Murder Has Its Points (12 page)

The boy—six feet, anyway, and thin as all get out. (Which was an expression Mullins hadn't heard for years.) Black hair, and it usually needed cutting. Face thin, like the rest of him. Eyes set way back in his head. As she had said, acted as if he had a chip on his shoulder, and looked like it, too. “I don't say,” she added, “that a lot of girls wouldn't go for him. Give him sideburns and a
gui
tar.”

Mullins stopped at Mr. Purdy's desk to repeat what he had said about Mrs. Mason's room. Purdy guessed it would be all right. Mullins regarded him briefly. “Sure, I'll see to it,” Mr. Purdy said.

Mullins went crosstown to the far West Forties and up three flights of stairs which needed sweeping, breathing air that needed changing. The room the boy had had was small; it had a grimy window on an air shaft; it had a single light bulb depending from the ceiling. The room, like the only slightly larger room on the seventeenth floor of the Hotel Dumont, had been emptied.

The woman who, traced into basement lodgings, admitted she “ran the joint,” was buxom, had very red lips and almost equally red cheeks and wore what Mullins took to be a housecoat. She was very highly scented. She smiled brightly until Mullins identified himself. The smile disappeared, at that.

She didn't know anything about the kid; not a damned thing about the kid. He rented the room and that was the end of it. He had, that morning, told her he was leaving; he had carried a cheap suitcase; he had been wearing a raincoat, and dark trousers. He had been paid up to the end of the week and had tried to get a refund, and had been told no soap. He had not said why he was leaving, or where he was going.

“There'll be men around to go over the room,” Mullins said. “Don't let anybody in it until they say it's O.K. Don't go in yourself.”

“Listen, copper, I've got to make a living, don't I? Suppose somebody wants to rent—”

“You heard me,” Mullins said. “Nobody. We'll make it as quick as we can.”

Mullins took the Eighth Avenue subway to Twenty-third Street, and walked to 230 West Twentieth.

The girl had been in a great hurry to see James Self. That much was obvious. It was reasonably obvious, also, that she had wanted to get to Self to find out what Self had told a detective, had been asked by a detective. Which was entirely understandable; natural curiosity would take care of that. Only—had the girl been frightened? Or, Bill Weigand thought, am I riding a hunch to nowhere?

He walked through the Village street, seeking a telephone. It would be fine if, by now, precinct had come up with a sniper, complete with rifle, void of any motive for murder save a psychotic need to put bullets into people. Weigand could, then, quit bothering people who had cause to dislike Anthony Payne and free himself of the nagging suspicion that their causes were just. A burly, bearded novelist. A lean, unbearded bookseller. Two down (only by no means down) and how many more to go? A playwright-director who had expressed the wish that a collaborator drop dead. A handsome young actor who had lost his job but, conceivably, now gained more. (Nothing to prove that; merely something to be asked about.)

Bill found a drugstore, and a telephone booth. He got Stein. No sniper nabbed that Stein had heard of. Mullins was there, and Mrs. Mason, and also a son of hers, appeared to have taken a powder. Mrs. Gerald North had telephoned, and would call back. The bullet which had killed Payne had not been too badly damaged, so if they found a rifle they would know if it was the right rifle.

“I'll come in,” Bill said, and went in.

The abrupt departure of Mrs. Mason and her son did not, Mullins pointed out, need to mean anything. That was, it presumably meant something—like, for example, Mrs. Mason having got a better job somewhere. Nothing, Mullins said he was saying, that would do them any good. But still—

“The descriptions are no good,” Mullins said. “The kid—maybe, except there could be hundreds it would fit. And as for hers—thousands. Course, we can send a sketch man up and have him see what he can work out with Ma MacReady. Only, do we want her?”

Bill tapped his desk with active fingers. Mrs. Mason must have seen advantages in unannounced departure from the Dumont which outweighed the advantage of picking up money due her on the way. Another job seemed an insufficient advantage.

“She could have fired a gun from her room,” Mullins said. “If she's good with a gun. The kid, I suppose, could have borrowed his mom's room. Only—why the hell?”

Bill couldn't help with that. He could, however, offer another suggestion.

