Murder Is Served (9 page)

“Right,” Bill told him. “He says. She denies it, say, and in the absence of the paper itself, we take our choice. The jury takes its choice on a point of veracity. Even this Cecily Breakwell—the girl next to her—only saw a few words, heard a few words in an elevator. That could be explained away. The paper itself couldn't. Produce it, show it to a jury, point out, ‘This girl said one day she hated a man enough to kill him. The next day he was killed' and you've got something. Say, “That's what people tell us—a professor who lost the paper, an excitable hat-check girl who remembered it only
afterward'
—well, you see the difference. If she killed Mott, she's better off with that essay of hers in a fire somewhere.”

“Even if she didn't, if you come to that,” Pam said. “Only—” She stopped and they looked at her and waited.

“Actually,” she said, “the theft of the essay
makes
it important. Whether she mentioned Mott or not. It—it directs attention. Doesn't it? Suppose somebody else, not the girl at all,
wanted
to direct attention. Or even suppose—” She stopped again, but continued more quickly. “Suppose there wasn't really any essay—I mean, not one that said what we think it did, and suppose it wasn't really stolen. Is Mr. Leonard a nice man, Jerry?”

“Good God,” Jerry said. “I don't know.”

“Anyway,” Pam said, “it's something to think about.”

Bill Weigand was nodding, but he seemed to be listening with only half his mind and, looking at him, Pam said suddenly that she was sorry. He shook his head, then.

“No,” he said. “But we can think anything. Guess anything.” He looked at them. “We need the girl. The girl herself. Maybe she can prove she was somewhere else.”

“Do you think she can?” Jerry asked and Bill Weigand shook his head. “No,” he said. “Oh no.”

The dim-faced clock showed a quarter of four. Once again the cartooned wolf flapped desperately, using its ears as wings, above a cloud. Once more the people around her laughed.

There is no good in sitting here, she thought. I am waiting for nothing, waiting to be found, to be caught. I can't sit here always, so it does not really matter when I leave.

Her thoughts, more coherent now, circled, seeking a way. I need help, she thought. And then, almost as if it were the same thought, I need Weldon. He will know something to do. I have to find Weldon. He will be very angry, he will almost hate me, but he will help.

She left the newsreel theater and found a telephone booth. She waited, hearing the sound of ringing, and then the woman's voice. “Mr. Carey?” the girl said. “Mr. Weldon Carey, please.”

“Not here,” the woman said.

“Do you have any idea—” Peggy Mott began, but the woman cut her short.

“Not here,” the woman said. “Don't know where he is.” Then the woman hung up.

Dyckman was the best place; he would be there, waiting, angry at waiting, angry at the line and at the others in it. Suddenly she knew he would be there.

She started across the station concourse, looking ahead through her wide eyes, not seeing people looking at her, refusing to see people looking at her. She expected each moment that someone would say, “There she is! There's the one they're looking for!” and she walked with a kind of stiffness, being afraid. But no one did say that, no one reached out and took hold of her arm. She went through the subway turnstile, sat in the shuttle train, took the West Side express uptown. It was a little after four when she climbed stairs to the street level and began to' walk, the blustering wind behind her, the two blocks to the Extension Building at Dyckman University.

Bill Weigand was not surprised. Always they were seen; the world had too many eyes. They thought they were unnoticed—sometimes they thought the night was empty, sometimes they thought a crowd made them anonymous. But always, somewhere, there were eyes. So Bill Weigand was not surprised when it came. He had been waiting for it.

“Right,” he said to Mullins. “Let her in.”

She came in mink, which slipped to the back of the chair behind her and dragged one sleeve on the carpet. She was very blond and very slender, but her breasts were vigorous against the hugging black wool of her dress. Her mouth was very red and very perfect and she had large, round eyes. Her dress was cut in a deep, narrow V and she leaned forward toward Bill Weigand, her left elbow on a crossed knee, her left hand, with fingers curled, just touching her throat beneath her chin. She was Elaine Britton, and she had just read about the terrible thing—the terrible, terrible thing.

“Tony!” she said. “I couldn't believe it. Not Tony.”

