Murder Is Suggested (10 page)

Mullins's face lighted up a little to mirror this modest inspiration. It was the expression of someone who thinks that, for special acumen, he deserves a small pat on the head.

“You've got quite an imagination, sergeant,” Finch said, in a tone which did not pat the waiting head. “Liz—Liz is dead. Nothing—nothing'll do her any good now. It's all written off.”

Mullins's face showed acceptance, disappointed acceptance. He nodded his head to underline that. He said he guessed Mr. Flinch—“sorry, Finch. Can't think what's wrong with me this morning”—had something there. And, if anything came to Mr. Flinch, would he let them know? Sometimes things do come up that way—

“Sure,” Finch said. “I don't imagine anything will.”

To which Mullins sighed acceptance.

“Anyway,” he said, “gets me out in the air, this kind of thing. Mostly they tie me down at a desk. And it's mighty nice weather for this time of year. Little cooler than yesterday. Must make you want to get out on the court, Mr. Flinch.”

“Course,” Finch said. “Oh—I get out. Have to keep in practice. Spent all yesterday afternoon trying to get a few more yards into my drives. Up at this club in Connecticut.”

“Must have been nice up there,” Mullins said, although it is not easy for Mullins to believe that the country is ever “nice.” “Weather like this probably brings a lot of golfers out at this club.”

It was a little clumsy; it didn't, however, matter too much now.

“Not in midweek,” Finch said. “Not this late in the season. Anyway, you don't practice driving with a lot of players on the fairway, sergeant. Had it mostly to myself yesterday afternoon. From lunch until pretty near dark.”

Which covered that—and covered it pretty thinly.

Mullins left, then. Mr. Finch's morning newspaper was outside his apartment door, as it had been when Mullins arrived. This time, Sergeant Mullins picked it up. It was folded several times. One fold cut through a headline. What was visible read:

KMAN

ESSOR

SLAIN

Mullins said, “Oh, here's your paper,” and handed it in, and Rosco Finch took it and said, “Thanks.”

So—if Flinch didn't know already that Jameson Elwell had been shot to death, he would in a few minutes.
If
he didn't know already. And he would put two and two together, undoubtedly, since he seemed a bright enough young man.

Mullins called the office. Weigand wasn't in; Stein was still anchor man.

“Bill wants you to check out on young Hunter, Al,” Stein said. “After that, meet him for lunch. He's gone up to Dyckman to talk to a professor named Wahmsley. Meet him for lunch at the Algonquin about one. Check?”

“Sure,” Mullins said.

“With Mr. and Mrs. North,” Stein said.

“Oh,” Mullins said. “Does Arty know?”

“Not from me,” Stein said. “We can hope and pray, Al.”

6

Martini, sitting on the window sill, turned her head when Pam came into the bedroom and said, “Ouoowagh,” accenting the last syllable. She also laid back her brown and pointed ears. She had been looking down at the sunny street, too far below, so her blue eyes were almost black.

“No,” Pam said, “you can't go out, Teeney. Not until we go back to the country next spring. But I do think you're speaking much more clearly than you used to. ‘Out,' Teeney. Say ‘Ouoot.' Without the ‘wagh.'”

“Mroough-a,” Martini said, relapsing into her native Siamese. “Ow-
ah
.”

“I don't know, I'm sure,” Pam said. “There's no use being so gruff about it. You know you can't go out in New York, and there aren't any mice here anyway. I mean—there are probably a great many mice, but they aren't available. Nice Teeney.”

Teeney closed her eyes, as if in thought, opened them part way—partly opened they slanted sharply upward—and made a remark and waited.

“Duh baby,” Pam North said. “Duh
pretty
baby.”

Martini blinked again, slowly, basking in human speech, in affection. She did, however, look back over her shoulder at the window. She spoke briefly.

“I know,” Pam said. “It's very limiting to be an apartment house cat again.” Martini interrupted. “Cat,” Pam repeated, because Martini likes to be reassured by direct address, and “cat” does as well, or almost as well, as “Teeney.” “Particularly for a cat of your vigor. Duh baby. And who doesn't have the dissatisfaction of knowing how old she is. Which must be a pleasant way to be.”

