by Frances
“Jerry had another examination,” Pam said, after a moment during which nobody answered. “He still can’t see anything. Not anything they want him to see. You’d think for what he can do it wouldn’t matter, wouldn’t you?”
“How many is that, Jerry?” Dorian said.
Jerry North grinned, putting a face on it.
“Four,” he said. “I came up a point with the right one, this time. Only I went back a point with the left. Even squinting.”
“You and me,” Bill said, not to be diverted. “We can’t see a thing. You haven’t got any eyes; me, I haven’t got any mind. Between us, we ought to fall flat on our faces.”
“Quit feeling sorry for yourself, Bill,” Pam told him. “Quit being so sunk. Why did they?”
“Because she knew something, obviously,” Bill said. “Which doesn’t fit. That’s why, I guess, I didn’t—”
“Why doesn’t it fit?” Pam North insisted.
There were, Bill Weigand told her—and now, she and Dorian noted, he was leaving himself out of it—several reasons why it didn’t fit. Primarily, because she had seemed so certain, and so anxious to make them certain, that John Elliot had killed Ann. And in trying to make them certain she had told everything, apparently, that she knew against Elliot. Anyway, she had told enough. So—Elliot, who was the only one she appeared to suspect, the only one she had tried to involve, would have no reason to kill her.
“Because she had already done him all the damage she could,” Pam North agreed, voicing it for the rest of them. Bill nodded.
“I wondered about that when she seemed to be trying to shake somebody down on the telephone,” he said. “It didn’t fit, if she really believed Elliot had killed the girl. That’s why I decided to keep an eye on her. Half an eye, as it turned out—Hanson. But I didn’t take it very seriously. She was such—such a character. I suppose I didn’t ever take her seriously.”
“Well,” Jerry said, “somebody did.”
He considered and shook his head. He said he didn’t get it, completely.
“Apparently,” he said, “we have to assume that the whole story she told about Elliot was a fake, set up to distract us from the man she really suspected until she had a chance to shake this other man—or woman—down. She was just giving us a false scent, so she could be free to follow the true one, and so we—you, Bill, I mean—wouldn’t catch the right person until she had had a chance to make something out of it.”
“Well,” Weigand said, “it doesn’t have to be all a fake—her story about Elliot, I mean. Maybe that was true—maybe something like that happened. But maybe she knew something else about somebody else, and thought this other person would pay not to have what she knew told. I mean—she might really have thought that Elliot killed the girl, but knew enough to involve this other person if he didn’t come through. Perhaps she actually thought there were merely appearances against this other person, and that she might pick up a little something if she didn’t let the appearances come out. But perhaps she was wrong about that—perhaps what she had on the other person wasn’t merely an appearance, as she thought, but the real thing. Perhaps—perhaps she went hunting for a rabbit and caught a bear.”
“Like the parson, one lovely Sunday morning, although it was powerfully against his religion,” Pam North said. Everybody looked at her. “The jingle,” she said. “And on his way returning, a great big grizzly bear. Although the parson caught the bear, not the other way around.”
“Oh,” Jerry said. “But there’s nothing in it about rabbits, Pam.”
“And one dum dumply hare,” Pam said. “A rabbit’s a hare, isn’t it?”
“Sort of,” Jerry agreed. “He was really hunting quail, I always thought.”
“You two,” Dorian said. “What else, Bill?”
“So,” Bill said, “she went out to telephone this other person, on whom she had so much more than she thought. She went to a public telephone because she thought we might have had the one at the house tapped.”
“Did you?” Pam wanted to know.
Bill merely smiled at her.
“So—” Bill started again, and then he stopped and a line came between his eyes.
“It doesn’t fit, does it?” Pam said.
Bill Weigand shook his head.
“Not if she was talking,” he said. “And Hanson had sense enough to notice that she was. It was his high point of the day.”
“Why—” Jerry began. Then he said, “oh, of course!”
“It would be pretty hard to be stabbed by somebody you were talking to on the telephone,” he said. “Particularly in the back.”
