A Pinch of Poison

by Frances Lockridge

  Weigand didn’t know. He admitted he didn’t know.

  9

  WEDNESDAY

  1:15 P.M. TO 3:30 P.M.

  Downstairs, George Benoit was standing by a window, looking out at the hot street. The elder members of the family seemed to like looking out of windows. Benoit turned as his daughter and Weigand entered and smiled at Margaret Graham’s helpless, half-amused shrug.

  “Difficult, I see,” Benoit said. “Poor old Cyrus.” He seemed gently amused. “And now, my dear, I’m off,” he said. “Since I can’t see Craven until tomorrow, I may as well see Smith today.” It sounded a little like a riddle to Weigand, but evidently not to Mrs. Graham. She said, “But it’s so hot, Father. And that long ride in the subway. If you insist on not driving.”

  He would, Benoit told her, rather ride the subway than try to park on Forty-second Street.

  “Wouldn’t you, Lieutenant?” he said to Weigand, smiling. He was a pleasant man, Weigand decided. Then he remembered that Benoit had met Lois Winston the day before.

  “I’m going downtown from here,” he said. “I can give you a lift if you like.”

  It was very good of him, Benoit said. He’d appreciate it. He repeated his appreciation when he sat beside Weigand in the Buick. Weigand U-turned and headed toward the Parkway.

  “Good of you,” Benoit said. “Beats the subway. But I don’t know anything, if you had that in mind.”

  He smiled at Weigand, wisely. Weigand smiled back.

  “Right,” Weigand said. “Always a cop. But it’s nothing, really. I wondered what you thought of the girl—the girl who was killed—when you met her yesterday. I suspect you think about people.”

  “I liked her,” Benoit said. “I was sorry to hear of what happened. And it disturbed my daughter, of course—she thinks it will complicate matters about the boy. I don’t suppose it will?”

  Weigand said he shouldn’t think so.

  “You didn’t notice anything odd about her?” he pressed. “She didn’t seem under a strain? Anything like that?”

  Benoit shrugged.

  “I didn’t notice anything,” he said. “But I’d never seen her before. I don’t know how she was usually, of course. My daughter would be a better person to ask.”

  Naturally, Weigand agreed. He had asked. Mrs. Graham had noticed nothing.

  “Nor did I,” Benoit repeated. “I wasn’t paying much attention, actually. I was—well, not in a settled frame of mind, particularly. I was thinking of my own affairs and of a cop in Danbury. Or should I say policeman?”

  It didn’t matter, Weigand told him. “Cop” was all right.

  “Traffic, I suppose?” he said, not caring.

  They were talking idly, wheeling toward the Parkway. Traffic, of course, Benoit told him. And a three-hour delay, where it would do the most harm, while he paid a five-dollar fine to a judge.

  “I was driving down from Hartford,” he said. “I live there, you know. Going to Washington to see a man. And so I get held up in Dan-bury until it’s too late to make it. I decided to stop in New York overnight and go on to Washington by train this evening. I was feeling annoyed about the whole business when I saw Miss Winston, so I didn’t notice much about her.”

  Weigand agreed it was annoying. Although, he added, anything which would keep a man out of Washington in weather like this wasn’t an unmixed evil. Benoit smiled.

  “It’s hot enough here,” he said. “It’s hot in Hartford.”

  A fascinating discussion, Weigand told himself, broodingly. And probably as valuable for his purpose as any other he had had that day. He had, he suspected, merely given himself a few irrelevancies to think about; merely cluttered his mind. “The trouble with me as a cop,” he told himself, “is that I get interested in people. People who are none of my business.” He sighed, and drew up behind another car which had stopped for a red light. O’Malley was, after all, a better cop. He stuck to the main issue—he stuck to Randall Ashley which, nine chances in ten, was the place to stick.

  “Light’s changed,” Benoit said, half to himself.

  Weigand pulled the gear lever toward him into low and let his foot relax on the clutch. Then he pushed it down again and waited while the car ahead jumped the light.