“Mrow-ow,” Martini said, the last syllable added very quickly. She got off the window sill and came to Pam and rubbed against her legs, revolving around them, dark brown tail carried high.

“Goodness,” Pam said. “I can't stand around talking to you all morning. Somebody's coming.”

“Ur-agh,” Martini said. Martini does not really like company, thinking more than two humans—and those carefully selected—make a crowd.

Pam sat at her dressing table and flicked her hair, and said, “No,” firmly when Martini tried to get on her lap to help. Martini sat on the floor and stared at Pam as if she had never seen her before, and didn't like her much now. “And don't sulk,” Pam said and powdered her nose and then, apropos of nothing in particular, stuck out her tongue at her reflection.

Half an hour, Faith Oldham had said, and it must now, at a quarter of eleven by a small wrist watch (which Pam was almost sure she had remembered to wind), be time for her to come. Under, presumably, a misapprehension with which both Pam and Jerry North are long familiar.

“We're not detectives,” Pam would tell Faith Old-ham. “We've never been detectives. All we do is
know
a detective.”

She would be, as usual, listened to politely. At least, when they had met at Jameson Elwell's—dear Jamey. What an awful thing to happen—Faith Oldham had seemed polite. Shy, not at all certain of herself, saying little—but polite. So she would say, “Of course, Mrs. North. I realize that,” not, in fact, realizing it at all, or believing it at all.

“It's really true,” Pam would say then. “Oh, murder cases happen to us. I can't deny that. But it isn't the other way around. Whatever Inspector O'Malley thinks.”

Only, Pam thought—getting up from the dressing table and going to the living room, with Martini trotting behind her, waiting for a lap to settle—only I won't bring the inspector into it. The trouble with me is, I'm so likely to say the one phrase too many. So as to make things clear. And people do seem to get confused so easily.

She was just going into the living room when the buzzer sounded. Martha popped out of the kitchen door at the other end of the room, saw Mrs. North and popped back in again. Pam opened the room, looked up at Faith Oldham and said, “Good morning.”

“It's so good of you—” the tall girl said—the tall, too-thin girl with startled blue eyes in a fragile face; the somehow gawky girl; the girl who seemed to live in an unfamiliar world. Pam North, who is no handshaker by habit, nevertheless reached out a slim hand to the girl's larger, thinner, very long-fingered hand.

“It isn't at all,” Pam said, and drew Faith Oldham into the room, and said, “Sit there—” and then, just in time, “
No.
Wait a minute,” and lifted Martini out of the “there” chair. Martini sat on the floor and, indignantly, licked her left shoulder.

“If it's her chair,” Faith Oldham said.

“All the chairs we've got are her chairs,” Pam said. “If we went by that, we'd stand all the time.”

“She's very pretty,” Faith said.

Pam looked at Martini.

“Yes,” she said. “Even with the hole in her head.”

It is not actually a hole, although so referred to. It is more in the nature of a wart. Martini does not mind having it mentioned.

Faith Oldham looked puzzled.

“Never mind,” Pam said. “You know, Miss Oldham, Jerry and I aren't detectives.” And the rest of it, as envisioned, including the inspector, although resolved against.

“Mrs. North,” Faith said, “I've—I've got to talk to somebody. And there isn't anybody—and—I keep feeling it's my fault and—” She seemed, suddenly, on the verge of crying. She knotted her thin hands together in her lap.

“I don't—” Pam said.

“If I'd been there when I was supposed to be,” Faith Oldham said. “Not let mother—just gone anyway—don't you see?” Her eyes were very wide, questioning.

Pam's mind hurried. This tall—this touching—girl appealed for help, but appealed thinking Pam knew more than she knew, could respond more quickly. And now a question would seem—cold, unresponding. It would seem as if she did not want to help when—

Pam's mind hurried over what Bill had told them. Of course—

“Of course,” she said. “Had met Mr. Hunter at the bookshop at three. But my dear—”

“Mrs. North,” Faith said, “I know what all of you think—Captain Weigand and you and Mr. North and everybody. And—it
isn't true.
Carl couldn't do a thing like that. And—why would he? Jamey was his friend. Jamey was helping him. You don't know how much. And to think that he'd—he'd—”

This time she did cry. She groped in her purse blindly and pulled out a draggled bit of tissue and dabbed at her eyes with the tissue.