Everybody looked at him.
“I see what you mean, dear,” Pam said. “It’s perfectly logical, really. Until you think about it, of course.”
“All right,” Jerry said, amused. “This one’s on me, people. But the fact remains—”
They agreed that the fact remained. If Mrs. Pennock had gone several blocks to a public telephone to blackmail a suspected murderer, and had got him on the telephone, it was hard to see how that same person could be waiting outside the telephone booth to stab her in the back. So, presumably, she was not talking to the person she was blackmailing. This last from Dorian.
“Or,” Jerry said, “she was talking to a servant of the person she was blackmailing and learning he was not at home. And he wasn’t at home because he was right outside the booth with a knife. How did he know she would be there, incidentally?”
“Followed her,” Bill said. “Unless she had made an appointment to meet him—or her—in the drug store and filled in time waiting for him by telephoning. That’s possible. Except that the amazing Mr. Hanson seems to think she went right to the telephone booths without looking around for anyone, or waiting at all, which isn’t natural. She went there as if she had gone to telephone, not to meet somebody.”
Pam said it was very confused. She studied it.
“Of course,” she said, “she may have been wrong again. Perhaps there was another murderer. Making three, in all.”
They looked at her, anxiously, for enlightenment.
“You’d have to use letters, or something,” she said. “Suppose Mr. Elliot is Mr. A.”
She paused and looked around for acceptance of this.
“All right, dear,” Jerry said. “Anything you say, Mr. Elliot is Mr. A.”
“Then,” Pam said. “This other person is Mr. B.—this first other person. The one Mrs. Pennock thought had really done the murder—or had a lot to explain about it. The one she was using Mr. Elliot as a red herring for.”
“Listen,” Jerry said, “Mr. Elliot was Mr. A. just a minute ago. Now he’s Mr. Elliot again.”
“A. for Elliot,” Pam said. “I don’t care, really, I was just trying to make it clear.”
“All right,” Jerry said. “Maybe it is, Pam. So—?”
“So,” Pam said, “she went out to telephone Mr. B. to try to—to shake him down. But all the time there was a Mr. C. The real murderer. Because she was wrong about Mr. A and Mr. B. And Mr. C. killed her while she was talking to Mr. B. and trying to make him give her some money.”
“Yes, but—” Bill and Dorian and Jerry said that almost together. Mullins said, “But listen, Mrs. North.”
“I know,” Mrs. North said. “Why should Mr. C.? Because she thought it was Mr. B., if she didn’t think it was Mr. A. Well because—because she should have realized it was Mr. C. and Mr. C. thought she did. Maybe he thought she had seen him killing Ann, when really she hadn’t. But maybe she had said something which made him think she had. So he was just playing safe. Maybe he thought she was thinking about the whole thing too much, and would eventually think the right thing.”
They thought that over.
“Then,” Bill said, “she was really killed by mistake, Pam? It could be, of course.”
“Or, anyway, too soon,” Pam said. “Before she got around to being right.”
They thought of that one.
“O
f course,” Dorian said, “maybe whoever it was—Mr. B.—just hired somebody. Maybe he has a faithful old retainer who stabs people out of devotion.”
Bill looked at his wife with interest.
“Beck has a faithful old retainer,” he said. “Two of them, by count.”
“Would they stab somebody?” Dorian asked with interest. “Either—or both.”
Bill said he should think so. Pam shook her head.
“I don’t believe in faithful old retainers,” she said. “Not the stabbing kind, for love of the mahster. Or even the massa.”
“If you come to that,” Jerry said, “you don’t really believe in murder. You don’t think anybody would. But they do. So do retainers, for all we know.” He paused. “Not that I think Martha would, for us,” he said.
They tried to think of fat Martha murdering for the Norths, and were unsuccessful.
“Maybe,” Pam said, then, “she was blackmailing both Mr. B. and Mr. C. at the same time, because both of them were there, or something, or had threatened Ann or something. And while she was blackmailing Mr. B. or Mr. C., the other one—the one she wasn’t actually blackmailing at the time—followed her to the store and killed her.”
