Death of an Angel (7 page)

In any case, that was the explanation Wyatt had given. He had, he had told Weigand, been moderately hopeful of making Fitch see their point. This hopefulness, it appeared, had arisen during a party Fitch had given the night before at “21.”

“One of these damned stag affairs,” Wyatt had said, and had snapped his fingers. (“Always do that?” Bill asked. “Most of the time,” Jerry said.) Wyatt had dropped in, rather briefly, according to his account. He had had a drink or two. Who had been there? Damned near everybody. Men—theater people—Fitch had met through knowing Naomi Shaw. Other men about whom Wyatt professed to know little. “Probably polo players,” he had told Weigand. “People like that.” (That he had snapped his fingers then, snapping polo players into oblivion, the Norths did not need to be told.)

Had anything been said, by Fitch presumably, which led Wyatt to think a renewed discussion of the play's fate might be helpful?

Nothing had been said, Wyatt told the questioning policeman. (“Very open and aboveboard about the whole thing,” Weigand said. “Or seemed to be.”) It was—well, it had proved hard to put words to. Fitch had been a good host at the stag party; had seemed a friendly man; even a pleasant man. Wyatt supposed that, subconsciously, he had taken Fitch out of a pigeonhole labeled “Polo Player” or “Rich Man's Little Boy” and looked at him and—liked what he saw. Fitch had been, it appeared, especially friendly with the men from the theater, including Wyatt himself.

“Left me feeling he might have been thinking it over,” Wyatt had said. “Hell—left me with the feeling he
could
think. Thought if I got him alone we might work something out.”

There had obviously, Wyatt said, been nothing to lose. Or, it had seemed so.

“You don't count on murder,” Wyatt said, and snapped his fingers.

“You didn't try the upstairs door?”

“Up—oh, no. Didn't know about it—didn't know Fitch lived up there, as you say he did. I'd only been here once before—to that damned big party.”

Had he thought Fitch was drinking a lot at the more recent party—the stag party?

He had not thought so, particularly. Fitch had been all right while he was there. The party was still going when he left.

Did he remember who had been at the stag party? Specifically, by name?

The men in the cast of
Around the Corner
. Strothers, Jasper Tootle. The director of
Around the Corner
, Marvin Goetz. And a lot of polo players. He didn't remember names; he was no good at names. “All pretty much alike, anyway,” Wyatt said, contentedly putting them in the pigeonholes, from one of which he had, tentatively, removed Bradley Fitch.

They had let Wyatt go along, after a few more questions. Now they would have to get him back, and ask him about the napkin. There was little doubt what he would say; little doubt what had happened. Wyatt had, absent-mindedly, stuck the cocktail napkin in his pocket while at the Norths'. While with Mrs. Hemmins in the study, with Fitch dead on the floor, he had as absent-mindedly taken it out for some reason. Perhaps to dab with it at a forehead on which, understandably, cold sweat might have formed.

“So this,” Weigand said now, dangling the little napkin between his fingers, “won't get us anywhere. Inspector O'Malley thought—well, he thought it might.”

“I know,” Pam said. “Inspector Artemus O'Malley thought it might get Jerry and me in jail.”

(Deputy Chief Inspector Artemus O'Malley, at that time commanding Manhattan detectives, is a conservative policeman, disapproving of amateur intervention—particularly by people named North. He is also somewhat choleric.)

“Well,” Mullins said, “we know this much, anyway. It's going to be a screwy one.”

And this, also, was because the Norths were in it.

“The elevator man doesn't help?” Jerry asked, and Bill told him there wasn't any. Until noon, the apartment house elevators were self-operating. To get to the ninth floor—to any floor—you got in and pressed a button. To get to the ground floor again, you got in and pressed another button. A policeman's lot, Bill supposed, had been easier before automatic elevators, automatic telephones; easier in Inspector O'Malley's more active days.

“I'd think,” Pam North said, “she'd keep a cat.”

Sergeant Mullins set his glass down very carefully. He looked at Mrs. North with anxiety evident on his solid face. Jerry was gentle; his words might have been as fragile as eggshells.

“Who, dear?” Jerry said.

“But evidently she doesn't,” Pam said.

“Please, Pam,” Bill Weigand said.

