A Pinch of Poison

by Frances Lockridge

  He studied her. Her face assumed an expression of concern.

  “Yes,” she said. “Isn’t it—dreadful? She always seemed such a—well, calm and even-tempered woman. Although, of course, I only met her a few times—she dropped in here now and then. Not often.”

  “It’s very upsetting for Mr. Graham, certainly,” Weigand said. “I suppose you didn’t—but I can’t ask you to betray any confidences.” He paused, and she looked at once interested and appropriately noncommittal. “I suppose,” he said, “that Mr. and Mrs. Graham got along all right? You know what I mean?”

  Miss Hand’s expression registered the question as indiscreet.

  “Really, Lieutenant,” she said, “if there were anything you wouldn’t expect me—but, fortunately, there wasn’t. So far as I know, at any rate. He never—well, said anything, or expressed anything, which would make me think different.”

  “Right,” Weigand said. “I suppose he called her up when he was going to be late getting home—that sort of thing. He was considerate, I mean. When he was going to be delayed—as the other night—he would telephone and all that?”

  Miss Hand nodded, and said, “Of course.

  “As it happened,” she said, “Mrs. Graham telephoned him Tuesday, and he told her then. But he was just going to call her—he’d told me to remind him.”

  “Right,” Weigand said. His tone expressed conventional approval of marital consideration. Miss Hand, he could see, was thinking him rather stodgy—the substantial, middle-class policeman.

  “By the way,” he said. “Just what is Mr. Graham’s position here. Office manager—something like that?”

  Miss Hand nodded.

  “And other things,” she said. “He runs this end; our factory’s in Long Island City, you know. He has something to say about everything except the actual manufacturing—sales, purchases, new lines—almost everything. Of course, the main office is at the factory, really, but a great deal clears through us.”

  “Quite an important position,” Weigand said. His voice betrayed admiration of Mr. Graham’s importance and, he trusted, a proper note of envy. “He must make a—well, a pretty good thing out of it.”

  Not, Miss Hand assured him, loyally, as much as he deserved to make.

  “He has a great deal of ability,” she said. “I sometimes feel that they don’t appreciate him properly at the factory. He ought, really, to be a member of the firm, instead of just a salaried executive. But I suppose that needs capital, doesn’t it?”

  Weigand, with the air of a man out of his depth in commercial matters, but trying not to show it, agreed that it probably did. He thanked Miss Hand and collected Mullins. Outside, Mullins looked at him darkly.

  “That was an act, Loot,” he said. “Just an act.”

  “Was it, Mullins?” Weigand said. “Think of that!”

  He shepherded Mullins to the Buick and drove downtown. He arrived between harried appearances of messengers in search of him, and had time for a telephone call before the storm broke. He made the telephone call to Danbury, and asked them to trace records. It was, he said, a routine item for the files—an item concerning a George Benoit, who had got a ticket there sometime Tuesday. The Danbury police checked while he held the line. The Danbury police reported.

  “Yes,” Weigand said. “… Yes … About what time?… How long did you hold him?… Um-m-m.… Did he have any explanation?… He did, eh?… What?… Yeh, that was a hot one, wasn’t it?… And was he?” There was a longer pause. “Sure enough!” Weigand said.… “Yes … Yes, it must make it difficult.… Well, thanks, sergeant. Do as much for you some time.”

  He hung up and sat staring at Mullins.

  “Well,” he said, “that’s that. The little pinch of corroboration, sergeant, that savors the best of hunches.”

  “What?” Mullins said. “I don’t get it.”

  “Don’t you, Mullins?” Weigand said, gently. “You should, you know. It’s all been spread out for you. What you didn’t see, I’ve told you.”

  Mullins stared at him.

  “Listen, Loot—” he began.

  Then the telephone on Weigand’s desk rang harshly.

  Deputy Chief Inspector Artemus O’Malley was beside himself. He had taken his feet off his desk when Lieutenant Weigand, summoned peremptorily, hurried to him. He pounded on the desk with his fist, which was a large fist. Small objects on the desk jumped affrighted. Inspector O’Malley wanted to know what was going on. He summed it up for Weigand.