Mrs. Lauren Payne was, perhaps, afraid she had, while under or partly under sedation, said something which would damage someone. Most likely, of course, would damage her herself. Pam North could remember nothing which might incriminate anybody. Possibly Mrs. Mason had heard more, or had a better memory.

“Yeah,” Mullins said. “You think a payoff?”

A sufficient payoff, by Lauren Payne, for forgetfulness, for disappearance before memory was officially jogged, would, it was obvious, explain the abrupt departure of Mrs. Gladys Mason. It was reasonable that she might have taken her son along.

“The Paynes had a room overlooking the street,” Bill said, and his drumming fingers paused briefly. “Fourth floor. She was in it—anyway, Payne told the Norths she had gone up to their room because she had a headache. Only—”

He looked across the room at a wall with a crack in it. He saw the front of the Hotel Dumont. He saw a narrow marquee, extending, to be sure, only a part of the distance from building to curb. But still—

“From Mrs. Mason's room,” he said, “the marquee doesn't shield?”

“Nope,” Mullins said. “Doesn't make it any easier. But somebody could shoot under it. If Payne was leaning the right way—”

“Give your friend Purdy a ring,” Bill said. “Find out where the Paynes' room is. If it's in the middle of the building, above the marquee—”

Mullins got it. He reached for the telephone on Weigand's desk, but at that moment it rang. “Get one outside,” Mullins said, as Weigand reached to silence the shrill telephone. Bill nodded and said, “Weigand,” and then, “Hello, Pam.”

“Bill,” Pam said, “she's one of the wives.”

She paused, quite clearly in expectation of response—presumably of somewhat excited response.

Pamela North now and then comes up with answers to questions which have not yet been asked. She also draws conclusions from premises not stated. One can only explore.

“Who?” Bill said. “Of what wives?”

“And,” Pam said, “she's the one who was with her after I was and—what did you say?”

“Only,” Bill said, “who are we talking about, Pam? And, for that matter, what?”

She said, “Bill! Mr. Payne's murder, of course. About the housekeeper being one of his wives. The middle one, actually. After Faith and before Lauren. He says the son isn't his; but Faith thinks probably he is. Bill, Anthony Payne must have been really an awful man.”

“Pam,” Bill said, and spoke slowly. (The way to overtake Pamela North is sometimes to move very slowly indeed.) “Are you talking about Mrs. Mason? Mrs. Gladys Mason?”

“She spells it g-l-a-d-d-i-s,” Pam said. “Of course.”

“She doesn't now,” Bill said. “If we're talking about the same woman. She was married to Payne? Her son is his son?”

“He denied it,” Pam said. “When he was suing for the divorce. And, apparently, got a man to back him up. Hired the man, probably. And then didn't support either of them. So you see—”

“Pam,” Bill said. “My dear—listen, Pam. Let's start at the beginning, shall we? The beginning was—”

“Oh,” Pam said, “at Sardi's. But I don't see what real difference that—”

“Please,” Bill said.

Pamela North can be patient with slow minds. She can be specific with those who must have each ‘t' crossed, ‘i' dotted. She was a little disappointed in Bill Weigand, but she tempered the breeze.

“It does,” she said when she had finished, “give you two more suspects, doesn't it? And I hope it isn't either of them, because if Faith is right they've had raw deals, haven't they?”

“Payne seems rather to have specialized in them,” Bill said. “Mrs. Constable's reason for going to you, not to us—did it seem a little thin, Pam?”

“Not then,” Pam said. “When I repeat it to you—perhaps. But—” She paused. “Of all of them,” Pam said, “I'd think she had the least motive, Bill.”

It was a jump again, but Bill could make this one with her. It might appear that Faith Constable was offering a red herring. But any obvious grudge Faith might have had against Payne must, surely, have grown threadbare with years. Any obvious grudge—One not obvious?

“Mrs. Mason and her son have disappeared, Pam,” Bill said.

Pam said, “Oh,” and sounded unhappy. Then she said, “Bill. The busboy I told you about? Who seemed to be—glaring at Tony Payne. Or, of course, at Jerry, but I didn't really think so. A tall, thin, dark boy. Was he—?”

“I think so,” Bill said. “It fits together.”

And Pamela North, again, said, “Oh,” in the same tone and then, “I hope not, Bill.” She paused. “I hope it will be a sniper. Don't you?”