“Alone so much of the time in that big place,” Pam said. “Oh—perhaps a dog, but it would have been the same thing. Mrs. Hemmins, of course.”

“Mrs. North,” Sergeant Mullins said. He spoke in a hushed tone. “You're saying a cat and a dog are the same thing?”

It didn't matter, Pam said, since obviously it wasn't either. Or, for that matter, a horse.

At that, Jerry said, “Oh.” He turned to Weigand. “Actually,” he said, “she's talking about Sam Wyatt.” He considered this. “In a way,” he added.

“He'd have been sniffling,” Pam said. “He's very susceptible. He—” She stopped, since Bill was looking at her intently.

“He was,” Bill said. “You're saying he's allergic?”

“Why,” Pam North said, “of course, Bill. What else would I be saying? He was sniffling? And his eyes were running? When you talked to him?”

“Not a great deal,” Bill said. “Slightly. I supposed he had a summer cold.”

“For all we know,” Jerry said, “he had. He may have caught one last night. Anyway, even if there is a cat—or—”

“Not a horse,” Pam said. “Unless—but that's silly.”

They waited.

“It just occurred to me,” Pam said, “that since Mr. Fitch played polo so much, whatever it is about a horse might have sort of—well, stuck to him. But that would have been other clothes, obviously. It's almost certainly a cat. Mrs. Hemmins sounds exactly like a cat.”

“Listen, Pam,” Jerry said. “Bill knows Sam was in the apartment. He was in the apartment when Bill talked to him.”

“In the anteroom,” Pam said. “Where the elevator stops. Not really inside. But he had been.” She paused. “Of course,” she said. “That's why he was in the anteroom. Probably the cat doesn't get there. What kind of cat is it, Bill?”

“I didn't see any kind,” Bill said, and spoke abstractedly. “This allergy Wyatt has—the symptoms come on quickly?”

“He wasn't here five minutes,” Pam said. “I thought at first he was—well, crying because the play was closing. Of course, I suppose it would be three times as quick here, wouldn't it? Because of three cats.”

The three cats, who find a group of four humans excessive—more than four is impossible—had withdrawn. Being addressed, they appeared, in a body, in a doorway, their tails arching in enquiry. “Good evening, Martini,” Bill said, knowing who must be first addressed. “Gin. Sherry.” Martini spoke briefly. Gin not at all, Sherry at length. “We're not having any, Sherry,” Pam said. “She thinks canapés, because we're having cocktails. Of course, we don't know how many Mrs. Hemmins has. They wouldn't have been around, of course. Too many policemen.”

“Look,” Mullins said. “We
know
he was in the apartment. He says so. This Hemmins says so. We don't need a cat to prove it.” He paused. “Do we?” he said.

“No, sergeant,” Bill said. “All the same—” He crossed the room to the telephone, saying, “All right?” to the Norths and getting “Of course,” in that exchange dictated by convention, if not by common sense. He consulted a memorandum, dialed a number. He said, “Weigand. Is there a cat there?” He waited a moment. “Yes,” he said, “a cat. I don't care what kind of cat. Or, a dog will do, apparently.”

He turned, telephone in hand, and raised enquiring eyebrows.

“Oh, that's what Sam said,” Pam said. “A cat is better. That is, I mean worse, of course.”

Bill nodded. He said, “Well, ask her, will you? I'll hold on. Oh—and ask her if Mr. Wyatt had a cold while he was in the apartment.”

“Thinks I've gone nuts,” Bill told the others, while he waited.

“Well,” Mullins said, in a tone of consideration. Bill grinned at him. He said, “You say yourself they're always screwy when the Norths—” and broke off, to say, “Yes?” He listened.

“Big black fellow?” he said. “Have the run of the place? Or didn't you ask?”

The policeman who had answered the telephone had, it appeared, put cat and cold together, and come up with an answer—and the proper question of Mrs. Rose Hemmins. The cat did have the run of the apartment; of both floors, except that Mrs. Hemmins tried to keep him downstairs when Fitch was at home. She tried, but that morning she had failed—

“Right,” Bill said. “And the cold?”

He listened. He said, “Wait a minute. Is she certain?” and listened again and said, “It may be. Ask her again.” He waited. After some little time, he said, “Right,” and turned back.