  “First the Winston girl,” he said. “All right. What the hell could we do about that?” Weigand knew the question was rhetorical. “Right,” O’Malley said. “That happened to us. And it stares us in the face—we’ve got everything—a guy nobody likes, to make it easy for the D.A.; motive, opportunity and, on top of that, he did it! That’s what gripes me—a perfect setup, and he did it!”

  O’Malley stared at Weigand, celebrating a perfect coincidence, rare in police annals. Not only could they pin it on a guy; it was the right guy.

  “A natural!” O’Malley went on. “So what do you do? You get somebody else murdered—a Mrs.—what the hell’s her name?”

  “Halstead,” Weigand said.

  “I know it!” O’Malley said. “I know it. You don’t have to tell me things, Lieutenant. I was on the force when you were wearing didies. Mrs. Halstead. So you get Mrs. Halstead murdered, because you won’t see what’s as plain as the nose on your face.” Inspector O’Malley stared around his own nose at Weigand.

  “I suppose you think that makes us look good?” O’Malley said.

  Weigand shook his head.

  “No, Inspector,” he said. “Not so good.”

  “Look at the papers if you think it makes us look good!” O’Malley challenged. “And who gets it in the neck—me!”

  Weigand doubted that, or doubted that it would be true for long. But he merely looked attentive.

  “I get it in the neck,” O’Malley said. “I tell ’em we’ll crack it in twenty-four hours and what happens? Somebody else gets killed. And then somebody disappears. This Mrs.—Mrs.—”

  “Graham,” Weigand helped out. “Mrs. Graham disappears.”

  “Yeah!” O’Malley said. “So Mrs. Graham disappears. The first thing we know about her, she disappears. Is that a note?”

  Weigand nodded. O’Malley glared at him.

  “And now what happens?” he demanded. “Now we lose the kid! A kid that’s tangled up in it somewhere. Now, along with everything else, we got a kidnaping. Don’t you know what the papers do to a kidnaping? Don’t you ever read the newspapers, Weigand?” O’Malley’s anger seemed to be softening into grief. “Headlines,” he said, gloomily, staring at the lieutenant. “Right across the page. ‘Child in Winston Case Kidnaped.’ How do you think that makes us look?”

  “It’s tough, Inspector,” Weigand agreed. “Very tough.”

  “Tough!” O’Malley repeated. He addressed the universe. “He says it’s tough!” O’Malley told the universe, hopelessly.

  He turned back and glared at Weigand.

  “Did you ever hear of Staten Island?” he said. “Did you ever hear of the Bronx, up around the Boston Post Road? Did you ever hear of Jamaica—way out on the edges? Did you ever hear of wise cops who went back in uniforms and sat at desks and nobody ever talked to them or heard about them?”

  “Right,” Weigand said. “Do you want me to say something, Inspector, or don’t you?”

  “You’d better say something!” O’Malley told him. “You’d sure better!”

  “Right,” Weigand said. “We’re going to break it. You can tell the boys that. Say we’ll break it in—well, say in twelve hours. Say that the police have a theory which explains everything that’s happened; that the police are confident of finding both Mrs. Graham and Michael Osborne. If you feel like it, tell them the disclosures will be sensational.”

  “Yeah,” O’Malley said. “And suppose we don’t?”

  Weigand looked at him, and
half smiled.

  “Well,” he said, “you can always pin it on me, Inspector. And there’s always Staten Island.” He stared back at the Inspector. “What the hell?” he said. “You think I like Staten Island?”

  “Twelve hours?” O’Malley repeated, after a moment’s thought.

  Weigand nodded. “Or less,” he said. He said it confidently; he hoped he was right.

  “Well,” O’Malley said. “Get on with it, Weigand. You won’t do it sitting here.”

  Weigand left like a man going somewhere, but he sat at his own desk and drummed his fingers on it. He telephoned Missing Persons and got Paul Durkin. He asked crisp questions.

  “I think we’ve got a line,” Durkin told him. “We rounded up a taxi-driver who picked Mrs. Graham up near her home last night—a guy named Fineberg—Max Fineberg. Funny thing, he drove Lois Winston downtown from there Tuesday afternoon. What do you think of that?”

  “Well,” Weigand said, “it’s a fine time for him to be remembering it.” He thought. “Although,” he added, “I can’t see it makes much difference. Where did he take Mrs. Graham?”