  “I’ve got to be legal,” he told Benoit. “At least, when there’s no hurry. Our friend in front doesn’t have to be, he figures. So he goes while it is still red both ways, which would make the traffic detail a little annoyed if they saw it.”

  “Oh,” Benoit said. “I didn’t notice. We have a different system in Hartford.”

  What he would do after he dropped Benoit and checked at Headquarters, Weigand decided, was to get back on the Randall Ashley angle. It might, he decided, be worth while to talk to Ashley’s girl friend—Miss Madge Ormond, who sang in night clubs. It would be interesting to see what she did when he called her Mrs. Ashley. He turned onto the Parkway and picked up speed. It was only fifteen minutes later that he wheeled off at Forty-fourth and delivered Benoit to city traffic.

  “This will be fine,” Benoit said. “No use dragging you across town. I’ll get a taxicab.”

  He was, Weigand explained, going across town about here in any case. He went across town, patient of the lights. He dropped Benoit and found a telephone.

  Mullins had reports of three unknowns who had purchased atropine sulphate during the past week, all to make eyewash. The eyewash business must be good, Mullins thought.

  “It’s all a lotta eyewash, Loot,” he said, cheerfully.

  It was hot in the booth.

  “Is it?” Weigand said. “Did you plan to mean something, sergeant?”

  His voice was not encouraging. Mullins remained tolerant.

  “O.K., Loot,” he said. “We got a wire from the Veterans Hospital in Arizona. They never heard of any Richard Osborne. Have we gotta be surprised?”

  “No,” Weigand said. “We don’t have to be surprised. What else?”

  Detective Stein had turned in a funny-looking list of words which he said the lieutenant wanted. Something about an encyclopædia?

  “Right,” Weigand said. “Hold it. I’ll be down.”

  Mullins had had a check made on Madge Ormond, who was, unless somebody had slipped up, safely at home in her apartment in the Forties. She was in the money, it seemed like. In the field of night club singing, she rated.

  “Zori’s,” Mullins said. “Only it’s closed, now, for redecoration. And she’s been in a coupla shows.”

  “Right,” Weigand said. “And?”

  A man was on his way to keep an eye on Mrs. Halstead. Randall Ashley had not left the apartment; a middle-aged woman, identified as Mrs. Ashley, had gone in. So had a man with a black bag. (The lounging detective apparently had made friends with an elevator operator, Weigand decided.) David McIntosh had gone to his office about ten, gone out to lunch about one. He was still out to lunch, and Detective Hildebrandt was practically sitting in his lap. Young Frank Kensitt was, as he had indicated, a ward of the Foundation. Lois Winston had taken special trouble with him, and got him his job at the Ritz-Plaza. He was now doing a little floor scrubbing at the Ritz-Plaza.

  Weigand ticked off detail.

  “Right,” he said. “There’s no use your taking root there. Get onto the Ashley lawyer, or whoever knows. Find out the precise conditions of the will.”

  “What will?” said Mullins.

  It was, Weigand decided, a sound question.

  “Both wills, come to think of it,” he said. “The will under which young Ashley gets his money, if he does. Lois Winston’s will. Any other wills you run across.”

  Mullins said that would be O.K. And then what?

  “Come in,” Weigand said. “We’ll see what you’ve got. Then, if you’ve been a good boy, I may take you to the Norths’.”

  Mullins was cheerful.

  “O.K., Loot,” he said. “I’ll dig around.”

  Weigand went to lunch. It was, he realized after he had thought of it, hig
h time. He absorbed a Tom Collins which was only fair and some cold salmon which tasted of nothing. He returned to the car, circled the block and pulled up in front of an elderly building which had a window card saying “Vacancy.” Inside the vestibule he pushed a bell marked Ormond and the door clicked. On the third floor a colored maid said that Miss Ormond was dressing.

  “She isn’t seeing nobody,” the maid said.

  “She wasn’t seeing nobody,” Weigand corrected. “Now she is seeing somebody.”

  He showed his badge and the maid’s eyes enlarged.

  “Yessir,” she said. “I’ll tell her.”