Bill Weigand waited.

“We were—friends,” she said. “You've heard?” She looked up at Bill, her very large blue eyes apparently moist. “We had hoped—” She put her hand gracefully to her smooth forehead, bending a little more forward. She kept it there for perhaps thirty seconds. She raised her head and looked at Bill Weigand. Her eyes were apparently no more moist than they had been. “To have it end this way!” she said. “You'll forgive me, Inspector?”

Bill made small sounds, indicating he understood, forgave, shared her sadness. He knew that she knew his rank, and did not remind her.

“To think that I saw her!” Elaine Britton said, and there was a hopeless sigh in her voice. “That I might have—” Again she rested her forehead against the curling fingers of her left hand. This time she was more briefly submerged. She looked at Bill and shook her head, mourning a lost opportunity.

“You're sure it was she?” Bill said. “I've only what you told Sergeant Stein on the telephone, so far.”

“I had to telephone,” she said. “You realize that, don't you, Inspector? It isn't that I want to hurt anyone. I can't bear to hurt anyone.” She looked at him earnestly. “Really,” she said. “Really I can't.”

Bill appreciated her hesitancy, her tender-heartedness, her unwillingness to hurt. He applauded her triumph over these obstacles, her decision to help the law. She listened, nodding a little.

“I knew you'd see,” she said. “You'd understand. Poor, dear Peggy. Of course I didn't see—”

“No,” Bill said. “I realize that. Tell me just what you did see, Mrs. Britton.”

“I was coming here, you know,” she said. “To see Tony. There was a truck in front of the new service entrance—in front here, you know? So the cab driver couldn't stop where I told him, and stopped at the restaurant entrance instead. I was walking down, toward the private entrance.”

“When was this?”

“A little before noon,” she said. “I telephoned Tony and said I'd try to make it by noon and—oh, Tony! Tony!”

The pretty blond head bowed again on the curling fingers, with their perfect, reddened nails. Bill Weigand made appropriate sounds.

“I mustn't,” she said. “I must just go on, mustn't I? As if—as if it were someone else?”

“If you can,” Bill said.

“A little before noon,” she said. There was a large diamond on her left hand; it sparkled into Bill Weigand's eyes. “I was—oh, a few steps away and I saw her. She was going into the private entrance. I knew, of course, she was going to see—Tony. She—I'm afraid she was desperate, poor darling. You know what I mean, Inspector?”

Bill shook his head.

“She tried so hard,” Elaine Britton said. “So desperately hard, poor darling. Tony used to tell me and we were both so sorry for her. But when you don't love somebody you can't make yourself, can you? That's what Tony used to say. ‘If I don't love her any more, I can't make myself, can I, Tootsie?' And of course he couldn't, could he?”

“No,” Bill said. “Oh no.” He passed his right hand across his forehead, unconsciously.

“But she just couldn't seem to understand that it was all over,” Elaine Britton said. “Poor darling Peggy. That Tony—that Tony was in love with someone else, and it was all over. So hard to realize, isn't it?”

“Yes,” Bill said. “Oh yes.”

“Well,” Elaine Britton said, “where was I? Oh yes—I was a few feet away and she could have seen me, but she was looking straight ahead, the way she always does, you know, and going into the private entrance. So of course I knew she was going to see Tony.”

“And—?”

“Of course I wasn't going to butt in,” Elaine Britton said. “It would have been too—too harrowing, don't you see? Poor, dear Peggy and—and little me barging in? It would have been so dreadful for her, because she couldn't help knowing—seeing—”

She bent her head again.

“So I just waved to the taxicab—the same taxicab, actually—which was just starting up and went on and kept my appointment. The one I was going to break just to see Tony. And then, when I telephoned Tony, he—he—” This time her slender shoulders shook under the hugging sheer wool dress. They seemed to invite patting, but Bill did not accept the invitation. There was a few seconds' pause, which seemed oddly awkward, and then she looked up again. Her eyes were perhaps a shade more moist.

“And that's all,” she said.

“You are certain that this was Peggy Mott? Mr. Mott's wife? You'd testify to that? You couldn't have been mistaken?”