  “To a hotel,” Durkin said. “Or, anyway, to a hotel door—the Carney. It’s a little place, very respectable, in the Murray Hill district. Naturally, she’s not there now.”

  “Naturally,” Weigand said. “That would be too easy. Did she ever go there? Or did she just wait until Max drove off and walk away?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Durkin said. “No Mrs. Graham registered there. A Mrs. Gebhart did, about the right time. The clerk’s pretty old, and pretty short-sighted, but his description sounds as if Mrs. Gebhart and Mrs. Graham might be the same person. But he can’t identify a picture—just shrugs and says, ‘Maybe, maybe not.’ You know the kind.”

  “Yes,” Weigand said. “And what about Mrs. Gebhart?”

  “Checked out,” Durkin told him. “Took a cab this morning; the boy who brought her bags down also had a gander at Mrs. Graham’s picture and says it looks like Mrs. Gebhart. He’s not very sure, either; says he didn’t look closely, and why should he? He put her in a cab. It’s too bad he didn’t pick one of the regulars that work the hotel, but he didn’t. There are only a couple and both were gone. So he flagged a cruiser. A Paramount. We’re checking, but it will take a while.”

  It might, Weigand realized, take hours, and with no vast certainty. If things didn’t go as he anticipated, he might see Staten Island yet. Cab-drivers were supposed to make records of all their trips, showing where passengers were picked up and where set down. Usually the big company drivers did. Sometimes they didn’t. It would take a while to look over the sheets; it would be several hours, at best, before all the sheets were available.

  “How about the kid?” Weigand asked Durkin. Durkin said they had just started on that and that it was as much a precinct and reserve job as theirs. Some details had come along. Michael had been playing on the front stoop of the boarding home, which was a detached house with a neat little yard. Another boy who was under Mrs. Konover’s care had gone to school; Mrs. Konover was busy with her housework. And Michael had merely vanished. The neighborhood was being searched and the precinct men, aided by a Missing Persons Bureau detail, were questioning people who might have seen something. So far—

  “Wait a minute,” Durkin said. “Let’s see that, Mike.” There was a pause. “Well,” Durkin said, “here’s something. There are a couple of women around inquiring, too. Or were during the morning. One of our men came on the track of them when he was asking some questions in the neighborhood. Any idea who they’d be?”

  “No,” Weigand said. “It’s funny. What kind of women?”

  “We don’t get anything but lousy descriptions,” Durkin complained. “Young women, apparently. They were around a while and then went off in a taxi-cab. Mean anything, do you think?”

  “I hope not,” Weigand said. “I suppose it’s on the radio? Well, then, maybe a couple of helpful women who heard it on the radio and just wanted to poke around.” He laughed, shortly. “Mrs. Konover better watch out,” he said, “they’ll be taking her yard along as a souvenir if she isn’t careful.”

  “Yeah,” Durkin said. “Ain’t people wonderful?”

  Weigand, disconnecting, drummed on his desk. He remembered something.

  “You were going to find out about a couple of wills, Mullins,” he said. “What did you find out?”

  Mullins looked startled for a moment. Then remembered and hauled out a notebook.

  “Ole man Ashley’s,” he said. “The money is left pretty much as Buddy says; all tied up. He gets the whole business when he’s twenty-five if he isn’t married. There’s nothing about being mixed up with a woman any other way, like you thought maybe. Mama Ashley can say a marriage is O.K. if she wants to, and then sonny boy gets the jack. Like sonny boy said. O.K.?”

  “Right,” Weigand said. “How about the girl?”

  Lois Winston, it developed, had left a considerable legacy to the Foundation. There were minor legacies to friends; a substantial one to the maid, Anna. The residue went to the college Lois had attended, with the stipulation that it be used for special research in the field of sociology.

  “No motive there,” Mullins said. “Unless maybe—say, Loot, how about Miss Crane? At the Foundation. Suppose she figures she can get her hands on the money that goes to the agency—”

  He stopped, because Weigand was staring at him.

