A Pinch of Poison (20 page)

He waited for Graham to say something. Graham merely looked at him.

“That's right, isn't it?” Weigand said. “She didn't know anything?”

“No,” Graham said. “She didn't know anything. What could she know?”

Weigand shrugged.

“If I knew that—” he said, and let the sentence trail. “I suppose you don't know anything yourself, Mr. Graham, which might be—dangerous? To yourself or to your wife?”

Graham looked surprised.

“I?” he said. “What would I know?”

Again Weigand shrugged.

“Nothing, I suppose,” he said. “Unless you saw something at the roof last night—something, perhaps, which didn't mean anything to you at the time, or even something you've forgotten. Something that might be dangerous to the murderer?”

Graham shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I wasn't there long, as I told—as I told this man.” He looked at Mullins.

“Mullins, Mr. Graham,” Weigand said. “Sergeant Mullins.”

“As I told Sergeant Mullins,” Graham said.

“By the way,” Weigand said, “when were you there?”

Graham thought it over.

“From about seven-thirty,” he said. “At a guess. Until—oh, perhaps a quarter of nine. Then Miss Hand and I went back to the office and worked for about two hours, or perhaps longer. I didn't see Miss Winston.”

He paused.

“Or,” he said, “I didn't recognize her if I did. I'd only met her once, and not for very long and I don't remember people very well. And when they're all dressed up, in their war paint—well, I can recognize the paint more easily than the women.”

Weigand thought a moment.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “That's your business, isn't it? Something and Paulette, isn't it?”

“Henri et Paulette,” Graham said. Mullins looked startled at the pronunciation. “Cosmetics and perfumes and the like. Why?”

“No reason,” Weigand told him. “It just happened to come up.”

Weigand spoke easily, offhandedly.

“It seems to be a good business,” he said. “It keeps you working nights, apparently.”

“Not often,” Graham said. “But recently we've had quite a rush. That's one reason I took Miss Hand to the roof—thought she rated some sort of reward for the time she's been putting in.”

He seemed, Weigand thought, rather unduly explanatory, as if having taken his secretary to the Ritz-Plaza were a little heavy on his conscience.

“I suppose,” Weigand said, suddenly, “that Mrs. Graham understood—didn't get any false impressions, I mean. Because if she did it might explain—” He broke off, as if embarrassed. Graham looked puzzled for a moment, and then rather indignant.

“Oh,” he said, “I see what you mean. I suppose I can't blame you for the notion. But there's nothing in it. I telephoned Margaret and told her why I couldn't get home last night, of course, and that I was taking Miss Hand to dinner.”

“Oh,” Weigand said. “I didn't really think—”

“If you want to know what Margaret said, I'll tell you,” Graham said. “She said, ‘Mind you take that poor girl to a nice place for dinner, making her work on a night like this.'”

“And,” said Weigand, “you did. It's all very reasonable.” He stood up.

“Try not to worry about your wife, Mr. Graham,” Weigand said. “I think we'll find her, safe and sound.” He looked at Graham, demanding his attention. “I really think we will, Mr. Graham,” he said.

Graham stared at him, apparently attempting to find reassurance; apparently not finding it.

“It's easy to say that,” he said. “It's damned easy to say that. But things don't seem very safe around here, do they?”

14

W
EDNESDAY

11:00
P.M.
TO
11:50
P.M.

Back at Headquarters, Weigand stared at reports on his desk and spoke harshly of detectives. The reports had come by telephone from Hanlon and Smith and Healey, who had been set to dog the footsteps of, respectively, Randall Ashley, Madge Ormond and David McIntosh. All three detectives were very sorry and, Weigand suspected grimly, apprehensive. Hanlon and Smith, working together, had somehow managed to lose Ashley and the girl; Healey was beginning to have dark suspicions that he had lost McIntosh. All had good explanations and would, Weigand knew, have even better ones when they came on the carpet.

Healey's was the best; looking at it, Weigand was puzzled to think what he would have done in Healey's place, with McIntosh taking cover in the Harvard Club. Healey, a high school man himself, had waited outside in Forty-fourth Street. He had waited from the middle of the afternoon, when McIntosh left his office and went directly to the club, until almost ten o'clock, getting more nervous and perplexed by the moment. Inside the Harvard Club, protected from high school students and other tribesmen without the law, McIntosh had grimly stayed. Or at least, Healey hoped he had stayed. There seemed to be very little Healey could do about proving it.