  She went, leaving the door open. Weigand followed her in.

  It was a surprisingly pleasant living-room, he decided, with light walls and unobtrusively modern furniture. The maid went through a door at the side and after a little while Madge Ormond came out the same door. She was wearing a pale yellow negligée and was stimulating to look at. Her eyes were wary and her voice had no particular intonation. It was low and husky and she laid it out flat on the air.

  “Yes, Lieutenant?” she said.

  She had decided, Weigand observed, not to be the tough little girl that she had been at their first meeting. Her new manner seemed to fit better.

  “How long have you and Randall Ashley been married?” Weigand said.

  She looked at him without answering for a moment and, still looking, sat down. Weigand sat down opposite her. The negligée opened as she crossed her knees and Weigand observed that she had very nice legs.

  “’Bout six weeks,” she said. She didn’t ask how he knew. She closed the small rift in the negligée, without making a point of it.

  “You know,” he said, “it means that Ashley doesn’t get his money. Only the interest.”

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” she said. “We both knew that.”

  “And so tried to keep it secret,” Weigand said.

  She wasn’t rising.

  “Naturally,” she said. “Not being fools. Wouldn’t you, if it came to that?”

  “No,” Weigand said. “I don’t think so.”

  She looked at him and smiled.

  “But you are so upright, Lieutenant,” she said. “And I’m just a night club singer. That’s why the lady is a tramp.”

  “Are you?” Weigand said. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “And,” she said, “you wouldn’t believe me if I said I wasn’t. If I said I didn’t give a damn about the money.”

  “I don’t know,” Weigand said. “I might, Miss Ormond. About being a tramp, that is. Everybody gives a damn about money.” He looked at her, and this time her eyes did not reject his look so blankly. “Suppose I say I wouldn’t pick you for a tramp. Suppose you pretend I’m not trying to put anything over. Just to see how it works out.”

  She studied him, this time. Then she nodded slowly.

  “You don’t seem so tough,” she admitted. “Maybe you really want to know things. I don’t think I’m a tramp. Randall’s money is swell—any money is swell. We’d like to have the money, all right. We’d like to have it. Not I’d like to have it.” She looked at him hard, leaning forward a little and searching his face. “Is that too deep for you, Lieutenant?” she said.

  Weigand was patient.

  “I can touch bottom,” he said. “I just want to know, Miss Ormond. You can see why—you’re not missing things. What Randall might do if you were just digging some gold is one thing. What he might do if you and he were really together is another. You’ll have to take my word for it that I just want to know.”

  He paused.

  “Or,” he said, “you don’t have to take my word. Play it as you want to. I’ll get along somehow.”

  “All right,” Madge Ormond said. “I’ll take a chance. I love the kid. So what does that make me?”

  He looked at her thoughtfully. Sophistication can be very defensive when it is challenged.

  “It makes it different,” Weigand said. He studied her face and then saw that her eyes were wet. Her smile was neat and exact and her face was smooth and lovely, but her eyes were wet. “Your mascara will run,” he warned her.

  “Not it,” she said. “Guaranteed.” She said it as lightly as she could, but it wasn’t very lightly. Slowly she began to nod her head and her lips trembled. “All right,” she said. “I’m not so tough. I love the kid. He loves me. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt us.” She said it challengingly. “He’s different underneath,” she said. “He’s not the way he acted at all.”

  “Isn’t he?” Weigand said. He said it gently. He didn’t, he found, think Madge Ormond had gone into her act.

  “We both started out being tough,” she said. “I’ll give you that. He was money in the bank to me and I was—well, I’ll give you one guess—to him. And then—then it got different. Not all at once, or anything. Just after awhile it was different. And then we decided to get married. But we still didn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t have his money; we wouldn’t be cheating anybody else. So we kept it secret.”

  “Where did you get married?” he asked.

  “Right here,” she said. “Only—well, Madge Ormond is just the name I use. I’m—” she hesitated. “Oh, the hell with it,” she said. “My name is Stella Ormk.”

  “What?” said Weigand.

