A Pinch of Poison (30 page)

A voice broke in. It was a woman's voice, low and musical. It said: “Wait a minute, officer. That isn't right.”

Weigand turned and looked toward the voice. The woman was slighter than her voice indicated; she was a slender girl with reddish brown hair which hung softly down almost to her shoulders and she had brown eyes which seemed immoderately large. Even after you realized what makeup had done for them, they still seemed immoderately large. And now they were also, Weigand decided, frightened.

“Why isn't it right?” he said.

“Because I had lunch with him,” the girl said. “Or coffee, anyway. At the Automat up Eighth Avenue.”

“Yes?” Weigand said.

“Yes,” she repeated. “He said he only had time for coffee. He said” … she paused and looked at Weigand … “he said he had to get right back to—to see Mr. Ahlberg.”

II

T
UESDAY—3:10 P.M. TO 3:45 P.M.

The stage set was a rectangular room with gray walls and bright pictures. Standing with his back to the auditorium, Weigand faced casement windows, curtained and outlined by heavy yellow drapes. At his left, the windows sliced a corner from the room. There were cupboards under the windows and their cushioned tops made a windowseat. Along the left wall, there was a long, modern table. Close down to the footlights at the left was a door.

Weigand let his eyes flicker over the people sitting in chairs in a semicircle in front of him, and continued an examination of the set. He was detached, measuring, and hoped he was dominating the situation, as per instruction. He was giving the men and women in front of him time to get nervous, if they were going to.

The windows ended three-quarters of the way across the rear of the set. Then a railing ran out from the rear wall, bounding a raised platform, two steps up from the floor of the rest of the room. In the rear wall, opening off the platform, was a door. In the right wall, also opening off the platform, was another door. A little down-stage from this second door, another rail jutted from the side wall for a few feet, ending as the steps began. Closer to the footlights on the right wall was a fireplace and over it a modern French painting of a woman sitting by a window and looking out. The woman was rather oddly shaped, and oddly attractive, and engagingly undressed. Weigand thought of other things. He set his feet a little apart on the mauve carpet which covered the stage floor and let his eyes drift slowy over the half-circle of possible murderers.

The girl with the large eyes was named Alberta James, and she sat third in from the left. Weigand, facing everybody—he hoped—who had been in the theatre when Carney Bolton was killed, ticked off her name in his mind. Slender girl with reddish brown hair hanging almost to her shoulders, and big, disturbing eyes—that equaled Alberta James. There were—Weigand counted quickly—exactly seventeen others. “Too damned many,” he told himself. He waited while Mullins' eyes plodded around the semicircle; waited for Mullins to turn to him and say it. Mullins obliged.

“Jeeze, Loot,” Mullins said. “Why do we
always
get the screwy ones?”

There wasn't any answer. Weigand wondered too.

“Right,” he said. “Is everybody on the stage?”

Humphrey Kirk leaned forward in his chair beside Alberta James and appeared to count off. Then he turned to Weigand and nodded.

“All our crowd, I guess,” he said. “Plus some of your crowd?”

The last was a question. Weigand looked at Dorian and the Norths, sitting at the opposite point of the semicircle, and a little behind the others, and nodded. Deduct his crowd and he still had fifteen. With luck, he had fourteen innocent persons and a murderer; had fourteen who might be as puzzled as he was at the moment and one who wasn't puzzled at all—one who had stood, or sat, behind Dr. Carney Bolton, drawn an ice-pick—from where?—felt its points for reassurance, perhaps, and stabbed it into the back of Dr. Carney Bolton's neck, having great luck. (Or had Bolton's head been already inclined forward, so that the serrations of the vertebrae were visible? Had there been enough light to see the serrations if Bolton's position made them prominent?)

“Right,” Weigand said. “Now here is where we stand. Somebody, and I think one of you in front of me, stabbed Dr. Carney Bolton some time within the past two or three hours. Bolton is dead. Whoever did it used an ice-pick. Whoever did it was lucky and killed Bolton, as you say, instantly. I am Lieutenant William Weigand of the Homicide Squad, and I'm in charge here at the moment. This is Detective Sergeant Mullins. That makes everything clear. Right? Now—does anybody want to say something?”

