“Damn it all,” Mears said. “Let it lie, can’t you?”
“No. Why should I?”
“Because,” Mears said, and seemed triumphant. “Because if the money mattered that much to Hildy, all she had to do was to say, ‘Yes. I’ll marry you.’ There wouldn’t have been anything hard about that. She was fond of him. He was an all-right guy, I guess. And—he sure as hell wasn’t doddering. So—”
He stopped abruptly. Bill could watch the triumph die as Mears listened to his own words.
“Mr. Mears,” Bill said, “had she ever said, ‘Yes, I’ll marry you,’ to Blanchard. Say—before you and she met? Was that the reason for the bequest? So that his fiancée would be taken care of if something happened to him before they were married? And then did he find out how things were between you and her and, maybe, say that under the circumstances he might decide to make a change—”
“Damn you! No!”
“You’re sure? She’d never—oh, say, implied to Blanchard that she might marry him? Even if not saying, in so many words, that she would?”
“Oh, that,” Mears said. “This thing about the will. I’m damned sure there was nothing about that. I’m damned sure she didn’t even know he was leaving her all that money. As to what she may have said to Blanchard, before—”
“Before you and she fell in love?”
“Put it that way if you want to,” Mears said. “I don’t know. Perhaps—perhaps she had let him think—had even thought herself—what’s so wrong about it, if she did?”
“Nothing,” Bill said. “Nothing at all. Not about that. Mears—was he still trying?”
“Not getting any—” Mears said, and stopped again.
“But, still trying. Hadn’t given up entirely. Miss Latham is a very attractive young woman—” Bill let it trail off, and waited.
“Sometimes it looked that way,” Mears said, and momentarily seemed to speak to himself, to be unconscious of the man he spoke to. But then he straightened, and the flush came back under the tan.
“And did I kill him because I was jealous? And so she would get the money and we could have it? Or—did we do it together, somehow? That’s what you’re saying?”
“Well?”
“No, damn it all!” There was a dazed expression in his eyes. “We’re not that kind of people,” he said. “We wouldn’t do a thing like that.”
Which, of course, is a statement often made—with every evidence of shocked sincerity—to policemen. But not exclusively by those who are innocent of doing things like that.
10
There was an unexpected reticence about The Breeders’ Nook, which Pam thought of as a cat store. Miss Madeline Somers had seemed a hearty, youngish woman—a woman of the no-nonsense type, usually (at least by Pamela North) associated with dog people. But the shop, well up on Madison Avenue, on the ground floor of an elderly five-story building, had an air of reserve. For one thing, the name of the shop, lettered in the lower right hand corner of the plate glass window, was in small italics and without capitals. (Beneath the name, in even smaller lettering, cats and cat supplies.) For another thing, the only cat in the window was a ceramic cat; a reproduction of an Egyptian statue cat, austere and haughty, as becomes a god. One could assume, and Pam did assume, having paid off her cab, that Miss Somers’s prices would also be austere and haughty.
But—there was a sign in the window which was somewhat less reticent. It appeared to have been lettered by an amateur. It read: “Special Sale. All Cats Drastically Reduced.”
Encouraged, although faintly surprised, Pam North went down two steps at a little after ten on Monday morning and opened the door of the breeders’ nook. A bell tinkled softly. Pam went into a carpeted room which, although small, contained several upholstered chairs. In the center of the room there was a pedestal with a wide top covered in white carpeting. The pedestal was empty; so was the room. Pam felt that she had walked unannounced into someone’s living room and had an inclination to walk out again.
At the rear of the room was a wide, curtained opening into the room beyond. There was no indication of cats or, indeed, of any life. But then, from behind the curtains, a Siamese cat spoke. Although reasonably familiar with feline Siamese, Pam was not certain what the cat had spoken of. Not, she thought, of breakfast. Pam started to speak herself; to say, probably, “Is anybody else home?” But she did not, because as the words formed in her mind, a man spoke from behind the curtains—obviously, from some distance behind the curtains. The man had a very high-pitched voice.
