Death Takes a Bow (7 page)

Pamela North went through the doors which always seemed to her to open by magic, and in whose opening she never trusted, always reaching out hands to push just as the doors receded of their own miraculous accord. She went downstairs to the arriving train level, still trying to identify the discrepancy which continued to bother her.

It felt right, she decided, for the discrepancy to concern one of the people she had encountered on the platform after the murder—or encountered somewhere between the time that Mr. Sproul failed to stand up and the time she got into the taxicab to come and meet her sister's little daughters. It felt right that she had met one of those people before, or seen one of them before, under conditions which did not accord with the conditions under which she had seen them this evening. If she had, for example, seen Dr. Dupont turning cartwheels in a vaudeville show, that would account for it. “Although,” Mrs. North admitted to herself, “a little extremely.” If she had seen that other doctor—the
real
doctor—acting as a traffic policeman on Fifth Avenue, that would explain it. Or if she had seen the woman who had preceded Mr. North at the lectern, and was presumably the program chairman of the club—Mrs. Williams or something—performing as a ballet dancer, that would be the sort of thing it was.

But it was not any of these things, and it was not, Mrs. North decided, anything she was apt to get straight until something else resuggested it to her mind. Eventually, perhaps, something would happen which would throw an oblique light on her puzzlement and give sudden illumination. Or it might be, of course, that nothing would happen until the puzzlement had slowly faded away.

She was ten minutes late for the train, Mrs. North observed as she passed a clock. But on the other hand, she saw on the arrivals blackboard, the train was twenty minutes late for itself. She lighted a cigarette and waited, wondering about Mr. Sproul. Red caps went down the stairs, which meant the train was coming. Mrs. North could have gone down; but she decided that that way there would be greater danger of missing the little girls. She could stand here, between the two stairways—the Pennsylvania Railroad had certainly arranged things awkwardly—and look in both directions and pretty soon see them.

The stairway leading to the rear of the train probably was the better bet, she decided, because her sister would have sent the little girls in a Pullman, and asked the porter to look after them. So she stood nearer the stairway leading to the rear and looked down it and saw people beginning to come up.

She could not see any little girls coming up the stairway, so she hurried to the other and looked down it. More people were coming up it, including what was evidently a large part of the army, and no little girls. “Damn the Pennsylvania Railroad,” Mrs. North said, and dashed back to the other staircase. Still no little girls. She took a place between the staircases and vibrated her head as rapidly as she could, making her neck hurt. Still no little girls. And now the stream of arriving passengers was reduced to a trickle—two trickles, specifically. Mrs. North began to be worried.

And then there was a glad young voice behind her. It said:

“Auntie Pam! Auntie
Pam
!”

That was one of the girls. Margie or—or the one you mustn't call Lizzie, but must remember always to call Beth. Somehow they had got around her.

Mrs. North turned quickly, with a welcoming smile. There were no little girls. There were—

One of the two young ladies confronting Pam North beamed and gamboled forward.

“Auntie Pam!” she said.
“Darling
!”

Mrs. North gasped. They were not little girls; they were almost grown up girls. And attached to each, with a kind of firm hopefulness, was a sailor. The sailors were looking at Mrs. North with anxious doubt, like uncertain puppies. They were very young sailors.

“But not
that
young!” Mrs. North thought a little frantically, as she started foward. “Not nearly young
enough
!”

“Children
!” Mrs. North said. For the first time in my life, Mrs. North thought, I sound like a mother.
“Margie! Lizzie
!”

“Beth,” said the foremost of the children, and she let her sailor slip away to meet, it was evident, this new and greater emergency.
“Beth
, Aunt Pam.” There was a kind of wail in her voice. “Not
Lizzie
!” She blushed furiously, then, and looked back at her sailor in evident anguish. The sailor, however, merely looked uneasily at Pam North.

4

Thursday, 9:25
P
.
M
. to 10:20 P.M.