He stopped and looked at them. He looked at them slowly, turning as his eyes picked them out, one by one, in the semicircle. He made it last; made it cold and quiet and challenging. He gave them plenty of time to think it over; gave plenty of time for somebody's nerves to tighten, for peril to scratch along somebody's spine. And nobody said anything. Everybody met his eyes with appropriate expressions of serious regret and innocent bewilderment. Weigand finished his scrutiny with an unsmiling stare at Mrs. North, who raised slender shoulders in response.

“Right,” Weigand said. “So that's the way you want it.”

His tone was level and without expression. The idea they were to get was that this was implacable routine; that a machine had started. He hoped they got that idea.

“All right, Sergeant,” Weigand said. “Let's find out who we've got here. We'll take them—we'll take them as they sit, starting here.” He returned suddenly and pointed to the man sitting at the extreme left prong of the semicircle. Weigand stood with his back to the footlights, and the flat light from an overhead border above him threw heavy shadows down on his face. Shadows fell across his eyes. The faces of the others, although also shadowed, were clearer in the light.

“You,” Weigand said, expressionlessly to the man. “Suppose you stand up so I can look at you. Who are you?”

The man who stood up, Weigand decided, was exactly the kind of man who, multiplied, makes a crowd. He was anybody with the quality of everybody. He was about middle height and his shoulders were middling broad. He had blue eyes and not much light brown hair, and as he stood up he drew glasses from his pocket and began to polish them with a handkerchief he drew slowly from the breast pocket of his jacket. He looked at the glasses, held them up to let the light from the border panel shine through, cleaned off another spot and put the glasses on. Then he looked at Weigand. When he spoke his voice was mild and entirely unexcited.

“My name is Smith,” he said. “Penfield Smith, if it makes it any better. I wrote this god-damned thing.”

He then stopped and looked at Weigand, without any visible emotion. Weigand waited and Mr. Smith took off his glasses and put them back in his pocket. There was nothing to indicate that he could not now see Weigand quite as well as before. Weigand thought he was going to have to speak, but Smith cleared his throat.

He spoke without heat and deliberately.

“As for Dr. Bolton,” he said, “I did not stab him with an ice-pick. It seems to me, however, that it was an excellent idea. I would very much have enjoyed stabbing Dr. Bolton, although I should have preferred something blunt. Was the ice-pick blunt, Lieutenant?”

Weigand stared at him. The detective's face did not display more emotion than that of Penfield Smith. Weigand ignored grumbling noises of surprise from Mullins.

“Thank you, Mr. Smith,” Weigand said. “We'll have some questions to ask you later.” He paused and spoke generally to the men and women before him.

“It won't be necessary,” Weigand said, “for each one of you to deny the murder. We'll give you that chance later. Now I want your names, who you are, and a chance to look at you one by one. Right?”

Several nodded. The rest merely stared. Mr. Smith sat down, took out his glasses and held them to the light. He shook his head sadly, took out his handkerchief, and began to polish.

“Right,” Weigand said. “Now—you, Mr. Kirk, isn't it?”

Kirk stood up. He pushed back the lock of red hair which fell over his forehead.

“Humphrey Kirk,” he said. He spoke nervously. “I'm directing what Penny calls ‘this god-damned thing.' This ‘thing' is a polite comedy, we hope, and is called ‘Two in the Bush.'” He stopped and stared at Weigand. “As an outsider,” he said abruptly, “what do you think of that for a title?”

“Very,” Weigand said, “provocative. Thank you, Mr. Kirk.”

Kirk sat down. Alberta James, who was next, stood up without prompting.

“I'm in the cast,” she said. “Sally Bingham.” Her voice was low and steady. Weigand felt she was keeping it so with an effort.

“Sally Bingham is the name of the character you play?” Weigand said, “Right. Thank you, Miss James.”

