Murder Comes First (6 page)

The younger man turned to Barton Sandford.

“She thought you were—well, too casual about it, Bart,” he said. “That Sally must be in some kind of trouble.”

“For God's sake,” Sandford said. He reddened slightly. “Sally's my wife. Couldn't Grace ever—” He stopped abruptly. He said, “Sorry, Paul.” He hesitated a moment, and said, “Your mother was hearing from Sally every couple of weeks. Sally was all right.” He turned to Weigand, and said he supposed it was obvious enough.

“Sally's left me,” he said. “Not permanently, I think—I hope. She said something about things not working out right, that she had to get away for a while and think about things. I tried to talk her out of it, and couldn't. She took her car and promised to write and—and said she hoped she'd come back. It's nothing to do with this. I've told people she's on a trip, which God knows is true enough. She can take care of herself.” He turned back to Paul. He said Grace should have known that. Again he said he didn't get it.

All Paul Logan knew, he said, was that his mother had become worried. Perhaps it was something in one of the letters. He didn't know.

“She knew how you felt,” Paul told Sandford. “She said, ‘Maybe I'm a foolish old woman' but—but she wasn't old. Not really. She—” He seemed about to lose control, then to regain it. “She asked me to go to St. Louis, where Sally's last letter came from—to find Sally and talk to her, and see—well, just see if she was all right.”

“She's all right,” Sandford said, and now his voice was a little harsh. “She wants to be left alone.” He looked down at Paul. “Look,” he said. “People grow up. Some people.”

It was getting a long way from Grace Logan's murder, Bill Weigand thought. But he let it go; perhaps it was merely going the long way round, in some fashion not now clear. More probably, it was merely one of those things about people that come out when lives are slashed by murder; one of those things with no value, no application, of no use to him as a policeman. But he let it go. He listened.

Logan had flown out to St. Louis and been unable to find Sally Sandford there. She had written on the stationery of a hotel, but she wasn't at the hotel.

“And,” Logan said, “she hadn't been. That's what they told me, anyway. No record of a Mrs. Sandford.”

It had been, apparently, like stepping up for a step that wasn't there, coming jarringly, flat-footed, on an unexpected level. The boy—one kept thinking of him as a boy—must, Bill Weigand thought, have had words ready to say to Sally Sandford; have had a smile ready and a handshake ready. But there was nobody to receive words or smile or pressure of hand.

He had, Paul Logan said, tried one or two other hotels, without result. He had felt that, in some fashion, he was failing to perform a very simple task, and had decided it was his inadequacy, and inexperience, which were to blame. So he had hired a private detective to help. The detective, beyond more or less establishing that Sally, at least under her own name, was not at any likely hotel in the city, had not helped.

“Not likely to,” Bill told him. “Even if he was interested in more than his fee. It's a big town. All he could do was ask around. The police—”

Paul Logan shook his head. His mother wouldn't have wanted that.

“Nor I, for God's sake!” Barton Sandford said, somewhat explosively. “Didn't it ever occur to you two that Sally's my—” He stopped again, reddening.

“In any event,” Bill Weigand pointed out, “the fact you couldn't find her proves nothing, Mr. Logan. She may never have planned to stay in St. Louis, may merely have used the hotel writing room. It's common enough.”

It was time, Bill decided, to end this journey down a side path. He got back to it.

Paul Logan was sure, to the point of vehemence, that his mother had had no enemies; was unable to suggest anyone who would want her death, or gain by it. Most of her money came to him, he thought; some went to Sally. (That either of them might be suspected did not appear to occur to the slight, handsome youth. Which could be naïve innocence but did not have to be.) Probably some sort of provision had been made for Rose Hickey.

“Then, as he mentioned Mrs. Hickey's name, Paul hesitated and looked puzzled.

“Isn't she around?” he asked.

Bill told him she wasn't, told him what appeared to be the reason she wasn't.

“Quarreled?” Paul said. “Mother and Mrs.—” But then he stopped. It was, Bill Weigand thought, as if he had been incredulous and then had remembered something, or thought of something, which sharply abated incredulity.

“You know what about?” Weigand asked. “Or can guess?”

“How could I?” Paul Logan asked. He pointed out he had been away for four—no, five—days.