It would, Bill agreed, be very convenient if it turned out to be a sniper. He said they would have to keep on hoping. He said, “Listen, Pam. You won't—”

“Of course not,” Pam North said. “Does Mrs. Payne—I mean the latest, of course—have a lot of money of her own?”

Bill Weigand flipped through his mind quickly. Somebody—Of course. Gardner Willings.

“I understand she has some,” he said. “I don't know whether it's a lot. Why—?”

“Mink,” Pam said. “Very minky mink. It probably doesn't matter. That is, obviously mink
does
matter. Can you and Dorian come by for a drink later?”

He chuckled at that. He said he didn't know; that he'd let her know if they could.

“For yourselves alone,” Pam said “Don't laugh. Goodbye, Bill.”

Sergeant Mullins came in after a few minutes. Bill had spent them looking at the crack in the wall opposite. He had let the information (which would have to be checked, of course) that Mrs. Payne had money of her own trickle through his mind. If she had enough—She would be free now to, among other things, marry somebody else—

The Paynes had had a two-room suite at the Hotel Dumont. It had been on the front. It had been on the fourth floor, well toward the right as one faced the building. Guessing, without seeing, Mullins supposed that someone who wanted to might have fired from the window of one of the rooms and sent a bullet under the marquee, into a selectd skull. If a good enough shot.

“The thing is, Loot,” Mullins said, “she checked out just before noon.” He sighed. “They don't seem to stay put, do they?”

The Paynes were registered as from Ridgefield, Connecticut. “Could be,” Mullins said, “she just went home. I asked the State cops to make a check, just for the fun of it. O.K.?”

“Right,” Bill said.

“Live on something called Nod Road,” Mullins said. “Funny thing to call a road, isn't it? Was that Mrs. North phoned?”

His tone was not exactly accusing. Sergeant Mullins does not really share Inspector O'Malley's view of Mr. and Mrs. North. On the other hand, where the Norths are screwiness is.

Bill said yes, and told Mullins what Mrs. North had called about.

Mullins considered.

“You know,” he said, “that's not so screwy, is it? When you think the kid wants to go to college and apparently they can't swing it? And he sees his old man—what mama tells him is his old man, anyway—rolling in it? And his mother's had a dirty deal and—” He paused. “It's not really screwy at all, is it, Loot?”

9

Facts are collected; they are poured into a mind and shaken together, in the hope of a precipitate. But some facts are hunches only; some facts are, at best, splinters from the truth. Where a man was at a certain time may be a fact. But who the man was, what kind of man he was, may be of far greater importance, and that can never be more than guessed at, with guesses formulated under conditions necessarily adverse. Almost no one is quite himself while being interrogated by a policeman. Some who are normally mild turn belligerent; the pugnacious may grow wary. Criminal investigation has been loosely compared to many things, including the putting together of a jigsaw puzzle. It is seldom that simple. The pieces of such a puzzle are of fixed shape, immutable. Men and women change shape when touched.

William Weigand gazed at a wall with a crack in the plaster and thought about men and women, and waited for the Connecticut State Police to pass along information which would, in all probability, prove irrelevant. If Mrs. Lauren Payne preferred her home to a hotel room while she wrapped grief around her—always assuming she had grief to wrap—there was no reason to suppose it would mean anything. Or, for that matter, would it mean anything if she were not in a house on a road called Nod. She might have gone anywhere—to friends or relatives; to another hotel less memory-haunted. Nobody had told her to stay put.

The trooper who had driven from the Ridgefield Barracks to Nod Road to see whether Mrs. Payne had come home was only one of a good many men busy that November afternoon turning over stones to see what might be under them. Two men went through files of the Supreme Court, State of New York, seeking records in the case of Payne vs. Payne, handicapped by the fact that the year of the hearing was not precisely known and of the two who could have precisely given it, one was dead and the other missing. A man with a sketch pad in hand sat with a large pink woman in a small office at the end of a long, dim corridor and made pencil lines on paper and said, “Is this more like it, Mrs. MacReady? Or are the eyebrows more like this?” When he had finished with that, he would go to another part of the hotel and say much the same things to someone else, most probably a busboy. “Begin to look like him now, would you say? Different about the mouth, huh? More like this, maybe?”