“Harry?” Aunt Flora repeated, as if the question were absurd. “Harry’s just—an old man. Don’t try to make a mystery about Harry.”
Weigand was patient. They were not trying to make mysteries. On the contrary. Who was Harry?
“An old friend of my husband,” Aunt Flora said. It did not clarify.
“Which, Aunt Flora?” Pam said. “Which husband.”
“My husband, dearie,” Aunt Flora said. “I only had one husband. What you’d call a husband. The major, dearie.”
She consented, although obviously thinking it of small import, to explain. Many years before—half a century before—Harry Perkins and Alden Buddie had been young men together and devoted friends. Harry Perkins then had been in business, successfully. But something happened—something vague and misty with years and not, it was clear, any too well understood by Aunt Flora even at that distant time. And Harry, suddenly pathetic and beaten, had gone desperately west and found Major Buddie there—a very young major, since things were moving rapidly in the army in the west in those days, and a confident one; a man of assured future, who saw no reason not to take his battered friend in charge, and as a responsibility. And Buddie had money even then, although not as much as inheritances made it before he died a few years later. And Harry—well, Harry was, in some obscure manner, part of Aunt Flora’s inheritance from her young husband. Perhaps he was somehow a remembrance.
“A keepsake,” Pam said, suddenly. Aunt Flora looked surprised and then nodded her head and torso, so that the yellow wig slipped a little.
“That’s it, dearie,” she said. “A keepsake. I’ve—well, kept him ever since. I suppose it’s strange, but I never thought about it. It just seemed natural to keep him.”
So that was Harry, explained. Adequately? Bill Weigand wondered and shrugged without moving his shoulders. They would wait and see. They would see, among other things, Harry himself; in the course of routine procedure they would see everyone. And as to last night?
Aunt Flora was not helpful; She had not expected Stephen Anthony to come to the house. She had not seen him when he did come, or heard anything of the shot which ended his life. She had gone to her room early.
“Everybody was upset,” she reported, mildly. “Gabbling around. So I went to bed.”
She had read a while, and then gone to sleep. She hadn’t bothered to notice the time. She had noticed nothing until the sirens awakened her. Then she had come down.
“Come to think of it,” she remarked, “I still haven’t had breakfast. You have breakfast, dearie?”
“No,” Pam said. “No, I guess I didn’t. I don’t know—.”
“Nonsense,” Aunt Flora said. “Keep up your strength, dearie. Feed all of you, if you like.”
Weigand shook his head, first for himself and then for Mullins, who had begun to look receptive. But then he nodded at Pam.
“Good idea,” he said. “Coffee, anyway.”
Pam said, “Well—” and then, when Weigand nodded again, more emphatically, followed Aunt Flora out. The two detectives looked after them.
“Quite a dame,” Mullins said. He paused. “Quite a dame,” he repeated. He looked at Weigand. “Wears a wig, don’t she?” he added.
“Right, Sherlock,” Weigand said. “Let’s talk to the major.”
“Yeah,” Mullins said. “Put him through it.”
He got the major. The major came in at the march and offered a stiff hand to Weigand. Weigand shook it and said; “Sit down, won’t you?” The major looked rebellious for a moment, but sat down.
“Damn foolishness,” he said. It was not entirely clear what was foolishness. But apparently the murder and everything that went with it. “I can’t hang around here all day,” he added. “Not like you civilians.” He looked at Weigand. “No offense, Lieutenant,” he said. “Can’t help it, probably.”
Weigand took him over the course. About the attempt to poison his mother—no definite opinion, expressed at considerable length in crisp, emphatic sentences. Inclined to think, the major was, that it was a lot of nonsense. Doubted if anybody had tried to poison the old lady. A bit flighty, mother was. However—not for him to say. She’d been sick all right, and the doctor had taken specimens. He knew nothing of the report. Nasty shock, having her come out with it like that at dinner, eh? First he’d heard of it. He didn’t know who had been in his mother’s room before or during her breakfast, except that the girls had. Yes, he had dropped in. Seemed to remember that Ben had been there or just left. Anthony had come after the breakfast things had been removed, he thought.
