A Pinch of Poison (22 page)

He motioned to Mullins to remain in the foyer, and climbed the stairs behind Ashley. The senior Mrs. Ashley was lying on a chaise-longue, and she had been crying. She looked younger, in some ways, than the sixty-odd she presumably was—one would have guessed her age at sixty-odd, with the mental reservation that she did not look it. She had a light voice which would, Weigand suspected, twitter over conversations when she was herself. Now it was thin and drained.

She said, “How do you do, Lieutenant?” and Weigand said he was sorry to intrude. He waited until Ashley had gone out, and said he was very sorry about what had happened. Mrs. Ashley's pale blue eyes filled and she nodded. She wiped her eyes with a tiny, lacy handkerchief.

“It is dreadful,” she said. “Dreadful. I can't understand why anyone should want to hurt Lois—she was always so—gentle and sweet to everybody.”

Weigand waited.

“You don't suspect my silly boy, do you, Lieutenant?” she said. “That would be too absurd. Or his wife, that he thinks I don't know about?”

Weigand was startled, and showed it.

“Oh,” she said, “you didn't know I knew? But I did, so you see if you thought that might be a motive for Randall, you were wrong. I've known it for weeks. A friend of mine found out, and told me.”

She is shrewder than she looks, Weigand thought.

“Did your son and Miss Ormond know you knew?” he asked casually. “And do you approve?”

“No,” she said. “I've been waiting for them to tell me. And yes, Lieutenant, I approve—at any rate, I don't disapprove. I would have preferred—but that doesn't matter. I think Miss Ormond is charming and that she is really in love with my son. I also think she is good for him, don't you?”

She is
much
shrewder than I thought, Weigand decided, looking at her. Her eyes challenged him.

“I think she quite possibly is good for him, Mrs. Ashley,” he said. “But to go back—you don't really think that your knowledge eliminates the motive, do you?”

“But of course it does,” she said. “The only reason he could have had for doing anything to Lois was because he was afraid that she was going to tell me about the marriage. Or about something else. But if I already knew—oh!”

Precisely, Weigand told her. It might be something of which she knew nothing. And it might still be the marriage.

“They didn't know you knew,” he said. ‘They thought you didn't. And your son, if he acted, would have to act on the basis of his own belief, even if it was inaccurate. Of course you see that, Mrs. Ashley.”

She nodded.

“I see what you mean,” she admitted. “But you know it is perfectly absurd, Lieutenant. In your heart.”

This seemed to be the day, Weigand thought, for women to explain to him what he really thought about things. He shook his head.

“I'm a policeman, Mrs. Ashley,” he pointed out. “Policemen can't think with their hearts.”

She looked at him closely.

“All right, Lieutenant, have it your own way,” she said. She dismissed it, apparently. “What did you want to ask me?” she said.

“Whether there was anything wrong with your first husband's eyes, Mrs. Ashley?” he said.

She looked perplexed, as Madge Ormond had. Then she shook her head.

“No, Lieutenant,” she said. “He had quite remarkable eyes. To the day of his death. Why?”

Weigand said it didn't matter. He thanked her and found his way out of the bedroom; then, collecting Mullins, out of the house. There was a new detective, looking almost too alert, on guard in the street. Weigand nodded to him and let Mullins drive the Buick. Weigand sat without saying anything after he had given instructions. The Loot, Mullins could see with the corner of an eye, was thinking. It was a spectacle cheering, as well as rather strange, to Mullins. The Loot was a funny sort of guy. He could just sit still and think. Mullins ran through a red light, touching the siren gently. Weigand said nothing. The Loot could sure think deep, Mullins told himself.

The interview with David McIntosh took only a few minutes. McIntosh received them in a very inner office, and was as bland as the expansive top of his irreproachable—and arrestingly unoccupied—desk. He raised no objection to telling where he had been the evening before. He had been at the Harvard Club for cocktails, dinner and finally for bridge. He did not ask why Weigand wanted to know.

“I gather you've heard of Mrs. Halstead's death,” Weigand said. McIntosh remained bland.

