Murder Has Its Points

by Frances

  “What?” he said. “Why, Anthony Payne’s new—”

  “No,” she said. “You brought his name up, didn’t you. To see what—what I’d do?”

  And that, of course, was true enough. There might be one very pretty, dark-haired, dark-eyed, girl in James Self’s shop and another in his life—one (what had Willings said?) “tender” girl. It had seemed worthwhile finding out. He had, he thought, found out.

  Candy from a baby, Bill thought. A singularly defenseless baby.

  “Who are you?” the girl said. And then, unexpectedly, “I suppose, whoever you are, you’re very proud of yourself.”

  Bill found that he wasn’t, particularly. Policemen have to take candy from those who have it. The girl wasn’t, certainly, stupid. Merely—innocent? Merely “tender”?

  “Right,” Bill said. “I’m a detective. And—”

  “What do you want to see Jim about?” The voice was a little higher now.

  Bill managed, he hoped, to look surprised; even to look blank.

  “Why,” he said, “Payne’s killing, miss.” He tried to get surprise into his voice—surprise that she had missed the obvious. (Mullins can do this better, Bill thought.) “Not Mr. Self more than anybody else. We’re trying to see everybody who was at this—” he hesitated—“press party, I guess they call it. See if anybody can tell us anything to help.” He smiled at the pretty girl, and thought some warmth came back under her very white skin. “Just one of dozens, I am,” Bill said. “Were you at this party yourself, miss?”

  Muscles around eyes had relaxed. Fine. Taking candy from a baby. All right—fine.

  “I?” she said. “Good heavens no. I was minding the store. That’s what Mr. Self pays me for.”

  “Sure,” Bill said. “Can’t leave any avenue unexplored, as the regulations say.” (Mr. Self, now. Jim a moment ago. Baby trying to get her candy back.) “You expect Mr. Self soon?”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “It shouldn’t be—” And stopped abruptly. “He did,” she said, “say something about going to an auction. I’d forgotten that. If he did—heaven knows.”

  Bill Weigand sighed—a tired cop, doing the dull things he was told to do.

  “He was at this party, though?” Bill said. “Somehow I got the idea it was for—oh, book reviewers. People like that.” Not owners of unimportant bookshops, his tone implied. (He hoped.)

  “Oh,” she said, “Mr. Self is a critic too. Quite an important one where—where it’s important.” How does one explain these things to a dumb policeman? her tone asked. “And he’s starting a magazine. A magazine of—” She looked at Bill, and shook her pretty head. Looking for a word within my scope, Bill thought. “Comment,” the girl said. “Literary comment. About books that really matter. Not just—”

  She made a graceful gesture toward the bright-jacketed books on the long table. Her gesture seemed to dismiss them—Cozzens and Marquand and all.

  “Of course,” she said, “we have to handle—well, everything here. Best sellers and everything.” It was a little, Bill thought, as if she were saying that cockroaches get in everywhere. “Some of our customers want things like that,” she said.

  Animated enough, now. Trotting along gayly, now, on the hobbyhorse of enthusiasm.

  “Most of them,” she said, “are—well, different.”

  “Writers, I suppose,” Bill said, trying to remember how Mullins would say it, and speak accordingly. “People like this—what’s his name? Williams?”

  “If you mean Tennessee Williams,” she said. “I don’t think—he lives in Key West, you know.”

  “Thinking of somebody else,” Bill said. “Doesn’t matter. I’d better be getting—” He started to turn. He said, “Wait a minute. Willings. That’s the one I was thinking of. Writers like that. Or, for that matter, Anthony Payne.”

  “Not Will—” she said, and stopped, and the little muscles about her large, and for that matter very beautiful, dark eyes once more tightened.

  “But,” Bill Weigand said, “Payne. Often, miss—? I think you’d better tell me your name.”

  She hesitated for a moment. She said, “Why?” He merely waited. When she spoke, her voice was flat again.

  “Rhodes,” she said. “Jo-An Rhodes.”

  “Miss Rhodes,” Bill said, “you saw Mr. Payne away from the shop, didn’t you? Went to dinner with him? Things like—”

  “You haven’t any—”

  “Yes,” Bill said. “To ask. Because we have to find out everything about Mr. Payne we can find out—who he knew, who he saw. Yes, even who he took to dinner. If you’ve some reason not to answer—”

  She was shaking her head, by then. She said, “You’ll misunderstand. Try to make something out of it.” Very young; a little frightened.