“And Harry, of course,” he said. “Always around. Ever since I can remember, always around.”
He was not, boiled down, particularly helpful. He had talked for a while with Pam North after the others had gone to bed. He had stopped by to see the cats.
“Like cats, Lieutenant?” he wanted to know.
“Yes,” the lieutenant said. “Some cats.”
The major approved; was glad to hear it. Very well, he had stopped to see the cats. Very nice cats, eh? He had gone on up to bed and thereafter heard nothing until morning. He had awakened a few minutes before “that girl screeched.” He had come down to investigate. He had tried to keep the women out of the breakfast room. Then the police had come.
He knew no specific reason why anybody should have wanted to kill Stephen Anthony.
“Or,” he said, “wanted him to go on living, come to that. Nasty specimen, that Anthony. But he wasn’t worrying anybody, particularly—not even mother. I’d have thought he was out of the picture.
Weigand nodded.
“Although,” he said, “nobody’s really out of the picture, with a lot of money around. There is a lot of money, I gather.”
“Plenty,” the major agreed. He looked at Weigand shrewdly. “But,” he said, “we all get along. I get along, Wes gets along. Even Ben, although it’s a surprise, eh? Nobody needs money, that I know of. Suppose Anthony did get some, and I wouldn’t put it past mother. There’d still be plenty. Must be some other reason, eh?”
“I don’t know—yet,” Weigand told him. “We have to think of everything. Suppose, for example, he were to get it all under your mother’s will. Is that possible?”
It wasn’t. The major was emphatic.
“Mother isn’t a fool,” he said. “Flighty, yes. Coddles herself, marries men like Anthony. Fills herself full of damned fool patent medicines. But she isn’t a fool. You’ll never get anywhere on that line, Lieutenant. Shrewd, mother is.”
“Right,” Weigand said. “As a matter of fact, that’s what I would have thought. Do you know, then, what provision she has made about the money?”
The major did; there was no secret about it. There were, naturally, specific bequests. The balance was divided into four parts, one to each child—the major himself, his brother Wesley, his half-brother Ben, and the part which would have gone to Robert McClelland and would now go to his son, Bruce. If one heir died before Aunt Flora, without issue, his share was divided among the survivors.
Weigand nodded. Wills like that had been known to make trouble. But there was no point in telling the major that, and starting an argument. He let the major go and summoned Benjamin Craig. Benjamin came in softly, soft hands swinging limply and soft face expressing gravity and concern. It was, he told the lieutenant, a dreadful business. The lieutenant agreed. He sat as requested, and made intricate diagrams with the fingers of his two hands. He made tents and church steeples with his fingers and more intricate patterns. It was evidently a mannerism, unconscious; one could see him doing it at the bank, as he listened to people with financial difficulties. It was, Weigand found, distracting. Mullins stared at the fingers, fascinated.
Ben had, he said, gone to bed early the night before; he had not expected to see, and had not seen, Stephen Anthony. He had heard nothing. It was impossible to imagine a more innocent night than Benjamin Craig, all eagerness to be of help, described. Weigand switched him back to the day of t
he poisoning, which Ben remembered in detail. He had gone to see his mother, as he customarily did, before going to his office. She was awake and awaiting breakfast; she was just finishing a frothing glass of the citrate salts with which she always started the day. After she had drunk the salts, he stayed with her for a time, drinking a cup of coffee from her pot. He had not suffered any ill effects. He confirmed what the major had said about the disposition of the Buddie fortune; he, like the major, was unable to think of any motive for either the attempt on his mother or the murder of Anthony. But, unlike the major, he expressed complete belief in the authenticity of the poisoning attempt.
“Alden is very—abrupt,” he said. “Inclined to be cavalier with—less assured and commonsense people. Everything is ‘nonsense!’ to the major, I’m afraid. Perfect digestion, perfect everything, including perfect adjustment. My brother is very certain about everything, as you’ve probably decided. And very impatient of people’s small failings and—weaknesses. He is always badgering mother about her medicines, for example, because he himself has never needed medicines. He ridicules me for the same reason.”