“—to make a final commitment,” the man said. “Nevertheless—”
It was evident that he had begun the sentence elsewhere, presumably in a room beyond that which the curtains hid.
“I do believe,” a woman said, in a much more robust voice, “that we have a customer.”
Her remark put a period to whatever the man had planned to say further, qualifying his (apparent) declination to commit himself.
The curtains parted. Madeline Somers, wearing a beige-colored silk suit, came through them and said, “Why! Mrs. North” in a tone of marked cordiality. “You did decide to come.”
“Yes,” Pam said, and felt herself inadequately responsive. Perhaps, she thought, she should add something more. “Goody! Goody!” somehow seemed indicated.
“I’ve had you in mind,” Madeline Somers said, coming fully into the room. “Very much in mind.”
“That’s nice,” Pam said, rejecting, with a little effort, “The hell you have.”
“I may,” Miss Somers said, “I just may, have one you’ll like. I—”
She was interrupted. A thin, pale-faced man came through the curtains. He wore unusually large spectacles; he had flat, pallid hair. He said, to Madeline Somers, “You’ll let me know, then?” and the voice was the high-pitched voice. He looked at Pamela North and his lips twitched slightly, in what was, presumably and rather symbolically, a smile.
Pam was quite sure she had never seen the pale man. He, nevertheless, seemed somehow familiar. It was as if, she thought, she had read about him some place; as if he had walked off a page. For no reason she could lay mind to, she thought of Dickens. Uriah Heep? She had always thought of Uriah Heep as pale. Although not with heavy-rimmed glasses. Pecksniff? She could not think of Pecksniff at all.
“I’ll call you,” Madeline Somers said.
The pale man walked thinly past Pam and out of the shop. The bell which had tinkled her entrance tinkled his departure.
“Do sit down,” Madeline Somers said, and indicated one of the chairs. “I’ll bring the one I had in mind for you.”
Pam sat and adjusted her mind. It was not, certainly, as she had expected. She had expected cages of cats. Or, perhaps, bins of cats. She had expected kittens biting the tails, worrying the ears of other kittens, and that one leaned over and, having said, “Aren’t they cute?” according to ritual, said, “That one, perhaps?” and pointed.
Things were, obviously, not handled so at the breeders’ nook. This was rather more like buying a dress, from an experienced saleswoman who had the very thing for modom and too much sense to confuse modom’s ill-equipped mind with excess goodies.
“Really a darling,” Miss Somers said, and just stopped, Pam thought, on the verge of adding, “little number.” She went through the curtains. She returned, after a few moments, carrying a Siamese cat who wiggled in her hands and was told, in firm tones, to quit that, now. The cat voiced his (her) opinion of that injunction.
Miss Somers stood behind the pedestal and held the cat on it. She shaped the cat into a sitting posture. The cat said, “Wow-ou!”
“Isn’t he a doll?” Miss Somers said. He was, of course. What three-months-old kitten is not a doll? “Look at this tail,” Miss Somers said, in admiration, and bent the tail back over the young cat’s back. It reached to his shoulder blades. He said, “Ur-ah!”
“Look,” Miss Somers commanded and turned the young cat on his side, exposing his belly. “Not a vestige of a
stripe. Not the faintest tabby markings.” Miss Somers indicated the cat’s flanks and sat him up again.
Pam had got up, approached the cat on display. He turned and looked at her, from deep blue eyes. A charming cat. Only—
“He’s pointed,” Pam said.
“Do you really think he’s pointed?”
“Oh,” Pam said, making amends, “not as much as some. Only—”
“I don’t think he’s pointed,” Miss Somers said. “I really don’t, Mrs. North.”
(“Of course it can be let out a little here. And taken in here, perhaps. But I really don’t think, Mrs. North—”)
“And,” Pam said, “what we really have in mind is a female. Because whatever people say, males do tend to spread afterward.”
“Oh,” Miss Somers said. “You plan to alter?”
Her tone took a dim view of any such plan.
“We do,” Pam said, firmly. “We bred Martini and the poor little thing—”
Damn it, Pam thought. I won’t puddle up.