  “No,” Bill said. “Nothing that isn’t there. You did see him? Often?”

  “Several times. It was—there wasn’t anything. To dinner a few times and—oh, to the theater. And once up to have dinner at a place in the country. I can go where I want to. With—with people I want—”

  “Of course,” Bill said. “I don’t question that. But, Miss Rhodes, did Mr. Self?”

  She looked surprised—managed to look surprised. That was it, Bill thought—“managed.” Candy from—

  “Mr. Self?” she repeated, and got surprise into her soft voice. “Why on earth should—Oh, I see what you mean. It was always after I was through here, of course. I only work until—”

  “No,” Bill said. “That wasn’t what I meant, Miss Rhodes. You know it wasn’t, don’t you? Because—how do you want me to put it? Mr. Self doesn’t want you going with other men? Particularly men such as Mr. Payne apparently was? And, of course, married men and—”

  “His wife didn’t—” Again she did not finish.

  “Understand him?” Bill said, in a certain tone, and at that she shook her head from side to side.

  “Care,” she said. “It was—their marriage was just a—formality. It isn’t as if—”

  “He told you that?”

  She saw it; saw it too late. If it had all been as casual as she said, Payne wouldn’t have—oh, she saw it. But at that moment, a little bell tinkled in the room behind the shop.

  She was facing toward the front of the shop. She spoke as Bill Weigand turned to face the door.

  “Jim,” she said. “This man’s a detective. He’s been—”

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Self,” Bill said. “My name’s Weigand. From—”

  “Captain,” Self said. He was a tall, spare man in his early thirties. He had black hair, which was beginning a little to recede. He had a wide forehead and a wide mouth and a surprisingly square jaw. “Homicide, Manhattan West. Badgering children, Captain?”

  “I’m not a—” Jo-An said, and her voice was not indifferent now. There was indignation in the young voice.

  “Of course you are, Jo-Jo,” James Self said. “I’m sure the captain discovered that. Get what you were after, Weigand?”

  “Oh,” Bill said, “I was just waiting around until you got back, Mr. Self. To see whether you’d noticed anything at the party which might help us. There’s a lot of rou—”

  “The hell with that,” Self said. “Jo-Jo—dust some books, will you? Or read one. Or, twiddle your pretty thumbs.”

  “I don’t have—” the girl said and Self said, “Sh-h-h.” He said, “You want to see me, come on,” and walked toward the rear of the shop. “The insufferable—” the girl said, and gave it up. Bill Weigand followed the spare man who, he now realized, vaguely reminded him of somebody he had met before. In almost the same moment, he remembered who—a lineman for a light and power company; a man called Harry; a very tough young man indeed and, certainly, no frequenter of bookshops. Bill was faintly amused by the vagary of his own mind.

  The room immediately in the rear of the shop was small, dim, obviously a storeroom. Beyond it, the room Weigand followed James Self into was as obviously an office. It had a tall window giving on a garden. The
re was a desk, rather cluttered. Self sat at the desk, back to window, and motioned, the gesture quick, peremptory, toward a chair. Bill thought, the image, of Harry, and sat down.

  “What did you get out of the child?” Self said, and his voice, too, was peremptory.

  “You seem,” Bill said, mildly, “to think there was something to get, Mr. Self.”

  He was asked if he wanted to kid around.

  “Very well,” Bill said. “That she was seeing a good deal of Anthony Payne, a man who’s got himself killed. A good deal more than you approved of, I think. How strong was your disapproval, Mr. Self?”

  “So,” Self said, “that’s your line, is it? No demented sniper, anymore?”

  “I haven’t a line yet,” Bill said. “I’m looking for a line. Well?”

  “She’s a baby,” Self said. “You can see that, can’t you? Pretty, bright enough. Hipped on what she used to call the ‘literary life.’” His wide mouth twisted itself into a smile—a rather unexpected smile, somehow at odds with his manner, with the aggressive squareness of his jaw. “Cured her of the expression. Not, I’m afraid, of the attitude. Fair game for a man like Payne. Distinguished man of letters.” He made a sound of utter contempt. “She’s a little goose—pretty, downy little goose.” He seemed to speak with anger.