She uncrossed her knees, sat straight and looked at him through eyes which no longer seemed quite so large, nor at all moist.

“You bet I can,” she said. “Try me, darling. Just put me on the stand, Lieutenant. I know that—I know Peggy Simmons when I see her.”

She stood up and, unexpectedly, seemed to sway a little.

“Tony!” she said, in a low, caressing voice. “Oh—darling. Darling!”

Bill came around from behind the desk and helped her on with her mink. She started for the door. She stopped.

“My address—” she began.

“Just give it to the sergeant, please,” Bill said. “We'll be in touch with you.”

“And my telephone number?” Elaine Britton said.

“Right,” Bill told her. “Give it to the sergeant.”

She went, then. She left fragrance behind. The ventilators took it out.

Bill waited a minute or two and called Mullins. Mullins came, looked at the lieutenant and said, “Boy, oh boy.”

“Right,” Bill said. “You got her address. And telephone number?”

“Yes
sir,”
Mullins said, and was advised to be himself.

“About that one I want to know everything,” Bill said. “Where she came from, what she does, who pays her rent, what her friends think of her, who she—”

“O.K., Loot,” Mullins said. “I get it.”

“Specifically,” Bill told him, “where she was a little after noon today, and how long she stayed there. And whether she was going to be, or
thought
she was going to be, the next Mrs. Tony Mott.”

“O.K., Loot,” Mullins said. “We'll turn her inside out.” He considered this. “Which would be a pity,” he added. “On account of her outside—”

“Right,” Weigand said. “I noticed, Sergeant.”

“Sure,” Mullins said.

“All right,” Bill said. “Let's see this guy, William. The maî—the guy who stands in the foyer and pulls them in.”

“O.K., Loot,” Mullins said.

5

S
ATURDAY
,
4:05
P.M. TO
8:45
P.M.

“The simplest way to look at it,” Pam North had said as they waited in the foyer of the Restaurant Maillaux for the doorman to get them a cab, “is that we pointed, and that you can't just point and then sit back. You have responsibilities.”

“I wonder if that's really the simplest—” Jerry began then and interrupted himself. “All right, Pam,” he said, “I know what you mean.”

“Obviously,” Pam North said. “It's as clear as anything.”

“What you don't consider is that it was Leonard who pointed,” Jerry said. “Not us.”

“Through us,” Pam pointed out. “He pointed and we—we relayed it.”

Jerry had said that he was not arguing. He had said that his office ought to know he would not be back, and had found a telephone booth. The doorman had said, “The taxicab, madame,” and Pam had said, “In a minute, tell him,” and a very slender, blond young woman came in from the street and said, to no one in particular, “Br-r-r!” She was wearing mink, a great deal of mink. Too much mink, really, Pam North thought. The blond young woman looked at Pam North appraisingly, could be seen thinking, “Oh, leopard,” and looked away again. She looked around, saw William, immaculately idle, and said, “Oh, William. Isn't André here?”

“No,” William said. “I'm sorry, Mrs. Britton. He went to the bank, I think.”

The bank's closed, Pam North thought.

“Most banks are closed on Saturday,” the mink said.

“The bank,” William said. “A lawyer. I do not know, Mrs. Britton. You wished to see him, particularly?”

“It'll keep,” the mink said. “After I see the cops, maybe. Where're the cops?”

Mullins answered that one, coming out through the coatroom. He looked at Pam, said, “I thought you'd gone, Mrs. North,” and looked at William, who was waiting to speak. “O.K.?” Mullins said to William: William said, “This lady was asking for you, Sergeant. It's Mrs. Britton.” He looked at the mink. “Mrs. Elaine Britton,” he amplified. Mullins said, “Yeah, we've been expecting you, Mrs. Britton. The lieutenant wants to see you.”

The mink took one more look at the leopard, marking it down with a glance. She preceded Mullins through the coatroom, apparently knowing the way. Mullins looked back over his shoulder at Pam and made a fleeting grimace which might, Pam thought, mean anything. She made a face in return, which meant “Watch it, Sergeant,” and Jerry came out of the telephone booth saying, “All right, Pam. He get a cab?”