“Certainly,” he said. “I read it in the papers. I haven't the faintest idea why it arouses interest in my movements, but I'm perfectly willing to cooperate.”

Weigand said it was good of him.

“By the way,” McIntosh said, “didn't your man know where I was?”

Weigand could be urbane also. He smiled.

“Naturally,” he said, “they wouldn't let him in to nose around. He's not a member, you know. He thought you might have gone out some other way. The service entrance, perhaps. You see, he had no way of telling.”

McIntosh nodded, approving the point. He said he saw.

“However,” he said, “I stayed all evening at the club. I daresay it could be proved, if necessary,”

“Right,” Weigand said. “I'll let you know if we want it proved.” He paused. “By the way,” he said, “have you ever been married?”

McIntosh remained bland. He nodded.

“Once,” he said. “It progressed from Southampton to Reno, at an accelerating tempo. Why?”

Weigand told him that he had just wondered.

“Any children?” he inquired. McIntosh allowed himself to look surprised, but remained polite.

“No,” he said. “My wife and I didn't feel we'd be particularly good parents.” His face sobered. “If Lois had lived—” he said, as if half to himself.

“Right,” Weigand said. McIntosh seemed to feel his fiancée's death deeply, but to be putting a face on it.

“We should have been married months ago,” McIntosh said suddenly, bitterly. “Then I could have taken care of her—then this wouldn't have happened. But she wouldn't have it—” He seemed to feel, still, hurt anger toward Lois; it was mingled, somehow, with his obvious sorrow at her death. He looked at Weigand. “Sorry,” he said. “I break out now and then—forget it.”

“Right,” Weigand said. “I can guess how you feel.”

He could, too, he thought—and thought of blue-gray eyes which now and then appeared to be green and which seemed alternately to advance and retreat. Weigand, thinking of Dorian, thought that Lois's apparent hesitation must have been very disturbing to McIntosh. Particularly if McIntosh, not trained to the patience which was stock in trade for a detective, was used to getting his own way with more than reasonable promptness.

Weigand remembered something else.

“By the way,” he said, “you didn't make a reservation at the Ritz-Plaza. You're still sure of that?”

McIntosh looked annoyed.

“How many times—” he began. Weigand gestured.

“Right,” he said. “You didn't make a reservation at the Ritz-Plaza. How about the Crescent Club?”

He watched McIntosh's face narrowly. He could see only surprise and bewilderment in it.

“The Crescent Club?” McIntosh repeated. “What the hell? I didn't even go to the Crescent Club. Why would I make a reservation there?”

“I don't know,” Weigand said. “But you
had
a reservation there.” He shook his head at the incredulity in McIntosh's eyes. “Oh, yes,” Weigand said. “You had a very nice reservation there, the manager says. A table right near the dance floor. There's no doubt about that. But I suppose you say you didn't make it?”

“I don't get this,” McIntosh said, slowly. “I don't get it. There's something—I don't get it. I didn't make any reservation anywhere. We didn't know where we were going.” He stared at Weigand inquiringly, seeking explanation. Weigand's face offered none.

“Right,” Weigand said. “That's all, I guess.”

He was rising when Mullins, who had been sitting in a corner, suddenly spoke.

“Was there anything the matter with your father's eyes, Mr. McIntosh?” he said. McIntosh looked at Mullins, whom he had apparently forgotten, with evident surprise. Weigand looked with equal surprise, and then closed his lips on a grin.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “I was forgetting—thanks, sergeant. Was there anything the matter with your father's eyes, Mr. McIntosh?”

“What the hell?” said McIntosh, wonderingly. He looked at Weigand, who apparently meant it.

“Why, yes,” McIntosh said. “He had double cataract toward the end. Though what that has to do—”

Blandly, Weigand told him that it was of no consequence. “Just routine,” he said, which left McIntosh looking more blank than ever. He was still looking blank when Weigand and Mullins were ushered out. In the building corridor, Mullins was evidently pleased.

“You pretty near forgot that one, Loot,” he said. “Good thing I remembered.” He paused, evidently in thought. “Listen, Loot,” he said, “what do we want to know for?”