Whatever disagreement the two had might have started at any time, Weigand told him. During the past five days, to be sure; as easily, a month ago.

“I don't know anything about it,” Logan said. “You'll have to ask Mrs. Hickey.”

“Right,” Bill said. He added they were going to, that they had sent for Mrs. Hickey.

“They're coming here?” Paul asked, quickly.

“They?” Bill repeated.

Paul Logan looked as if he had said more than he had planned.

“I suppose I was thinking of her daughter,” he said, after a moment. “Lynn. She'd naturally come with her mother, I'd think.” He looked at Bill Weigand intently. “You'll be wasting your time with Mrs. Hickey,” he said. “She wouldn't have anything to do with—with anything like this.” He paused. “It must have been an accident,” he said.

“Can you,” Bill asked him, “suggest any way a capsule full of potassium cyanide could get mixed with your mother's vitamin capsules? Or, for that matter, any innocent reason for filling a capsule with potassium cyanide?”

Logan slowly shook his head.

“Right,” Bill said. “Neither can I.”

“Unless—” Barton Sandford said, and Bill turned to him.

“Unless someone planned to kill an animal of some sort,” he said. “A pet dog, for example. I mean, that might account for the loading of the capsule. Theoretically.”

“Very,” Weigand told him. “Did your mother have a dog, Mr. Logan? Any kind of an animal she might want to dispose of?”

Paul Logan shook his head.

“What happened,” Bill told both of them, “is that someone with access to Mrs. Logan's medicine cabinet put into the bottle of vitamin capsules a capsule filled with a lethal dose of cyanide. The purpose was to kill her. The poison capsule could have been put in yesterday; it could have been put in a week ago—two weeks ago, for that matter. The bottle was two-thirds empty. Originally, it contained fifty capsules. Say she'd take, at the prescribed rate of two a day, oh—thirty, thirty-five. There's your two weeks, since the capsule could be placed anywhere the murderer chose in the bottle.”

He looked at the other two men.

“Which is the reason,” he pointed out, “that there's no point in asking either of you, or anyone else, for that matter, where he was when Mrs. Logan died—or where he was yesterday, or the day before.”

That was the trouble with poison, Bill thought. He mentally damned poisoners. They were, when they used something like cyanide, more merciful than most who killed. But they were also much harder to catch.

“Whoever killed your mother, Mr. Logan,” he said, “had to have two things—access to the medicine cabinet; motive for murder. Access for a minute would be enough—we may find that a hundred people had it. You obviously did, Mr. Logan. You, Mr. Sandford?”

“Sure,” Sandford said. “And the servants, Mrs. Hickey, her daughter. Any guest Grace may have had in the past two weeks who wanted to wash his hands, or her hands. There's a bath downstairs, two—I think it is—on the floor above. Grace usually suggested anyone use hers. It's more convenient.”

“Right,” Bill said. “So—”

“Come to think of it,” Sandford added, “my wife's one of the few people I can think of who couldn't have planted the stuff. Not within the past two weeks. She's been away a month—month and a half.”

“However,” Bill Weigand told him, “you don't know where. So—you don't know she couldn't have been in, say, St. Louis, flown back here for a day, flown back there, continued her trip.”

“Look—” Sandford began, standing up, very tall, flushed.

“You brought it up,” Bill told him. “I'm merely suggesting the problems, not that your wife was here, Mr. Sandford. I'm merely stressing that, in cases like this, we fall back on motive.”

And do we fall, Bill thought. And does a jury want more!

“We—” Bill started again, and this time Mullins interrupted him from the door.

“Lieutenant,” he said, “Mr. and Mrs. North are here.” He paused. “They've come back,” he said.

Pam North was at the door behind Mullins and Jerry was behind her.

“Oh Bill,” Pam said, “something—oh.”

Bill said “Hello Pam,” and waited.

“We called Dorian,” Pam North said. “Right after we dropped the aunts at the Welby. She's all right, Bill.”

“Dorian?” Bill repeated. “Was there supposed to be—?”

“We thought you'd want to know,” Pam said. “We were going to call, but if there's one here it isn't listed. But the Plaza's just around the corner, anyway.”

Slowly, Bill Weigand ran the fingers of his right hand through his hair.