“I can,” Miss Somers said, “give you a very special price, you know. You saw the sign in the window?”
Pam nodded her head. And, again, the feeling of faint surprise entered her mind. She could not imagine why. Then, she could. It wasn’t anything—it was only that, met at the cat show, clearly seeking customers, Miss Madeline Somers had said nothing about having a sale of cats.
“All of them marked down,” Miss Somers said now. “This one, for example. Seventy-five last week. I’ll let you have him for fifty.”
“It’s very reasonable,” Pam said. “I guess. Only—”
“You’re the one who must be satisfied,” Madeline Somers told her, firmly, settling that argument. “There is the most adorable little female. Rather on the small size, but they should be, I think. And quite a round face. Wait.”
She took the male away. She returned with a smaller cat. The new cat also wiggled and also spoke.
“Perfect accent,” Pam said, gravely, and again Miss Somers blinked, and then laughed with what could be taken as appreciation.
The new young cat was another doll. Possibly, even more of a doll. That was agreed upon; the faintest vestiges of a stripe were admitted frankly. But since Mrs. North didn’t plan to breed, or to show—And Mrs. North couldn’t deny that the face was rounder. And, although this one, too, was listed at fifty—Pam had a feeling that Miss Somers consulted a price tag, although literally she did not—Miss Somers was willing to let her go at forty, considering that Mrs. North was Mrs. North. (Precisely what this had to do with it was not apparent, at least to Pam.)
“Already inoculated,” Miss Somers said. “And papers, of course. And I assure you, not an iota of French.”
(English and American Siamese fanciers consider French breeders somewhat overtolerant in certain matters.)
That, Pam explained, didn’t really matter. What they wanted was merely a cat—a cat with familiar markings and well-known intonation. And, a rounded face. Which, admittedly, this youngster nearly had.
“A darling, really,” Pam said, drawn to the young cat. But, not certain. “I’d want my husband to look at her before we decided,” she said, feeling more than ever as if she were buying a dress. “I wonder if you could—er—hold her for a day or two?”
Miss Somers compressed her lips. She said, with doubt, “We-ll.” Absently, she brushed her skirt with the palms of her hands. Pam recognized the gesture, and its futility.
“The trouble is,” Miss Somers said, “and I haven’t told very many about this, but I’m selling out. This is really—well, call it a clearance sale.”
Pam said, “Oh.”
“So I can’t promise,” Miss Somers said. “You see how it is? If somebody comes along—”
“Of course,” Pam said.
“The lease is due to expire,” Miss Somers said. “And the rent they want for renewal!”
“Of course,” Pam said. “But I’m afraid the earliest time my husband can—”
“And it’s really time for me to retire,” the sturdy woman in her late thirties said. “I’ve been thinking for some time that it’s really time I—”
There was, Pam thought, certainly no reason Miss Somers should explain. “I—” Pam said.
“And,” Miss Somers said, “these dreadful New York winters. I’m from California, you know—Los Angeles—and I just can’t seem to get used to all this cold and snow and everything.”
“I’m sure,” Pam said, “that California must be very pleasant. If he can arrange it so we can both come in tomorrow?”
“Oh,” Miss Somers said. “Tomorrow! That’s a different thing. I’m sure she’ll still be here by tomorrow.”
What, Pam North wondered, tinkling her way out, is so different about tomorrow? So different as all that? And it was a little strange that Madeline Somers, if for some time planning to have a bargain sale of cats, hadn’t mentioned the fact forty-eight hours or so before.
A little strange, Pam thought, waving at a cab. But not very interesting.
“Saks Fifth,” she told the cab driver. Now that the subject had been brought to her attention—
The cab was making a right turn into Forty-ninth Street when Pam remembered. Not Uriah Heep, not anybody out of Dickens. The man Jerry had told her about—the man with a manuscript, the antivivisection man. Of course—Gebby had said that Madeline Somers was a member of the Committee Against—oh yes, Against Cruelty. One of the crackpots. The man named—of course. Floyd Ackerman. Stopped by to crack a pot with Miss Somers, probably.