Bill Weigand watched Pamela North drop to the auditorium floor and go off to meet her nieces. He turned back to the platform, counting off. There was the dead, Victor Leeds Sproul. There were the quick—Gerald North; Dr. Klingman, who still hovered over Dr. Dupont; Dr. Dupont himself, who at first glance seemed somewhere between the quick and the dead; the woman who, Weigand gathered, had introduced Mr. North so that he might in turn introduce Sproul, thus earnestly duplicating efforts; a very well finished off, rather saturnine man at the moment unidentified; two men without distinguishing characteristics who presumably were somehow connected with Today's Topics Club; Sergeant Mullins and assorted policemen.

It was a mixed bag, Weigand thought. There was no particular reason to think that the cat in it was a murderer, or even that there was a cat. But detectives must start somewhere. Weigand looked the catch over speculatively, wondered about Mr. North's little dark man and where he was and who he was and if he had anything to do with anything, and let his glance fall on Dr. Klingman. But he already, through Dr. Francis, knew what Klingman could tell him as a physician and it was not clear that Klingman had any other capacity. Weigand looked at Dr. Dupont and decided he had to start somewhere, and that the tall old man might as well be the where.

He took a step toward Dr. Dupont and the well finished, saturnine man intervened. He stepped forward briskly, a man who knew what he was about, and confronted Bill Weigand. Weigand stopped and looked at him.

“Y. Charles Burden,” the saturnine man said.

“I don't know,” Weigand said. “Why?”

The saturnine man smiled faintly.

“I'm used to that one,” he said. “Very used to it. I am Y. Charles Burden. The ‘Y' stands for Young, which my misguided parents thought to be a suitable name for an offspring.”

Mr. Burden stopped, leaving it up to Weigand if he wanted it.

“Very interesting,” Weigand told him. “I am—”

Mr. Burden did not think it necessary for Weigand to finish.

“A detective,” Mr. Burden told him. “Heard about you. Read about you some place.” He looked Weigand's spare figure and thin face over with interest. “Ever lecture?” he inquired. “Might go, you know. Secrets of the police; famous murders I have solved; how to catch saboteurs. Very interested in saboteurs, people are just now. Naturally.”

“And I, just now, am interested in a murder,” Weigand told him. “This murder. Have you anything to do with it?” He considered Burden. “You'd be his lecture agent, probably,” he said. “Right?”

“I was,” Burden said. “I certainly was. Booked him from coast to coast—and back. Can you picture what this means—cancellations, substitutions, program chairman frothing, re-routing all over the place?” As he spoke his tone grew accusing; he ended in a stare which seemed to hold Weigand responsible. Weigand merely looked at him, blandly. When Burden seemed to expect an answer, Weigand told him that it was unfortunate.

“Murder usually is,” Weigand said. “Inconveniences a lot of people. Friends, relatives, business associates, the police. To say nothing of the corpse. You have something to tell me? Right?”

Burden shook his head quickly.

“Just placing myself,” he said. “I saw you looking at me and thought you probably were wondering. Thought I'd clear it up.”

It was the evident conviction of Mr. Burden that people had only to look at him to wonder about him. He did not suppose that any gaze, even one of pure chance, could remain utterly indifferent after it had encountered Mr. Burden. And probably, Weigand thought, he's right. And he was the first end of the tangle to come to hand. Weigand decided to pull.

“Right,” Weigand said. “Cooperative of you. And, so long as you have, we may as well find out what you can tell us. About Sproul—in case it turns out he was murdered. You knew something about him, of course?”

Y. Charles Burden nodded. That, he indicated, was obvious. He amplified. He knew that Sproul had written a book that was a hit, he had heard that Sproul could talk on his feet and that he had manner, he knew that he could sell Sproul to women's clubs.

“From coast to coast,” Weigand prompted. Burden, relaxing, grinned. He said, “Precisely.”