  Bill waited.

  “He was a stinker,” Self said. “What you ought to be looking for is somebody to pin a medal on.”

  “Perhaps,” Bill said. “But we’re not hired for that. I take it you felt strongly about this? Miss Rhodes seeing Payne? Going about with—”

  “Who wouldn’t? Except another stinker like Payne?”

  “You seem to feel responsible for her,” Bill said. “Why?”

  “Nobody’s responsible for anybody,” Self said. “You see a kid fall into a sewer, you try to pull it out, if you happen to be on hand. Sure, I disapproved. I disapprove of all the bad things that happen to everybody. Take it that I’m against sin.”

  Bill Weigand smiled faintly, and moved his head slowly from side to side.

  “All right,” James Self said, “she’s a lovely little thing. I’m sitting here in this cave, growling, and one day she walks in and says she’s come from Chicago because life there is sterile—whatever the hell she meant by that—and can I give her a job? Because she wants to be some place that has something to do with books.” He shook his own head. “Good God,” he said.

  Bill kept on waiting.

  “So—” Self said. “She lighted up the cave. And I did need somebody to tell people please to feel free to browse. She tell you that?”

  Bill nodded.

  “Her father manufactures buttons,” Self said. “Gives you pause, doesn’t it? Until you remember buttons have to come from somewhere. And that somebody must make—oh, rubber bands. Paper clips. Hairpins, for God’s sake. Bit button man. And her mother—what the hell am I going into all this for?” He looked hard at Weigand. “You think I fell for her,” he said. “Was overcome by yen.”

  “Well—”

  “Not that,” Self said. “I don’t say nothing like that. But not flatly that. She’s—what the hell’s the use? Keep it simple. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Payne grabs off my girl and I kill Payne. Only—she isn’t my girl. And I didn’t kill Payne.”

  “Right,” Bill said. “Whatever you say.”

  “Until you can prove different,” Self said.

  “Unless I can.”

  “How did you get onto this—angle? Or is that none of my business?”

  “Payne brought Miss Rhodes into a restaurant,” Bill said. “You saw them. Seemed angry—upset.”

  “Willings,” Self said, “is a blabbermouth. Has to put everything into words. Has to listen to his own words. Try them out. Regardless—” Self broke off and leaned back in his chair. “And God,” he said, “how the bastard can write!” He leaned forward again.

  “And where was I at the time of the crime? And who was with me? And have I got a revolver—”

  “Rifle,” Bill said. “Twenty-two target. Probably with a telescopic sight.”

  “I said revolver just to throw you off,” Self said. “Sure I knew it was a rifle.”

  Bill sighed, audibly.

  “No,” Self said. “Revolver or rifle or popgun. No. I left this damn party—”

  “By the way. How’d you happen to go to the party?”

  “Got invited. Thought there might be a performance. Couldn’t see Willings passing up a chance like that. Not after Payne’s review.”

  “You saw the performance?”

  “Saw it. Thought it only fair. Contrived unhappy ending. Good guy felled by bad guy. You’ve considered Willings? Unexpectedly deflated. Made an ass out of, to put it simply. Which he wouldn’t like at all.”

  “Yes. You went alone to the party?”

  “You mean, did I take Jo-Jo? No. After the show was over I came back here. Upstairs, that is. I’ve got an apartment upstairs. Which Miss Jo-An Rhodes does not share. That’s for the record. I read a while and had a drink and about nine o’clock I got hungry and went out and got some food. That I could prove, I suppose. Not the rest of it. Well?”

  That, Weigand told him, about did it. For the moment. Bill went, alone, through the small storeroom and into the shop. Jo-An Rhodes was sitting in one of the chairs, back to window, reading. She looked up as he came into the room; looked up quickly.

  Since the light was behind her, Bill Weigand could not see her face clearly. There was no real explanation, therefore, for the sudden conviction in his mind that the girl—the very pretty girl—was frightened. She looked at him as he walked the length of the room, and did not speak. She did not turn her head after he had passed her, nor as he went out through the door, while a distant bell tinkled his departure. So he could not, still, see her face clearly enough to read anything in it. Nothing to go on, really. All the same, he thought her frightened.