They were thinking of that, and that they had now about all the reasonable combinations, when Hugo came and stood behind Weigand. Bill looked around.
“Telephone, Captain Weigand,” Hugo said, adhering to his custom of promoting all good customers by at least one grade.
Bill followed Hugo to the telephone booth wedged into a corner of the small, secure cocktail lounge. Hugo waved the detective on and Bill, not quite hesitating as he entered the booth—but not avoiding a thought of the final condition of the booth in which Mrs. Pennock had done her telephoning—went in and closed the door behind him. He said, “Hello.”
“Hello,” John Elliot said. “I see he got another one.”
The voice was familiar to Bill Weigand; much too familiar. It was infuriating.
“You mean you got another one,” Bill said. “And you seem to think it’s part of a game. We’ll teach you about that, Elliot.”
“When you catch me,” Elliot commented, with truth. But his voice was not flippant; it was merely reporting the obvious. “But I’m still not the one you want to catch. I haven’t killed anybody. And I think you know it, Weigand.”
“I don’t know it,” Weigand said. “You’re a killer, Elliot, or the damnedest fool I ever met. You’re acting like—like a perverted school boy.”
“I know,” Elliot said. “It must seem that way. But I’m not a killer. Or a fool. I know something you don’t know and I’ve got to work on it.”
“If you didn’t kill Ann Lawrence and the McCalley girl you’re a damned fool to hide out,” Weigand told him. “Because we’ll catch you anyway.”
“You haven’t so far,” Elliot reminded him. “And why don’t you include Mrs. Pennock?”
Weigand was triumphant.
“Because I wanted you to mention her,” he said. “Because you couldn’t have known about her unless—”
Elliot broke in.
“Unless I listened to the radio,” he said. “I did listen to the radio. It’s part—”
He stopped there for a moment. Then he went on.
“It was on the radio half an hour ago,” he told Weigand. “Didn’t you know that, Lieutenant?”
Weigand hadn’t. He would know why it was on the radio and somebody would wish it hadn’t been. But meanwhile, he was inclined to believe Elliot, because a lie would be too easy to check.
“All right,” Weigand said. “You heard it on the radio. And you called me up to tell me how smart you are. Is that it?”
Elliot said it wasn’t.
“And incidentally,” he said, “I’m not anywhere around now, so that roundup of the neighborhood won’t work. I just took a chance you’d be at Charles. Knowing your methods, Sherlock.”
“One trouble with you, Elliot,” Weigand said, “is that you haven’t grown up. One trouble.”
“And one trouble with you, Weigand, is that you can’t see your nose on your face. Or your hand in front of your eyes, or whatever it is. Or a murderer who’s sticking out a mile.”
“I can talk to him,” Weigand said. “On the telephone. And get him, eventually.”
Elliot said they weren’t getting anywhere.
“All right,” Weigand said. “Where do you want to get?”
“Damn it all, man,” Elliot said. “I’m trying to help. I wasn’t sure before; now I’m sure. It’s one of two. In about an hour I’m going to ask a couple of questions. Then I’ll know—then I’ll hand it to you.”
His voice was serious. It would be easy to believe him.
“Elliot,” Weigand said, “you’re still being a fool. Maybe you’re telling the truth. If you are you don’t know what you’re getting into. Just on the chance you’re telling the truth—for God’s sake show some sense. Don’t go around asking questions of murderers. Don’t—”
“I can take care of myself, Lieutenant,” Elliot said. “Thanks all the same.”
“Mrs. Pennock thought she could take care of herself,” Weigand said, and his voice was harsh. “She’s in a bin at the morgue, Elliot.”
There was a slight pause.
“She didn’t know what she was up against,” Elliot said, but his voice momentarily sounded less sure. “I know what I’m up against.”
Weigand said nothing. He listened to Elliot breathing on the other end of the phone. But before Elliot spoke again, Weigand knew he had lost the round.