Weigand smiled at him.

“Routine, sergeant,” he said. “Just routine.”

16

T
HURSDAY

11:30
A.M. TO
2:20
P.M.

Pam North was a little annoyed with herself that morning. She told her husband so, while he ate breakfast and puzzled over a two-column clarification of the war situation. It explained the Russian angle, but Mr. North couldn't seem to get it.

“It's annoying,” Mrs. North said, when he was less than half through. “It isn't like me, at all. Usually I'm good at murders.”

“Yes, dear,” Mr. North said, absently. “That's nice.”

Mrs. North said he wasn't listening.

“I'm
good
at murders,” she said. “Don't you remember how good I was before? About our own murder in the bathtub and then about the one at camp? Wasn't I good about them?”

“Yes, dear,” Mr. North said. “What?”

“Murders,” Mrs. North said, rather more loudly. “Who guessed the first one? I did. Who guessed the second?”

“Bill,” Mr. North said, coming out of it.

“Well,” Mrs. North said, “I did too. At almost the same time. And now what?”

“What?” Mr. North said.

“I don't,” she said. “It might as well be Greek. Except that Michael's in it, of course.”

Mr. North drew his most reasonable tone out of its place of concealment. He told Pam to listen.

“After all,” he said, “you don't have to. Bill will tell us, when he gets it worked out. It'll be just as good.”

“Haven't you any pride?” Mrs. North said.

“No,” Mr. North said. “Not about murders. And, anyway, I have got it worked out. It's Ashley. Bill's just getting—too complex.” He looked at Mrs. North, speculatively. “Association, probably,” he said. She said, “Jerry” and saw that he was smiling.

“All right,” she said. “It isn't Ashley, of course, but all right. Because if it was—were?—Ashley, where would Michael come in?”

He wouldn't, Mr. North told her. Mrs. North looked triumphant.

“There!” she said. “That's the trouble with that one, of course. It doesn't bring in Michael. And then where are you?”

Mr. North looked at his watch.

“At the office,” he said. “Where I should have been half an hour ago.” He looked at her seriously; standing he took her chin in his hand, and shook her head gently.

“And you, kid, stay at home,” he said. “Or go to the movies or—or anything. But leave the murder alone.” He made her look at him. “I mean it,” he said. “No more murders for the Norths. We get bunged up—you got bunged up and then I got bunged up. Next time—well—leave it to Bill, Pam. I mean it. I still think of you lying on the floor upstairs and—”

Pam wiggled a bit until her chin was loosed and then she kissed him.

“All right, Jerry,” she promised. “I'll just look on. Spectator sports, sort of. All right?”

“All right,” Jerry said. “See that you do.” Jerry, after sticking his head out a window to see what the weather was like, and discovering that the storm hadn't done much for the temperature, went along to his office. Pam had another cup of coffee and read about the war. But she still was annoyed with herself, she discovered.

“Bill knows something,” she said to nobody in particular, although Martha, cleaning up, said, politely, “Ma'am?” Mrs. North shook her head, abstractedly. “It hinges on Michael,” she told herself. “There's something about him that I've missed.” Then she thought that it would be perfectly all right with Jerry if she just went up to the Foundation and read Michael's record. She hesitated a moment, and then told herself that that wasn't really getting into it. Not really. It was interesting to have it settled, and she put on her hat with the red feather and tucked her red purse under her arm.

There wasn't any trouble about seeing the record. Miss Crane, who might have hesitated, was away somewhere, and Mrs. North pointed out, hardly firmly at all, that she was on the committee. She read the record carefully, with special attention to Richard Osborne's description and to his account of Michael's short, unsettled past. She shook her head, and read on. She found out, as Weigand had, that Michael was a smart little boy—“which I knew from the first!” she told herself—and was about to look up “protanopia” when it happened. Miss Crane's secretary got the message and said, in shocked tones, “No!”

Then she was talking very rapidly on the telephone, and asking hurried questions. There was such a stir in the air that Mrs. North stopped reading. Something exciting had happened.

The secretary cradled the telephone and immediately picked it up again.