Alberta James sat down, the curtain of her reddish hair swinging a little as she moved. Her large eyes remained focused, expectant, on Weigand. Weigand stood for a moment, turning an idea over. He turned back to Kirk.

“Have you got a program handy?” he asked. “I'd like to look at these names as they come up.”

“A proof,” Kirk said. He raised his voice. “Jimmy!” he yelled. There was no answer. “
Jimmy!
”

“All right,” a voice said, muffled, from somewhere behind the fireplace. “Coming up.”

Weigand stared hard at Kirk.

“I thought you said everybody was on stage,” Weigand said. “Who's this Jimmy?”

“Stage Manager,” Kirk told him. “I forgot. I sent him out for something.” Kirk paused and looked perplexed. “Now what the hell was it?” he asked himself. The door above the fireplace on Weigand's right opened and a harried-looking young man with scrambled hair entered. He carried a cardboard container.

“Here's your coffee, Humpty,” he said. “And what do you want now?”

He looked at the tableau before him.

“What's the matter?” he inquired, as if he was sure something was. “Are we going to have a new third act?”

“Listen,” Penfield Smith said suddenly and loudly, standing up and reaching for his glasses. But when he got them he shook them at Jimmy. “Once and for all that last act stands. And to hell with you and Bolton.” He stopped suddenly.… “Well, to hell with you, anyway,” he said. “Bolton has preceded you.”

“These men are detectives, Jimmy,” Kirk broke in, and waved one hand loosely, restrainingly, at Smith. “Somebody stabbed Bolton. He's dead.”

“Good,” Jimmy said, matter-of-factly. He looked at Weigand.

“Jimmy Sand,” he said. “Stage Manager for Humpty here. I was out.”

“Right,” Weigand said. “Sit down somewhere.”

Sand drew up a chair behind Kirk and leaned forward, looking over the director's shoulder.

“Oh,” said Kirk. “I forgot. The inspector wants a proof of the program.”

“All right, Humpty,” Sand said. “Coming up.”

He pulled a roll of paper from his pocket, flicked off a rubber band, and separated a long, smeared sheet. Mullins took it from him and handed it to Weigand. In familiar type, it carried a description of “Two in the Bush.” It read:

WEST FORTY-FIFTH STREET THEATRE

Max Ahlberg

presents

TWO IN THE BUSH

A New Comedy

By Penfield Smith

WITH

Ellen Grady and Percy Driscoll

Directed by Humphrey Kirk

Scenery Designed by Arthur Christopher

Costumes Designed by Mary Fowler

CAST OF CHARACTERS

(in the order of their appearance)

SYNOPSIS OF SCENES

Act I. A Sunday afternoon in late fall.

Act II. Immediately following.

Act III. Later that night.

The action takes place in the apartment of Martin

Bingham, in the East Sixties.

Weigand said he saw. The next person in the row was a very handsome young man, his features regular and his teeth, as he showed them smiling, miraculously white.

“Hubbard,” he said. “First name John. I play Alberta's brother, chap named Wade. Wade Bingham.”

Weigand identified Hubbard on the program and said, “Right.” Hubbard sat down and turned to Alberta James and smiled, showing the white teeth. Alberta's smile was faint and momentary but it was a smile.

Weigand nodded to the next man in the row. The next man spoke without rising. He was a plump man with pale hair and he wore his glasses all the time. His voice was light and sharp. He said he was Christopher. He stopped saying anything.

“Christoper?” Weigand repeated. “Christoper what? Oh, Arthur Christopher?”

The plump man nodded. He seemed very depressed by everything. Weigand began a nod to the next in the line and Christopher stood up quickly, excitedly.

“Lieutenant,” he said, “I simply have to get away from here. Terry Packard will go mad. I mean, she'll go mad. She's over there waiting—
waiting
—for the drawings and I just
sit
here.”

Weigand looked at him, and shook his head.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Christopher,” he said. “You'll have to wait with the rest. For the time, anyway. Probably we'd all rather be doing something else.”