“But you're busy with Mr. Sandford and—” Pam said, and stopped and looked at Paul Logan.

“Mrs. Logan's son,” Bill told her. “And her nephew. Barton—” But then he paused in turn. In some fashion, Pamela North appeared already to know Barton Sandford. He looked at Sandford, whose face was interested but puzzled. It did not appear that he knew Pamela North. “Mr. and Mrs. North,” Bill said. He did not try to explain them further.

Paul Logan sat down suddenly and covered his face with his hands.

“We're both so sorry,” Pam said. “Such a dreadful thing.”

She looked at Bill Weigand, and moved her eyes slightly, conveying something. It was not clear what; it was clear only that there was, as she said from the doorway, “something.” Something not about Dorian, therefore about Mrs. Logan's taking off; something—of course. Something which concerned either Sandford or young Paul Logan. Bill was rather pleased with himself.

He motioned the Norths out into the hallway and up the stairs to the floor above. On the landing there, there was a telephone on a table.

“I told you there would be,” Pam said to Jerry. “I think it ought to be a rule that everybody is. Democracy.”

“Listed in the directory,” Jerry told Bill Weigand. “As it happens, we aren't ourselves,” he told his wife.

“Only because of the butler,” Pam said. “And all those other people. The one with a dog to be boarded.” She amplified. “Somebody put want-ads in, with our telephone number,” Pam told Bill. “An awful joke, or something. So we came unlisted. Bill, you weren't having him followed, were you? Because he was coming here anyway.”

“Who?” Bill asked.

Pam told him.

“At first,” she said, “we merely assumed it was one of yours. But after we dropped the aunts, we wondered. Aunt Lucy thinks you're wonderful, Bill, incidentally. Thelma doesn't.”

“After you dropped the aunts,” Bill said.

“If it wasn't the police, who was it?” Pam said. “Someone you ought to know about, anyway. So we telephoned you. I mean, we couldn't, so we came.”

The police had not been following Barton Sandford. Bill hesitated, used the telephone briefly. The district attorney's people were not following Sandford.

“A shamus,” Pam said. Then she looked puzzled. “Only he looked sober enough,” she added. “And not bruised. Of course, we didn't see him very clearly.”

Bill Weigand got the details. Not for the first time, as Pam gave them, Bill noticed how clear she could be when dealing with the objective, how sharply see and remember.

“I'm sure he had been following Mr. Sandford,” Pam said, as she finished.

“Right,” Bill said. He was sure too. He was sure, also, that the follower had known his business. If he knew his business, he probably would be waiting across the street for Sandford to reappear.

“Oh, Mullins,” Bill Weigand called down the stairs. Mullins came, was instructed, went down the stairs, unhurrying; went out, unhurrying, onto the sidewalk in front. After standing there a moment, he crossed the street. Disarmingly casual, he looked into the shadows. After a little he recrossed the street, went up the stairs to the third floor landing, said, “No soap, Loot. He's gone.”

“He was there?” Bill asked.

“Somebody,” Mullins said. “Long enough to smoke a couple of cigarettes. Camels. Looks as if he took his time.” He looked at Pam and Jerry North. “Of course,” he said, “we couldn't prove it. It's screwy.” He paused. “Like always,” he added.

“Sergeant,” Pam said, “how can we help it? We just
saw
it.”

“O.K., Mrs. North,” Mullins said. Inadvertently, he beamed at her. He slowly erased the beam. “All the same,” he said, and looked at Weigand.

It didn't fit, Bill thought. Or, did it? Perhaps Sally Sandford had done more than leave for a trip. Perhaps she had left watchers behind. It would be doing it the hard way, with Reno the easy one. He asked the Norths to tell again about the follower.

The light had been from street lamps, leaving shadows. He had appeared and disappeared. A man of no characteristics outstanding in such light. About medium height; of medium weight; a soft hat worn to dip over the forehead.

“I had an impression he was well dressed,” Jerry said. “I don't know why.”

The man had, Bill thought, been adept at his trade, or lucky at it. He had waited for a time, then gone. If he were trying to find Barton Sandford in what might, sometime, be termed a compromising situation, he had known the Logan house was not the place for it, since otherwise he would have remained. The presence of the police car, which any private operative would have recognized, had not immediately thrown him off.