Murder within Murder (14 page)

“I hadn't seen Amelia for days,” Nora said. She spoke quickly, almost hurriedly. She took up her glass and finished the pale drink that remained in it. She held it up and Kennet Frost took it and went to a table which held a silver tray and bottles. He made her a fresh drink and brought it back.

“I can't believe anybody would have wanted to kill her,” Nora said. “Why should they?”

That was one of the things he was trying to find out, Bill said. Meanwhile, Mrs. Frost would have to believe that somebody had killed her. Somebody had substituted sodium fluoride for one of the powders she apparently was in the habit of taking.

“Dr. Powers' Medicine,” Nora Frost said. “She'd taken it for years. She used to take boxes of it up to Maine when we went there in the summer. You remember, Ken?”

“Yeah,” Kennet Frost said. “Anyway, I remember your telling me about it. You said she was always dosing herself.”

He was a polite young man, and had been to the right places. So there was not quite contempt in his tone. But people who dosed themselves were a long way from his circle.

Weigand said he supposed that many people knew of Amelia Gipson's habit, and Nora Frost said everybody who knew her, she should think. She sipped her drink. She stretched lovely legs out in front of her and looked at them.

“Don't think I'm not sorry about it,” she said, still looking at her legs. “I am sorry. Amelia was—she was somebody I'd known all my life. She was—family.”

“You were fond of her?” Weigand wanted to know.

She looked at him.

“Not particularly,” she said. “Except—because she was family. She more or less brought me up.” She smiled faintly. “As I've no doubt you know,” she said. “I never thought much about her until recently, I suppose. As—as a person. She was just Aunt Amelia, who brought me up, and who spent summers with me up in Maine while Ken was gone.”

She stopped, because Kennet Frost was looking at her. It was a look Weigand had no trouble interpreting. Major Frost thought his pretty wife was talking too much.

“All right, Major,” Bill said. He spoke lightly, easily. “Mrs. Frost's attitude is quite understandable.” He paused and his smile faded. “Miss Gipson was poisoned,” he said. “Somebody wanted to kill her and did. This wasn't a result of—a lack of particular fondness, as Mrs. Frost puts it. She was killed because somebody thought it was necessary, for his own purposes, that she be out of the way.”

“You asked if she was fond of her aunt,” Frost reminded him. His tone was suspicious. He would fight for Nora, and he had proved to be a good fighter. In that other world. It was interesting that he thought she might need fighting for.

He was merely, Weigand said, trying to find out how well Mrs. Frost had known her aunt. It was useful, he said, to find out as much about people who had been murdered as could be found out. The way to do that was to talk to people who had known them well.

“Character enters into murder,” Weigand said. “The character of the victim, as well as the character of the killer.”

“It's all right, Ken,” Nora Frost said. “The lieutenant knows I didn't kill Amelia.”

Weigand shook his head at that, but a smile tempered the implication. He said that, abstractly, he didn't know that anyone had not killed Amelia Gipson. He would not know that, he pointed out, until he knew who had killed her.

“Well,” Frost said, “Nora didn't. I didn't.”

“By the way,” Weigand said, “speaking of you, Major. Just how much earlier was this earlier plane you caught?”

“Four hours,” Frost said. He looked hard at Weigand. “I wasn't here yesterday afternoon, if that's what you're getting at,” he said. “I was in Kansas City, arguing about a priority with some civilian.” He paused and seemed, somehow, to be looking at himself. “Hell,” he said, and there was surprise in his tone, “I'm next thing to a civilian myself.” It seemed to astonish him.

“And you telephoned your wife from LaGuardia?” Weigand said. “When was that?”

“About ten,” Frost said. “I told her not to come out. I came here and we went out to lunch. We got back about three and have been here since. Why?”

Weigand told him why. He told him succinctly.

“I never heard of the girl,” Frost said. “It seems like a tough break. But I never heard of her.”

“Mrs. Frost?” Weigand said.

She shook her head, her softly curled brown hair floating about it. She had never heard of Florence Adams. Her face reflected a kind of concern. She said it was too bad about the girl. She sounded as if she thought it too bad about the girl.