  In the area outside, he turned and looked back into the shop. Jo-An Rhodes was going toward the rear of the shop. She was going so quickly that she seemed almost to be running.

  8

  Mrs. Gladys Mason was, certainly, employed by the Hotel Dumont. She was one of six assistant housekeepers. She lived in the hotel—in Room 1701A. She would now—the assistant manager looked at his watch. Since it was after one o’clock, she would be on duty. Certainly he would be glad to arrange for Sergeant Mullins to talk to her. Couldn’t imagine Mrs. Mason—seemed a good, reliable person—would know anything about “this tragic event.” (The assistant manager spoke of the tragedy of the event with deep sincerity. The Hotel Dumont didn’t like any part of it—or not, at any rate, the last part of it. The scuffle—well, it showed that celebrities knew a good hotel to scuffle in.)

  “Housekeeper, please,” the assistant manager said into the telephone on his desk. After a moment, he said, “This is Mr. Purdy, Mrs. MacReady. Will you have Mrs. Mason come down to my office, please. There’s a man from the—”

  He stopped with that, and listened. After a time he said, “Oh, hm-mm,” and listened again. He said, “Yes, that was the right thing to do,” and once more listened and then said, “No. I’ll check on that.” Then he replaced the receiver.

  “This is most unfortunate,” Mr. Purdy said. “It seems that Mrs. Mason didn’t sign in at the proper time. And—I really can’t understand this, Sergeant. But—”

  The facts were not, however, difficult to understand. Sergeant Mullins understood them perfectly. Mrs. Mason had not reported for her tour of duty. A maid sent to her room found her not in it. She also found her possessions not in it. In simpler words, which Sergeant Mullins’s mind readily supplied, Mrs. Gladys Mason had scrammed the hell out of there.

  “Pine Room, please,” the assistant manager said into his telephone. After a moment he said, “This is Mr. Purdy. Let me talk to Karl, will you?” While he waited he cupped a hand over the transmitter. “There’s a son of hers,” he said. “Working as a bus. Find out what he—Oh,
Karl. You’ve got a bus named Mason. Son of one of the housekeepers. Wonder if you’d—” He stopped. He said, “Oh, hm-mm.” He listened again. “All the same like mama, apparently,” he said, and hung up and told Mullins what Mullins by then expected to hear.

  Robert Mason had been due to report in the Pine Room at ten-thirty that morning to get to work, with other busboys, on setups for lunch. He had not.

  “He live here too?” Mullins asked and Purdy looked surprised; said, “Certainly not, Sergeant. Probably has a furnished room somewhere. We can check his registered address.” He was urged to do that, and did it by telephone. It took a little time. Robert Mason’s listed address was in the West Forties—very much in the west of the Forties. Furnished rooms would come cheap there.

  Purdy had been cooperative, unquestioning. He questioned now. “What’s it all about, Sergeant?”

  “Routine,” Mullins told him. “Who’d know this Mrs. Mason best, would you say?”

  Purdy shrugged at that, dissociating himself. He then considered. “I guess Ma MacReady,” he said. “That’s—Martha MacReady. We call her ‘Ma.’ She’s the housekeeper. But I don’t know how well—”

  “Tell you what,” Mullins said. “Suppose I talk to this Martha MacReady. Miss or missis?”

  It was the latter. Her small office was down a long corridor and progress to it was impeded by hand trucks of laundry, ranged along one side of the corridor. Mrs. MacReady was pink and broad and comfortable behind a battered desk. She was using the telephone. She said, “Here’s your check-out list. Got your pencil, dearie?” It appeared that dearie had her pencil. Mrs. MacReady gave a list of room numbers. Finished, she listened briefly. “Know it’s long,” she said. “Gladys has taken the day off, seems like. You just get the girls at it, dearie.”

  She hung up. She looked at Mullins. She said, “Well, you look like it.” Mullins knew he looked like it. Sometimes it was a handicap, sometimes it wasn’t. “My late was one of you,” Mrs. MacReady said. “Patrolman. Happen you’d know him? Michael MacReady. Coney Island Precinct last few years.”