Pam tucked this minor recognition into her mind and said, to the cab driver, “This’ll do,” and paid and slid between the bumpers of parked trucks to the sidewalk and the Forty-ninth Street entrance of Saks Fifth Avenue.
Mr. Notson would see Captain Weigand now. “Now” was ten thirty Monday morning, and Bill Weigand had been waiting for fifteen minutes to be seen by someone of the firm of Cameron, Notson and Fleigel. He had waited comfortably enough on a leather sofa, with the opportunity to read Harper’s, the Atlantic Monthly or, if his taste ran in that direction, Reader’s Digest. He had spent the time turning his mind over, recapitulating for his own benefit.
Doug Mears had been, at least until nine that morning, in the inn at Forest Hills. For all Bill knew, he was twiddling his thumbs. There was a string on him—not too tight a string; it wouldn’t hold if Mears decided to break it. If Mears tried to break it, that would be all right, too. They would know more then, and use something stronger. Hilda Latham was at her parents’ home in Southampton. She was, if she heeded a politely worded request, waiting for Sergeant Mullins to come out and to help him clear up one or two points which had arisen. (Such as: Had she been engaged to John Blanchard and changed her mind on the appearance of a gangling, tow-headed tennis player? But not changed a normal interest in half a million dollars?)
One Floyd Ackerman had left his downtown, walk-up apartment at eight in the morning and had had breakfast in a nearby drugstore. He had then gone into the Independent subway station below Eighth Street on Sixth Avenue and disappeared from view. No great effort had been made to keep him in view. It did not appear that, at the moment, he was worth that many men.
Robert Sandys was being of what help he could to two detectives who, in the cavernous apartment on Riverside Drive, were going through papers, and Mrs. Sandys had made them coffee. Sandys had obligingly found a discarded tennis racket of his late employer’s and one of the detectives—the taller of the two—had swung it in a service motion, and reported that the ceiling was high enough.
Captain Weigand would come this way, please. Captain Weigand went that way—went into a large corner office, with leather-covered furniture and a large desk. The man behind the desk, who stood up and came around it when Bill entered, was also large; he was white-haired, deeply tanned. He held out a brown hand. There was an outward innocence about Stuart Notson. He had, however, extremely shrewd blue eyes.
It was a hell of a thing abo
ut John Blanchard. It was a thing which was hard to believe. That good old John—And he—all of them—certainly wanted to do anything they could to help.
He sat down solidly behind the desk and Weigand sat in a client’s comfortable chair, facing him.
Bill told Notson, in general, the provisions of the will they had found in Blanchard’s apartment. Notson nodded. That, so far as he knew, was the last will. Only—
“Gave me a ring Friday,” Notson said. “Made an appointment to come down today—would have been here about now—” He paused and shook his head, in recognition of this sad coincidence of timing. He had said he wanted to make a few changes in his will.
Bill Weigand raised his eyebrows.
“Old story, isn’t it?” Notson said.
“Right,” Bill said. “Cut somebody out? Or don’t you know?”
“I don’t know,” Notson said. “Somehow, I doubt it.” He put the first two fingers of either hand against firm cheeks and looked at Weigand. “This isn’t evidence,” he said. “My guess was—just a guess, mind you—that all he wanted to do was to change a little wording. Now it reads something like, ‘To Hilda Latham, of Southampton, Long Island.’ Maybe he wanted to change it to read, ‘To my wife, Hilda.’ See what I mean?”
“But—”
“Foresighted,” Notson said. “I’m guessing. He’d been seeing a lot of the girl. Turned out to be a damned pretty thing, didn’t she? Have the will got ready. Wouldn’t need to sign it unless and until. Earnest of good faith, eh? And not any piddling little half million. The works, eh? Not that I say the girl’s for sale. Still—with poor old Graham on the rocks the way he is. And John—well, John was quite a man. Older than I am, by a little. But—what’s that, eh?”
Bill Weigand blinked slightly—and inwardly. He said he gathered that Mr. Notson had known John Blanchard rather well.
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