“Mrs. Hemmins says he had a cold,” he said. “But—she says he had it when he arrived.”

“Oh,” Pam said, “then it was really a—” But she did not finish it.

“Right,” he said, when she did not. “Or—he hadn't just arrived. The cat—it's a big black cat, the boys say—had been upstairs. Visiting Fitch, apparently. So—” He shrugged.

“Perhaps he
has
got a cold,” Pam said. “Anyway, I know he—” But again she did not finish.

“He took it hard,” Jerry said. “The play's closing. Not only because of the money but—writers are odd people, sometimes. He kept saying the play was nothing. Couldn't imagine what people saw in it. All the same, it was—hell, it was a dream come true. And—”

Now it was his turn to hesitate.

“We can't keep it back, Jerry,” Pam said. “We've tried before, and we never could. Last night Sam said he wished somebody would—would put poison in Mr. Fitch's soup. Of course he was probably joking but—what did you think, Jerry?”

“Oh,” Jerry North said, “sure he was joking—I guess.”

Bill Weigand stood for a moment in thought. Then he said, “Better finish your drink, sergeant. We'll go ask Mr. Wyatt how his cold is.”

They did not find Samuel Wyatt immediately available for enquiry into the condition of his health. He lived in an apartment hotel on the East Side. He was not in his room, nor in the hotel dining room. Mullins was left to sit in the lobby; Weigand went to a small office in the precinct house occupied by Homicide East. He did paper work.

The preliminary report was confirmed by further toxicological examination. Bradley Fitch had died after ingesting between half an ounce and an ounce of oxalic acid, served him in a concoction which had consisted of tomato juice, bitters, and, probably, Worcestershire Sauce. It had contained, also, tabasco sauce and, apparently, additional red pepper. The preparation, Weigand thought, would disguise the flavor of almost anything. What it would do, even without oxalic acid, to an empty stomach, Weigand preferred not to think. Fitch's stomach had been empty, which had hurried the action of the poison. Death from oxalic acid poisoning had been known to occur in as little as three minutes' time, in the event of hemorrhage. Fitch had hemorrhaged.

The glass from which Fitch had drunk bore no fingerprints but his own. The bottles from which the various ingredients had been taken bore his and Mrs. Hemmins', the latter more numerous. But on the bottles, the prints were slightly smudged; it was possible the containers had been picked up by someone who chose to hold them in a cloth. Evidence of this was, however, and in the opinion of the laboratory man who had initialed the report Bill Weigand read, inadequate for court presentation. They were a long way from that, Bill thought. They were still a considerable distance from proving murder—particularly if no one else had handled the glass.

The possibility there was obvious, and had not been overlooked. Several small metal trays had been found on the counter in the serving pantry. They revealed no fingerprints at all. This might indicate Mrs. Hemmins was thorough as a housekeeper; the other possibility was preferable. Mr. Fitch had been served his final drink, as he must have been served many others in his thirty-one years of life—properly, on a tray. Whoever had so proffered it had, also, been scrupulous in washing up.

The second-floor doorbell could, as Mrs. Hemmins had said, be heard on the floor below. So could the footsteps of someone moving between the bedroom and the door. (But not in all rooms of the floor below, only near one of the flights of stairs.) When the rooms were checked, the outer door had been found to be unlocked. It was, however, a type which unlocks automatically when the knob is turned from within, so would have been unlocked after Fitch opened it. (If he did open it.) To lock it after him, a departing guest—or murderer—would have had only to press a button set into the inside knob. This had not been done. What this indicated, if anything, was not clear. Much was not clear.

Fitch had died the possessor of a large, but unappraised, estate. His attorneys declined an estimate. Pressed, they said, “Well, several millions.” The money had been made by the late Cyrus Fitch and by the not so late Abner Fitch, father of Cyrus. Bradley Fitch had done little to add to it, which was understandable. Bradley Fitch had not married. He had once before been engaged, and that quite recently. (To one Margaret Latham, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Latham, Park Avenue and Easthampton.)

Pending examination of Fitch's will, the identity of his heir or heirs was not established. There were several relatives, but none (it appeared) nearer than cousins. One cousin was Mrs. James Nelson who lived, with her husband, in Rye, New York. Other relatives would be reported as discovered.