“Where did you lunch?” Weigand said. He saw hardness in Frost's face.

“Major,” he said, “I'm doing a job that has to be done. I'm a policeman, looking for a murderer. I never saw you and Mrs. Frost before in my life, or heard of you. I don't know whether you are the most truthful people in the world, or whether you're liars. All I know—
know
, Major—is that you are wearing an Army uniform with wings and ribbons and a Major's leaves.”

The major looked annoyed. Then he smiled suddenly.

“Want to see my I.D. card, Lieutenant?” he said.

“Yes,” Weigand said. He looked at it. When he returned it, his own badge was cupped in his hand. He let them both look at it.

“All right,” Frost said, “We're both who we say we are, apparently. We had lunch at Twenty-one.”

“Did you see anyone you knew?” Weigand asked.

Frost smiled, but his wife answered.

“I'm afraid we only saw each other, Lieutenant,” she said. Her voice was soft.

“And would rather now,” Weigand agreed.

Frost nodded. There was emphasis in his nod. He was, Weigand thought, alternately mature and very young.

“We don't have to hurry,” Nora Frost said, and her voice was soft. She was speaking, Weigand thought, to her husband rather than to him. “Not any more.”

Kennet Frost smiled at her. Weigand thought they were very much in love, and had already waited a good while. Frost brought himself back, sharply, youthfully. He was very matter-of-fact, suddenly.

“Obviously,” he said, “Nora inherits money now that her aunt is dead. You know that, I suppose?”

“Oh yes,” Weigand said. “Naturally.”

“And you think it's a possible motive?” Frost said. he was still matter-of-fact.

Bill said that money was always a possible motive. Particularly a good deal of money; particularly if somebody needed money.

“We don't,” Frost said. “You can check on that.”

“Right,” Bill Weigand said. “So we can.”

“Why don't you?” Frost wanted to know. “Then if you find out we are broke and have to have Nora's money so badly we can't wait a couple of years, and find out that I was really in New York yesterday and not in Kansas City, come back?”

“Yes,” Weigand said, “if I find out those things, I'll come back. Meanwhile, there's a point I want to clear up with your wife, Major.”

“Well,” Frost said, “clear it up.”

Weigand hesitated a moment. He wished Major Frost would go out and buy a package of cigarettes. He obstructed. But Weigand doubted that Frost would go.

“Right,” he said. He turned to Nora Frost, his movement excluding her husband. “You wrote a letter to your aunt the day before she died, Mrs. Frost. It seemed to us an odd letter, under the circumstances. Do you remember it?”

The girl's eyes seemed to flicker for a second. She picked up her glass and she was stalling for time. The glass trembled slightly in her hands and, although she raised it to her lips, Weigand did not see her swallow. He had seen that happen before; a glass can clink against teeth if the hand holding it trembles.

The girl waited too long, and then, knowing it had been too long, spoke too quickly.

“Yes,” she said. “I remember it.”

“You will understand, then, why we want an explanation,” Weigand said. His voice was no longer casual.

“That's why you came, isn't it?” Nora said.

“Wait a minute!” Frost said.

Weigand turned to him.

“You're not in this, Major,” he said. “Unless you also know about the letter. Do you?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Frost said. “But you can't—”

“Your wife wrote her aunt a letter which requires explanation,” Weigand said. “I expect to get that explanation. Don't think I can't, Major. If you interfere, I shall have to take Mrs. Frost somewhere else to get the explanation. If it's a simple one, I'd rather not. But you can have it either way.”

The major looked at Weigand for a moment. He looked puzzled.

“Hell,” he said, “you talk like the colonel.”

Weigand did not smile. He said, “Well, Major?”

“I'm sorry, sir,” Major Frost said. “If anything needs explaining, I know Nora can explain it.”

“Right,” Weigand said. “I have a copy of the letter here, Mrs. Frost. Do you want me to read it?”

The girl spoke very quickly. She spoke almost as if she were frightened.

“No!” she said. “Oh no, please!”