“And,” Elliot said, now with no hesitancy, “she wasn’t evenright. She thought she knew something she didn’t know. This time it’s different.”
With him it was different, he meant. He believed it again. There was nothing to say to convince him. Weigand’s voice was weary when he answered.
“Right,” he said. “With you it’s different, Rover boy. You’ll catch a murderer for the dumb cops. Or he’ll catch you, and then we’ll have to catch him for that, too. What do you want from me—a testimonial?”
“No,” Elliot said. He paused, apparently searching for words. He spoke more slowly.
“Listen,” he said. “I’m not a fool, whatever you think. I know it’s—risky. If I could prove anything—but I can’t. Not now. I could just give you a theory. You’d think it was a crazy theory. It wouldn’t make sense. But I can—trick him. I think I can.”
“I think you’re a fool,” Weigand said, driving it in.
“You don’t know how it is,” Elliot said. “I know what I can do. In this case. With this—this guy. Something nobody else could do. Because of—well, say special circumstances. And there’s no use trying to talk me out of it.”
“Right,” Weigand said. “It’s your neck. If you’re telling the truth. And I’ll say this—I don’t get the game if you’re not.”
He had not meant to say that much. There was something in the earnestness of the other’s voice which had brought it out.
“It’s my neck,” Elliot said. “And I’ll take care of it. And—I’ll be seeing you. Tomorrow, maybe.”
“Any time,” Weigand said, with marked politeness. “Any time at all, Mr. Elliot. Just drop in. And bring your murderer.”
“Maybe I will, Lieutenant,” Elliot said. “Maybe I’ll do just that. Or maybe I’ll just let you hear about it, as I did about Mrs. Pennock. On the radio.”
Suddenly, it seemed to Weigand, there was a jeer in the end of it. It was as if Elliot were laughing at him, about something; had been laughing at him all the time. And Weigand started talking with contained violence before he realized that part of the cause of his fury was that Elliot had, at the end of that sentence, hung up the receiver.
Weigand went back to the others and he was both exasperated and uneasy. He was being played for something—and he didn’t know just what. There was a game going on, under his nose, and he didn’t know the rules. And there seemed to be nothing he could do about it
, except to catch Elliot and shake it out of him. And so far, he hadn’t caught Elliot. He felt as if he were “it” in a game of blind-man’s buff. Over another round of drinks, he told the others of Elliot’s call, and of his own confusion. His confusion did not lighten; it remained after they had left the bar for a table. It persisted through dinner.
They had finished and were no longer talking much when Detective Stein appeared, excited interest in his quick, mobile face. Stein did not wait to be spoken to.
“I think we’ve got him, Lieutenant,” he said. “The auditors found it; a baby could have found it.”
“What?” Weigand said, not bothering to sit down. It didn’t sound as if it would be worth while sitting down.
Stein told him, quickly and precisely. Alfred Pierson, who had brought Ann Lawrence’s account into Estates Incorporated, and continued to handle it, had milked it almost dry. By substituting securities at first; finally merely by hypothecating securities. He had, in short, brought it down from a great deal to almost nothing, and he had done it with amazing rapidity. Ann’s pleasantly adequate fortune had, within four years, turned liquid and flowed into Pierson’s pockets. What remained were real estate holdings of no liquidity whatever; what remained was a series of tax liabilities.
They looked at one another as Stein finished. So there it was—there was motive, all wool and a yard wide. At least a yard wide.
“It’s uncanny,” Pam North said, in a bemused way. “It’s just as I suspected. And he was in love with her, too.”
“Or,” Weigand pointed out, “he wanted to marry her to keep the truth in the family. And—where is he now, Stein?”
He was around, Stein said. He had gone out to lunch about one and come back a little after three. By that time it had begun to become clear, but they said nothing to him. He had gone out again a little before five, but this time he had not gone alone. A small, almost invisible, man had gone with him.
“I took a chance on that,” Stein said. “I couldn’t reach you. You’d just left the precinct after the checkup on the Pennock kill. So I took a chance. O.K.?”