  She laughed, a little hysterically.

  “Ormk,” she said. “Believe it or not, Ormk.”

  “I’ve got to believe it,” Weigand said, awed. “It would have to be true.”

  He thought a moment.

  “It was only six weeks ago?” he said. “That might be important. Remember, I can look it up.”

  “Yes,” she said, “six weeks.” She didn’t ask why it might be important.

  “And,” he said, “how long before that had you been—going together?”

  “About two years.”

  “Not”—he figured quickly—“nearer four years?”

  “Two years,” she said. “Why?”

  He shook his head at her. A theory was growing in his head as he shook it.

  “Before that,” he said, “did he see a lot of some girl—some girl his father found out about? Some girl, maybe, who really was a tramp?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose so. We didn’t talk about it.”

  “Do you know,” Weigand said, bluntly, “whether he and this other girl ever had a child?”

  She stared at him, her eyes widening.

  “I don’t get it,” she said. “He was just a kid—what do you mean?”

  He wasn’t, Weigand reminded her, so much of a kid as all that. Four years ago he was nineteen. Plenty old enough to get into trouble.

  “Suppose that had happened,” Weigand said. “And it came out. He wouldn’t get his money, would he?”

  It was a stab in the dark, and he couldn’t tell what it hit. She stared at him.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. There was no animus he could detect. “It was just if he married, I think.”

  Weigand puzzled over it. He didn’t know, either. But it was worth trying.

  “Suppose,” he said, “that there is something in the will which provides that Randall doesn’t get his money if he is married before he is twenty-five or if he is seriously involved with a woman before he is twenty-five. And suppose somebody—his sister, maybe—stumbled by accident onto the fact that he had had a son when he was a kid of nineteen.” He watched her face. If she and Randall were really close, and there was anything in his theory, she might know—she might know a lot. He waited.

  “It wasn’t that way,” she said. Her eyes were very wide in a pale face. “You can’t do that to Buddy!”

  “I’m not trying to do anything to Buddy,” he told her. “I’m trying to find out what you know. Maybe it wasn’t in the will. But maybe Lois did find out about the child and was going to use what she had found out to influence her mother, so that she wouldn’t agree to Buddy’s marriage with you—and wouldn’t be reasonable if s
he found out that you were already married. How does that sound?”

  “I tell you it wasn’t that way,” she said. “I don’t know where you get all this stuff about a child. Buddy didn’t do anything to his sister—he couldn’t.” There was terrible anxiety in her face. “You believed me a while ago,” she said. “You’ve got to believe me now—he couldn’t! We didn’t want to hurt anybody; we wouldn’t ever have hurt anybody. We just wanted to be together, and we didn’t see why he couldn’t have his money. And so he wanted to talk to Lois.”

  She spoke eagerly, with a kind of desperate intensity. She believes that, Weigand told himself. I’m almost sure she believes it.

  “That’s why he went to her table,” the girl went on. There was no effort, now, to maintain a pose. She seemed younger and, Weigand thought, very frightened.

  “He just went over to leave a note,” she went on. “About talking to her later—he was going to tell her everything about us. The way it really was. He said he could make her understand—he said she just didn’t understand how it was, because she kept remembering how he had been when he was younger, but that he could make her see. ‘She’s all right, really, Sis is,’ he said to me. ‘She’ll be for us when she gets the picture.’”

  Her eyes were anxious as they sought his.

  “Everything was going to be all right,” she said. “We both believed it was—we were sure. Don’t you see we wouldn’t have gained if anything happened to Lois—that we just, wanted to explain things to her, so she would tell her mother how Buddy and I really felt. Don’t you see that?”

  “I don’t know,” Weigand said. “I think you believe it, Miss Ormond. I wondered about that, but now I think you believe it. But I don’t know, really.”

  Her arm went out along the arm of the chair, and her head dropped on it. It was a defeated, touching movement.

  “I’m sorry,” Weigand said. “But you’ll see how it is yourself when you think it over. You’re just going on what your husband told you. I can’t promise anything.”