Finally he had asked the doorman whether Mr. McIntosh was in the club. The doorman had looked at him doubtfully and asked, in less direct words, what it was to him. He might, the doorman admitted, have Mr. McIntosh paged if—Mr. Healey—insisted. The doorman seemed to doubt whether either Mr. McIntosh, the club or Harvard University, which, the doorman's manner implied, had final jurisdiction, would approve. Still—Healey decided against having McIntosh paged. It would, eventually, have made an issue where there was no issue to stand on. He didn't want McIntosh for anything; he merely wanted to know where McIntosh was. It would be difficult to explain this to McIntosh, son of the James McIntosh and much more influential than any first-class detective, if McIntosh did appear.

So Healey had backed out and telephoned for instructions. Before he backed he had managed to find out that there was a service exit by which members could leave if they chose.

So, Weigand realized, they had no real way of knowing where McIntosh was during the period of Mrs. Halstead's murder; no way at all. He might in the end emerge harmlessly from the club, and again into Healey's ken, and still they wouldn't know. If they had occasion to ask him he might say that he had been there all the time, and they would be unable to prove anything either way. So—

Hanlon and Smith had less excuse, although even in their cases there was palliation. A little before six o'clock, Ashley had left his apartment and Hanlon had duly picked him up. Ashley had gone by cab to Madge Ormond's apartment, or at least to the house in which her apartment was. Hanlon had joined the watchful Smith on the sidewalk and compared notes. Both “subjects” seemed safely cooped. Smith had suggested that Hanlon hold on while he, Smith, went around the corner to grab a sandwich and Hanlon had agreed, stipulating that when Smith came back he, Hanlon, would be wanting a sandwich too. The sandwiches had occupied the better part of an hour, and it was not until then that it occurred to Hanlon that most houses have front and rear doors.

Hanlon had gone to the rear and verified his suspicion that this house conformed to the general rule, and the two had watched both doors industriously until almost nine. Then Hanlon, whose alertness, if not sensational, seemed more acute than that of Smith, had begun to wonder. Eventually, the two detectives had gone to Madge Ormond's apartment and, when there was no answer to knocks, had let themselves in, illegally but understandably. Neither Ashley nor Miss Ormond had waited.

Here was, at any rate, obvious intention to throw off surveillance, Weigand thought. McIntosh might have eluded Healey quite unconsciously—might not, in fact, have eluded him at all. But if Madge Ormond and Randall Ashley had got away, as they had, they could only have done it by plan. It was hardly likely that they made a habit of leaving the building by the back door, going through another door in a board fence, and emerging through the basement kitchen of a restaurant on the next street. Now, clearly they would have to be picked up. He directed that they be picked up, as soon as they reappeared, and brought in.

The telephone rang. It was Lieutenant Kenman, calling from Riverdale with news. They had been lucky; with most stores and restaurants in the vicinity closed, they had come on a drugstore which Mrs. Halstead had visited—about, the clerk thought, eight o'clock or a little before. The rain was just slackening. The clerk knew Mrs. Halstead and could be positive in his identification. She had wanted aspirin and—this made Weigand blink—a package of Camels.

“And this is going to get you,” Kenman went on. There was interest, close to excitement, in his voice. “She wanted to know about atropine sulphate.”

“Did she?” Weigand said. “I'll be damned!”

She had asked the clerk and, when he was a little vague about it, had inquired whether they didn't have a book in which she could look it up. Knowing her, the clerk had seen no objection to letting her see the United States Dispensary. She had sat down on a bench and read about atropine sulphate and now and then, the clerk said, nodded as she read. Then she had asked how one could get it. The clerk had told her that she couldn't get it in a retail store, but that with reason given, a wholesale supply house probably would sell it. It wasn't a narcotic, he had told her, so that there was no law against its sale. She had nodded over that, and asked whether it was used for any commercial purpose—in addition, she explained she meant, to its stated medical uses. The clerk was vague, but thought it was. Somebody had told him that it was an ingredient in certain eyewashes. Mrs. Halstead, he said, had seemed interested and, curiously, pleased. Then she had gone out. There was still a little light, then, and he had seen her walk toward the corner she would turn on her way home.