“We're so alone,” the girl said, her soft, low voice watery too, uneven. “Now with Jamey gone and—” She did not finish.

“Listen, dear,” Pam said. “Bill—that's Captain Weigand—doesn't think Mr. Hunter killed Jamey. At least, I'm sure he doesn't.”

“I know he
does
,” Faith said. “And Hope's right—why shouldn't they think that, when he was there—or could have been there—?”

Hope? Oh, of course. Faith called her mother by her given name. When childen did that—

“Wait a minute,” Pam said. “Tea or coffee?”

The girl looked at her.

“Elevenses,” Pam said. “I always do.”

Which is not true; which then seemed a good idea.

Faith didn't care which. She did not seem to think about it. She looked at her twisted hands.

“Just sit still,” Pam said. “Here—have a cigarette.”

The girl shook her head.

Pam walked the length of the room, poked her head into the kitchen, said, “Coffee please, Martha,” and came back. The girl had not moved. Pam lighted a cigarette and said it wouldn't be a moment.

“I shouldn't have come,” Faith said, rather suddenly. “I—I just had to talk to somebody. Somebody whose mind wasn't already—made up. Because if I had been at the bookshop at three we could
prove
—”

“Of course you should have come,” Pam said. “And nobody really thinks Mr. Hunter had anything to do with it.”

She spoke firmly. And, she thought, I'd better cross my fingers, since I don't know what Bill thinks. Except that, if he didn't, Bill won't think he did.

“They do,” Faith said. “All of you do. And Hope—She keeps saying she told me he wasn't—”

“Whatever your mother's told you,” Pam said. “She doesn't know any more about it than anybody else.” The girl looked at her with eyes very large. “Of course she doesn't,” Pam said, in the tone—she trusted—of an oracle. “Now—”

Martha came in with a tray, with two cups steaming. Instant, obviously, in so little time. Well, instant was all right.

“Drink your coffee,” Pam told Faith Oldham, and demonstrated by sipping hers. Yes, instant. Good enough, though.

“Now,” Pam said. “So far as I know, all there is against Mr. Hunter is that he was with Jamey a little while before somebody shot Jamey. And—I suppose there's nobody else at the bookshop who remembers seeing him?”

That supposition was reasonably obvious. It seemed, nevertheless, momentarily to startle Faith. Then she said that that was just it. There had been a lot of people at the bookshop, but none Hunter knew, and he had not bought anything, or even spoken to any of the clerks. It was just a place to meet—one waited to meet, and browsed and—

“We all do it,” Faith said. “And—get interested in what we're reading and don't notice other people and—”

“Mr. Hunter's tried to find somebody who remembers seeing him there? At the right time?”

“Yes. And—there isn't anybody.”

“Look,” Pam said. “Mr. Hunter—he was one of Jamey's—subjects? You know what I mean?”

“Jamey hypnotized him,” the girl said. “Yes. He did—lots of people. Mrs. North—there isn't anything wrong in that. It doesn't—do anything to people. Weaken their wills or—or anything. All that's—superstition.” She was anxious. “Really like—” She looked around. Martini was sitting and looking up at her, distantly. “Like the belief that cats suck the breath of babies,” she said.

“That's nonsense,” Pam said, warmly. “And that they're any more sly than anybody else. And that they don't love people and—some woman said once they don't even
recognize
people. Somebody who was supposed to
know
. A
psychologist.
And I don't believe she had ever
met
a cat. Why, Martini—”

Pam North managed to stop herself.

“About hypnotism,” she said, bringing herself back. “I've read a little in Jamey's book. That is, anyway, Jerry has and's told me. It's nothing against Mr. Hunter that he let Jamey hypnotize him. Doesn't mean a thing about him.”

“Except,” Faith said—and now she was drinking her coffee, now she reached out and took a cigarette from a box—“except that he's one of those who can be. About one in five can. Nobody seems to know why. Why the percentage, I mean. Or, actually, how it works—one man thinks it's some kind of conditioned reflex.”