Ben smiled pleasantly. It was apparent that he bore no malice, and had only the small contempt of the sensitive for the flagrantly healthy.
“I have to doctor a good deal myself,” he added, amplifying. “A sinus condition. But Alden doesn’t believe in that, either, his sinuses being in excellent shape. I’m afraid he thinks me an old woman. He is very fortunate.”
“Right,” Weigand said. “I’ve no doubt he can be difficult.” He let his sympathy find acceptance. “By the way,” he said, “you probably don’t remember. But these salts your mother took—a powder of some sort, to be dissolved in water, I suppose?” Ben nodded. “Was the bottle, or whatever the receptacle was, full?” Weigand wanted to know. “Or didn’t you see it?”
Ben’s expression indicated that he was sending his memory back. It returned, evidently laden.
“Why yes,” he said. “It looked like a new bottle. It was standing on the bed table. It seemed nearly full.”
He looked expectant, but after a moment the lieutenant thanked him and said that there were, for the moment, no more questions. Benjamin Craig went away, gently. Mullins looked enquiringly at the lieutenant.
“Why,” he wanted to know, “spend all this time on the poison? The dame’s all right. It’s the guy who ain’t—the guy downstairs, unless they’ve hauled him away. I don’t get it, Loot.”
Weigand said he wasn’t sure he got it himself. But the supposition was that poisoning and murder tied together. Somehow, somewhere. Because you could never start with a belief in coincidence; coincidence ran counter to all detection.
“I’m afraid, Sergeant,” he said, “that we’ll have to try to find out all about everything.” He watched the expression on Mullins’s face. “Yes,” he said. “It’s a nuisance. Murder is, Mullins. Get me one of the girls, next.”
“Either one?” Mullins said.
“Either one,” Weigand repeated. “No—make it the younger one, Judy.”
“She ain’t the younger one, Loot,” Mullins told him. “She’s two years older. You wouldn’t think it, would you?”
Weigand agreed that you wouldn’t. But he’d still start with Judy.
6
WEDNESDAY
9:40 A.M. TO 10:55 A.M.
Pam drank fruit juice and coffee and nibbled at toast and then, for several minutes, watched in admiration while Aunt Flora crunched contentedly through a much larger breakfast. Pam had tried to talk to Aunt Flora but Aunt Flora had been firm.
“Too unpleasant for meals, dearie,” Aunt Flora said, shifting an egg from platter to plate and regarding it with affection, her wig a little over one eye. “Taxes the digestion, you know. When you’re my age, you’ll not take any chances on your digestion.” Aunt Flora lifted the cover of a dish she had overlooked, beamed on the contents and said: “Sausage, eh? Something like.” She took sausages to bear company to the egg.
In its fashion, it was admirable. It was monumental. And Aunt, Flora, although she ate a great deal, ate very nicely. But it occurred to Pam that only Aunt Flora was really getting anywhere. Pam stood up, pushing back her chair from the table which Alice had set up under one of the windows in Aunt Flora’s room. Aunt Flora’s room—which was really an enormous bedroom and dressing room and bath—was on the same floor as Pam’s room. The window looked down on the little yard at the rear of the house and on the tops of barren trees.
“Oh!” Pam said, with the air of one who has just thought of something. “The cats! I’ve forgotten to feed the cats!”
Aunt Flora, easily perturbed by the thought of hunger, however remote, was solicitous. She shook her head over Pam’s thoughtlessness, the wig shifting a degree or two. She offered cream from the table and, after a moment of painful thought, one of the remaining eggs. She suggested that they be stirred together, and offered a dish for the stirring. She offered to spare a sausage or two and was a little surprised when Pam doubted that sausages were good for cats.
“Nonsense,” she said. “Never hurt me, did they?”
“Cats are different,” Pam told her. “Especially very young cats. But the egg and the cream will do, and later I’ll get them some raw meat. But I better take this to them now, because the poor dears must be starving.”