Weigand thanked Kenman, hung up and drummed on the desk. Mullins watched him. Weigand gave him a summary.

“What's the matter, Loot?” Mullins said. “Don't it fit in?”

“I don't see it,” Weigand admitted. “Except that if Mrs. Halstead had been the murderer, she wouldn't have needed to look up atropine at this date. But getting killed herself had pretty well cleared her, anyway.” He drummed further. “Kenman says she looked satisfied at the end. I wonder what she found out?”

“Yeh,” Mullins said, helpfully. “I wonder?”

Weigand called the Missing Persons Bureau and asked whether anything had been turned up about Mrs. Graham. The lieutenant in charge wanted to know what he thought they were? He said they hadn't found her in the neighborhood; that they were preparing a description to go out on the teletype and that since Weigand was so interested, they were going beyond the routine applicable to this stage of the hunt—they were carrying on interviews, checking up on taxicab calls and generally worrying people.

“Right, Paul,” Weigand said. “Keep at it.”

“I think,” he said, after a moment, “that we'd better have a man on the Graham house; one of our own men. Have we got any who know the facts of life—about back doors and the like?”

“Well,” Mullins said, “there's Stein, if he's still on duty. He's sorta bright, in some ways.”

Stein was still on duty. He was sent up to Riverdale in a radio car. Weigand looked at his watch. It was close to midnight. It was foolish, he decided, to wait up the rest of the night on the chance that Ashley and Madge Ormond might return and become available for questioning. He thought they would return, and that he could pick them up tomorrow. It wasn't on the cards, he told himself, that they were really planning to hide out. Tomorrow would be another day. He could use another day, he thought, rubbing his eyes, stinging from weariness, with his finger-tips.

“
O.K
., Loot,” Mullins said, when Weigand told him they would knock off until tomorrow.

15

T
HURSDAY

9:20
A.M. TO
11:30
A.M
.

“Right,” Weigand said, “that's the way I thought it worked.” He put the telephone receiver back on the hook in the booth. He looked rather pleased with himself, Mullins thought. Mullins was pleased too, although he didn't know precisely why. The Loot was working things out, Mullins guessed.

At Bellevue, Dr. Jerome Francis put his own receiver back. He looked puzzled. He shook his head, admitting he didn't see what Weigand was getting at.

“However,” Dr. Francis said, dismissing it. He could read about it in the papers. Meanwhile he had some interesting brain sections to do. Dr. Francis drew on rubber gloves and prepared to do them.

“What've you got, Loot?” Mullins asked, curiously, as they got in the car. Weigand seemed in good humor.

“A hunch,” Weigand told him, uninformatively. “Nothing you couldn't have on what we've got, Mullins, if you'd use your head.” Weigand looked at Mullins' head. “I guess,” Weigand said, with some doubt.

“Listen, Loot,” Mullins said. Weigand grinned at him. They went across town to the Placement Foundation. They rode up to Miss Crane's office. Miss Crane was cheerful and a little hurried. “The committee's meeting,” she told Weigand.

He wouldn't, Weigand said, keep her. He merely wanted to look over whatever data they might have on Michael.

“The placement record,” Miss Crane told him. “It's supposed to be confidential, you know.” She smiled. “But I've already told you most of it,” she said. “So you may as well see it all.” She turned to her secretary.

“Have them send in Michael's record,” she said. “Michael Osborne. The lieutenant can read it here, if he likes, while I see the committee.”

That would do admirably, Weigand told her. The record arrived—it consisted of loose sheets, bound in cardboard folders. Weigand skimmed it, reading the condensed record of Michael's first appearance; a summary of the conversation with “Richard Osborne” who now more than ever, Weigand decided, had life only in someone's imagination; records of the child's physical examination, which showed him a small boy evidently pleasing to doctors; a summary of his psychological test, with the psychologist's findings. Michael was doing well mentally, too. He had passed all the tests at the three-year level, most of those at the four and one or two at the five. He was superior; estimated I.Q. 120 plus.