  “Listen, Mullins,” Weigand pleaded. “Don’t think, huh? The Foundation, like all such agencies, is supervised by the state, and all their funds are audited regularly. I can’t see Miss Crane killing anybody; she couldn’t get the money if she did. Nobody at the Foundation could. And, if you were thinking of that, I don’t think the president of the college killed Miss Winston, either.” He looked at Mullins. “I don’t like to discourage you, sergeant,” he said. “How about Anna?”

  Mullins shook his head.

  “Huh-uh,” he said. “She ain’t the type.” He looked at Weigand severely. “You got to know types, Loot,” he instructed.

  Weigand nodded, as admiringly as he could. He said he thought Mullins had something there. Then the telephone rang. It was Durkin, and he was crisp.

  “Got the kid, Weigand,” he said. “For once a hotel dick kept his eyes open. A dick at the Fairmount, up on Forty-eighth. Just called in to say that the boy—he’s pretty sure it’s the right boy by the description—was brought in there two-three hours ago by a woman. Registered as Mrs. Anderson, the woman did. Got Room 1209. I’m sending—”

  “Don’t,” Weigand said. “Don’t send anybody. Put men on the doors; better have a couple on the twelfth floor, too. I want to pick the kid up myself.” He broke off, thought. “No question about who found him, Paul,” he added. “The break goes to the M. P. B., naturally. But I think it hooks in on the Winston killing, and I want to check it myself. Right?”

  “Sure,” Paul said. “I’ll get the men out.”

  “Right,” Weigand said. “I think you’ve broken it, Paul. Nice going. Be seeing you.”

  Mullins stood up, too. He responded to the change in Weigand’s mood. They were going places, now. That was what Mullins liked; going places. His look at Weigand was hopeful, inquiring.

  “Right, Mullins,” Weigand said. “This is it, or close to it. Come on.”

  17

  THURSDAY

  2:20 P.M. TO 3:05 P.M.

  The Hotel Fairmount towered without character over Forty-eighth Street; it was massive and nondescript—masonry with interstices into which beds and the occupants of beds could be fitted. The doorman’s uniform was arresting; the doorman inside it pale and inconsequential. A few people sat in a grillroom which had windows on the street and pudgy waiters in noticeable uniforms looked out vacantly. Mullins pointed out that they hadn’t had any lunch, and his step hesitated when, through the windows, he saw bottles on the bar. “Later,” Weigand told him, curtly.

  In the lobby the few people visible were without sa
vor. Weigand’s eyes flickered over the room. There were several men, waiting for nothing, who looked, if anything, more nondescript than the rest. There was one who didn’t; who looked what he was. Bad work, that, Weigand thought. Cops who looked like cops had their jobs, but unsuspected observation was not among them. Precinct man, Weigand decided. One of the unnoticeable men turned from the cigar counter, vaguely, and brushed close to Weigand.

  “Still there,” he said, without moving his lips. Weigand nodded. With Mullins beside him—and heads came up as Mullins passed, and one casual gentleman went, with studied indifference, toward the door—Weigand went to the elevators. The eyes of the black-haired young man at the controls of the waiting car slipped over Weigand without interest, but widened when Mullins followed. His eyes slid up and down Mullins.

  “Twelve,” Weigand told him. The young man looked at Weigand, leaving the car door open. Weigand looked back, without truculence; “Now,” he said, almost gently. But there was no gentleness in the tone. “Get going.”

  The operator reached for the door. He kept his eyes on Weigand as he slammed it; groped for the control and moved it without shifting his gaze.

  “You better look where you’re going, son,” Mullins told him. “You wouldn’t want to run into nothing, would you?” Mullins turned to Weigand and beamed, falsely. “Sonny don’t want to run into nothing,” he told Weigand. Weigand smiled, fleetingly. This wasn’t, he thought, the place he had expected to find Michael. But for anybody who wanted to keep under cover it wasn’t a bad place. Only, if his theory was right—

  He broke off as the car stopped.

  “Twelve,” the black-haired youth said. He said it indifferently. Mullins, following Weigand out, patted the boy’s shoulder.

  “Nice going, sonny,” he said. “Didn’t run into a thing.”

  The operator glared at Mullins and met a pleased smile. The door, clanging shut, nipped at Mullins’ ankles.

  “Temper,” Mullins said, and sighed. A short fat man with a red face who had apparently been waiting for an elevator looked at Mullins. Weigand’s eyes flickered over the short fat man.