Pam carried the dish away and along the hall to her own door. As she opened the door, she could hear the cats talking, but not indignantly. She had closed the door behind her before she discovered the cats were not alone. Bruce McClelland was bending over them as they did cat gymnastics on the bed. He straightened and turned to Pam, smiling. It was a long smile, made by a long mouth in a thin face. Brace was tall and rather gangling and his hair grew down to a bristling point on his forehead.
“Homely as anything,” Pam thought, regarding him. “And very nice.” She said, “Hello, Bruce.”
“I’m hiding, Pam,” he told her. “Hiding from the police.”
He seemed, Pam thought, to be only half joking.
“That’s nice,” she said. “I always do. The motorist’s reflex, probably. Only not really, and I wouldn’t.”
The last was for Brace, whose smile had faded.
“Actually,” he said, “I’ve been waiting for you, Pam. I want advice. From the family dick.”
“Shamus,” she told him. “Don’t talk newspaper slang, Brace. What advice?”
But Brace McClelland seemed hesitant about beginning. He asked about Jerry, and was told about Jerry. He shuddered carefully when he heard of Jerry’s employment and predicted that no good would come of it.
“My God,” he said, “It might really be another ‘Gone With the Wind.’ Just as we’d begun to forget.”
“What advice?” Pam insisted. “Or won’t you talk?”
Bruce turned to face her and folded himself onto the edge of the bed. Toughy, presented with the irresistible, climbed to his shoulders and peered around. Bruce raised a hand and tickled Toughy absently behind the ear.
“I was here last night, Pam,” he said. “Nobody knows but Judy. I’ll have to talk to Weigand eventually but I want—well, to check things first. There might be some things—” He let it trail off.
“No,” Pam said. “Tell it all, Bruce. Or I will. So if you don’t want it told, don’t tell me. Because even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t keep anything from the lieutenant.”
Bruce heard her out.
“Anyway,” he said, “listen. You can at least tell me whether it fits in. Then we’ll both go to Weigand, if you like.”
He paused. “Understand,” he added, “I think he’s O.K. But this is family.”
Pam waited and Bruce talked. He said he had planned to drop in during the evening, but a late assignment had held him up.
So he had come when he could, which was a little after midnight. He had let himself in with the key he always carried; Aunt Flora was generous with keys. He had found nobody around and had gone upstairs to the top flo
or. He had—
“Well,” he said, “you can guess where I went. I wanted to see Clem. Is that enough?”
“Whatever you want,” Pam told him. “You wanted to see Clem. Only if you think it’s a secret—”
Bruce smiled at her, crookedly.
“All right,” he said. “I’m that way about Clem.” His smile faded. “In spite of—everything,” he said. “Is that enough?”
“For me,” Pam said. “I hope for Bill. But she’s up to something, Bruce. I don’t know what but—some man, isn’t it?”
“She’s a fool kid,” Bruce said, darkly. “If you call him a man, yes. Ross Brack.”
“Not—” Pam said. “The—”
Bruce was grim.
“Precisely,” he said. “The—. Almost anything will fill it in. Crook of all trades. Policy racket. Drugs, the Feds think. Maybe—well, women. And nothing, at the moment, they can hang on him. Nice, huh?”
It wasn’t nice. It was—
“The fool kid,” Pam said, as if nobody else had said it. “How on earth?”
Bruce said it didn’t matter. They had met somewhere, with somebody. Presumably Ross Brack had thought she looked like money, perhaps he merely liked her looks. And she had been—well, call it excited.
“I hope that’s all,” Bruce said, simply. “I’m in love with her, you know. And they’re sending me off.”
That was news.
“Yes,” he said. “War correspondence. And God knows where. The Pacific, perhaps. Or London to start with. At any rate, a long way off. And I’ve got to go to Washington tomorrow for papers. Perhaps I’ll get back; perhaps I won’t. I mean before I start to look at wars. And so I had to see Clem. Just to see her and—well, to talk about Brack.” His voice was younger than usual; it was tight. “My God, Pam,” he said. “I can’t just leave her to him—not without trying!”
“No,” Pam said. “Did you see her?”
Bruce McClelland shook his head. All the lightness had gone out of his manner, now. His attentive fingers left the cat’s head and Toughy, deserted, dropped back to the bed.
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