Then, involuntarily, she looked at her husband and looked away again. Weigand's eyes followed hers. The young face of Major Frost was very young—and very puzzled.

“Look,” Frost said, and his voice was puzzled, too. He held out his hand, tentatively, as if for the letter. “Let me—”

“No,” Nora said. “Please, Ken. I don't want you to.”

Bill Weigand was glad he had not insisted on having Frost go out for cigarettes. He was very glad.

“Well, Mrs. Frost?” he said. “What is the explanation?”

The girl hesitated. It was obvious she was trying to work out a story. It was pathetically obvious. It was also obvious that she had not expected this, and had no story ready. Which might mean she was innocent. Or might merely mean she underestimated the police.

“I.…” she said. “It wasn't anything important.”

Weigand shook his head.

“It had to be important, Mrs. Frost,” he said. “You can't remember the letter. You said something that your aunt was going to do was …” he referred to the letter … “‘wicked and barbaric, no better than murder.' It had to be important.”

The girl shook her head. But there was no assurance in the gesture.

“I was excited,” she said. “I … I thought … she was trying to … to come between Ken and me.”

Weigand waited, but she did not continue. He thought she could not continue. She was clearly frightened now, and no longer hopeful of hiding it. Her slender hands were working together. He looked at Frost and saw bewilderment—and more than bewilderment—in his face. Frost, he would guess, was entirely surprised by this, because he was entirely new to this.

“How?” Weigand pressed her. “What had she found out? You wrote that—?”

“I know!” the girl said. “I know what I wrote! I told you not to read the letter!”

“Then tell me what it means, Mrs. Frost,” Weigand said. “Tell me what she had found out; what she was doing—what made you threaten her, Mrs. Frost.”

“I—” the girl started. Then she turned to her husband, and all her face asked his help.

“You don't need to explain anything, darling,” Frost said. His voice was low and steady—and it was surprisingly gentle. “You don't need to explain anything. Nobody can make you.”

Weigand waited.

“Nobody can make you, Nora,” Frost repeated. “I know it was all right—I—I know it was all right. Whatever it was.” He turned to Weigand. “You can't force her to explain anything, Lieutenant,” he said.

Weigand shrugged slightly.

“Obviously,” he said. His voice was cold and entirely without emphasis. “But I can make her wish she had, Major. If there is an innocent explanation, she'd better give it.” He paused, and now he spoke directly to Mrs. Frost. “Even if it is embarrassing,” he said.

“It isn't—” the girl began, and then the doorbell rang. Bill Weigand did not say anything, but he could hardly have been annoyed more.

Major Frost clearly was not annoyed. He went quickly across the living-room and up the two steps to the entrance balcony. He said, “Hello, John,” with what sounded like real pleasure.

“Is Nora here?” another male voice said—a lighter, quicker voice than the major's. “Backley just called and the police—”

Frost picked it up quickly.

“Somebody from the police is here, John,” he said. “Lieutenant Weigand. He's been asking Nora a few questions.”

John Gipson was in by that time. He stopped and looked down into the living-room. He was a slim man, slighter than his brother-in-law, quicker in movement. You could have guessed the relationship between him and the girl on the sofa. Their hair was of the same brown and their brown eyes were similarly set. And as John looked across at his sister, he smiled quickly, and there was warmth as well as enquiry in his smile. He turned to Weigand and did not smile.

“I suppose you think we were in a hurry for the money,” John Gipson said. His tone hinted that that was the obvious thing for a policeman to think; that, being obvious, it could not be true.

“I don't know,” Weigand said. “You're John Gipson? The nephew? I did hear you were in a hurry for the money, as a matter of fact.”

“Backley talks too much,” Gipson said. “Have you been badgering Nora?”

“I've been asking her questions,” Bill Weigand said, mildly. “If they badgered her I suppose it was because they were hard questions to answer. You were in a hurry for the money? You wanted it to develop a new process you've discovered?”

“Backley's an old fool,” Gipson said. He spoke chiefly to his sister. “I always said he was an old fool.”

“Backley is sworn to uphold the law and assist the police,” Weigand told him. “He's an officer of the court. Did you want money in a hurry?”