against it purring, looking up at her mistress with deep emotion. She rubbed against the edge of the door and did not go out but only curved indecisively. Pam pushed her with the toes of one foot and Roughy collapsed suddenly, lying luxuriously on her back. Pam rubbed her abstractedly with a foot and Roughy expressed ecstasy. Pam stopped, and Roughy protested at length. The foot did not return and, after a moment, Roughy rolled effortlessly onto her feet, listened with apparently shocked intensity to some inaudible sound and dashed headlong out of the bathroom. Pam closed the door behind her and toweled herself, wondering about cats. Anybody who could fully understand cats, Pam thought, ought to have no trouble at all with murders, which were, after all, customarily done by humans. And no human, certainly, was half so intricate as a cat.
The trouble was, of course, that nobody understood cats, probably including other cats. So it got you nowhere.
She turned her mind with resolution to the problem of murder. It worried her to discover that she had no theories, except theories about people who had not killed Ann Lawrence and Frances McCalley. She did not think that Franklin Martinelli had killed them, or that John Elliot had—not really, although there was something funny there—or that Mrs. Florence Pennock, the housekeeper, had. (Although there was something funny there, too.) She thought that there was also something funny about Cleo Harper, but she did not really think that Cleo had murdered the two girls. It was all very negative.
“Too damned negative,” Pam told herself, aloud, and opened the door of the wall cabinet abstractedly. Several things fell out with the celerity of things which have been waiting for a long time to fall out. Pam caught a container of tooth powder but a small bottle of iodine fell into the bathroom glass and an old toothbrush—kept long past its days of usefulness for reasons which, if they had ever existed, could no longer be remembered—fell to the floor and bounced disconsolately. It occurred to Pam that she might forget the murders for a time and devote herself to reorganizing the bathroom cabinet, which clearly needed it. Pam dismissed this thought as dull and, in a sense, escapist. She found the bottle she was looking for, sat down on the edge of the tub, and painted on stockings. She stood in front of the long mirror in the door and regarded herself and thought she looked very odd with painted stockings and nothing else and turned sideways and regarded herself from that angle. Possibly, she thought, I ought to give up potatoes for a few days. But it was a moot question. She considered herself further in reflection, thought of Jerry, blushed slightly and inexplicably and returned her mind to harsher things. She left the bathroom and for a moment the air in the hall and the bedroom seemed cold, but after a moment it was no longer cold. She was very careful not to rub her legs against anything and sat on the edge of the bed, holding them well out, and waved them up and down. But whatever she did, they would certainly rub off on whatever she wore.
Cleo Harper, she decided, was really the oddest of all of them. The others were strange and seemed to be doing strange things. Elliot was hiding himself, for example, and Martinelli was hiding something else. Where he had been when Ann was killed, probably. And if he had more than the most casual, oblique relationship with Ann he was hiding that, too. But Cleo Harper was, as the others were not, contradictory. The others might be, and that included even Mrs. Pennock, quite usual people in an unusual situation. Cleo would be odd even in the most usual situation.
And even as she formed it, Pam realized that that conviction was based on a feeling rather than on anything tangible. Being in the same room with Cleo Harper, you felt her as odd and contradictory; you felt that you knew, really, nothing about her. You did not approve or disapprove; you were merely perplexed and made uneasy. And you suspected that, if you were more alert, you would find out something which it was important to know.
So, Pam thought, I had better try to find out more about Cleo Harper. Pam waved her legs and touched one of them doubtfully. It did not come off and she touched the other. It did not come off either. So probably they were dry, or as dry as they were going to get. And how could you find out more about Cleo Harper? The answer to that seemed to be—see her and find out more. But you ought, in human decency—as a tribute to human circumlocution—to have an excuse. You could not merely go to Cleo Harper and say: “Listen, I want to find out more about you.”
That would be too simple and direct, and too sensible. And probably it would be unproductive. It would surprise Cleo and surprise would make her sullen and secretive and uneasy. There had to be some excuse. Pam pondered an excuse. She might, she supposed, merely call Cleo up and suggest they have lunch somewhere and a good talk, and plead a sudden fondness for Cleo to justify the obviously rather inexplicable advance. This would not, Pam realized, seem convincing to anyone; her own attitude, which was one of moderate distaste for Cleo, would inevitably show through. The excuse would have to be something specific.
Pam continued to contemplate as she continued to dress. Dressing was very simple; it consisted primarily of a girdle—which looked oddly disconsolate with no stockings to tie to—and a grayish-brown dress of light-weight wool. Her shoes were brown (and felt strange on merely painted feet) and the brown hat matched. Pam regarded the final product without disapproval and looked up the number of Breckley House in the telephone book.
Cleo Harper was not at Breckley House, an impersonal voice told her. Miss Harper was at her office. There was an implication in the voice that that was too obvious to need reporting; there was a further implication that, by this time, all the world should be at its office. It was not customary, the voice said, to give office addresses of residents of Breckley House to unidentified voices on the telephone.
“Why?” said Pam, with sincere interest.
“It is not at all customary,” the voice said, even more impersonally. “Not at all.”
“But I’m a very old friend,” Pam said, urgently. “And I’m only in town for a few hours and I simply must see Cleo. Dear Cleo,” she added, to clinch it.
“Well—” the voice said. “It is really not at all customary. However—in the event of a special case. I’ll see if we have it.”
There was a pause and the small, elusive sounds which come through a telephone laid on a desk. There were tappings and distant voices and, dimly, someone saying, “Well, she’ll have to, that’s all.” Then feet tapped on the floor and there was the sound of the telephone being lifted and that curious moment when the other end of the telephone line became sentient. The voice at the other end of the line drew in a preparatory breath and said that this wasn’t in the least customary.
“However,” the voice said. “Under the circumstances. Her card says Estates Incorporated.” The voice hesitated. Then, with the final barrier overcome by new resolution, it gave an address on Madison Avenue. Near the beginning of Madison Avenue. Pamela North thanked the voice and hung up.
One thing, Pam thought, was a little interesting about all of this. All of it centered within
a relatively few blocks of which Madison Square was roughly the center. Ann had lived a little south and east; Cleo had worked and Frances had worked a little north; Frances had died only a few doors from where she worked and Cleo lived only four or five blocks north and west, between Madison and Fifth.
This was convenient but not, so far as Pam could see, illuminating. She put on a fur coat over the grayish-brown—or brownish-gray, as Jerry insisted?—dress and went out. It wasn’t snowing today, but there was melting snow in Washington Square. The rest of the snow had almost vanished. Pamela got a cab with surprisingly little difficulty.
Estates Incorporated was evidently a large affair. When you stepped from the elevator, you stepped at once into it, facing a bare desk behind which was a crisp young woman who was anything but bare. She was expertly furbished. She looked at Mrs. North with polite enquiry. Mrs. North advanced to the desk and the young woman stood.
“I want to see Miss Cleo Harper,” Mrs. North said. The young woman sat down again. Her action was comment, and adverse. She said, “Oh,” making the comment more explicit.
“Have you a Miss Harper?” Pam said, when the conversation seemed to lag.
“Harper?” the young woman said. “Harper? Oh, Harper.” Her tone implied that Mrs. North was guilty of deliberate and confusing mispronunciation. “You mean Cleo Harper?”
Mrs. North was patient. She said she did.
“I believe there is a Miss Cleo Harper,” the young woman said, indicating at once disapproval of Miss Harper’s name and annoyance that Mrs. North had begun by asking for—say—a Miss Jane Harper. “I believe she files, however.”