“That's all you knew?” Weigand pressed. “What you'd heard of him, which made you think he'd be useful in your—your list?”

“Stable,” Burden said.

“Right,” Weigand said. “That's all you knew about him?”

Burden seemed to hesitate, although Weigand was convinced that he had expected the question, planned how to answer it, probably introduced himself to Weigand to bring it up. Y. Charles Burden was not, Weigand thought, a man who did things on the spur of the moment. But now he gave every evidence of making up his mind on the spur of the moment.

“As a matter of fact,” Burden said, “I did once know the guy. Years ago, here in New York. But too long ago to matter—before he went to Paris. And I knew him in Paris for a while, in the old days—1928 or thereabouts. When everything was high, wide and handsome and the boys and girls were living on the fat of the Left Bank.” Burden smiled slightly in reminiscence. “I came back in '29,” he said. “With my tail between my legs. Sproul stayed on, of course.” He abandoned the softness of remembrance. “However,” he said crisply now, “I never knew him at all well. And I don't know anything that will help you.”

Weigand told him that one couldn't tell. It was impossible to guess, at this stage, what would help. It might help, however, to know what kind of a man Sproul was, even in the old days. It was a starting point. While they waited.

“While we wait,” Burden repeated. Weigand nodded. He seemed to grow very confiding.

“Actually,” he said, “we don't know that there's a case here. It's merely what we call a suspicious death. He may have died naturally, he may have poisoned himself, intentionally or without meaning to. And he may have been murdered.” He let Burden take it in, feel himself a confidant of the police. “By the way,” Weigand said, as an afterthought, “did he ever take drugs, that you know of?”

Burden shrugged. Then he shook his head.

“Not that I ever heard,” he said. “Or noticed. And he never mentioned it. I don't think he did in the old days, because he would have mentioned it. The boys and girls went in for the vices, sometimes—and usually wanted the credit. Sproul was a chaser, and he drank a good deal of brandy from time to time—made a fetish of brandy, you know?” He looked thoughtful. “Always gives me a headache, for some reason,” he added, contributing an interesting fact. “But I never heard anything about Sproul and drugs. Over there or here in the Village before he went abroad.”

He ran down, but waited.

Weigand had imperceptibly drawn him aside; now, nodding, he took advantage of the pause.

“We may as well sit down somewhere,” he suggested. “In that little room over there, perhaps.” He pointed toward the door to the speakers' room.

“Why not?” Burden said. “Although you've got what I know. However—anything to help.”

He preceded Weigand to the speakers' room, stood while Weigand switched on a desk lamp, then sat down and offered cigarettes. Weigand took one. For a moment, neither said anything.

“It's a damn shame,” Burden said suddenly. “A Goddamn shame.”

“Murder is,” Weigand agreed. “Or, if this isn't murder, why death is. Tell me more about Sproul when you knew him.”

Burden disavowed information of importance, but talked willingly. As he talked, Weigand, sorting and accepting, making allowances here for the kind of man who was talking, trying to discount prejudices without discounting facts, began to draw in his own mind an outline of Sproul alive. It was a first step, something to go on.

Sproul was, it appeared, around forty-five when death caught up with him. He had come from somewhere in the West, showing up in the Village a year or so after the other war. Burden, who had also showed up in the Village, thought he had met him then, but found the memory vague. At least, he had known people who knew Sproul, who was then only Vic Sproul. Then, a year or so later, he had disappeared from the Village and was supposed to have gone back home.

“People came and went in those days, you know,” Burden said. “I did myself. It wasn't the old, old Village even then, you understand, but it was more than it is now. Or less, depending on how you look at it. You got the feeling that you knew ‘everybody,' in which you didn't count the people you didn't know. I mean the people who just lived there and went about their ordinary business. The people you knew—the people Sproul and I knew—were the people who sometimes called themselves ‘Villagers' and who usually called other people ‘Up-towners.' They were also sort of interested in writing or painting or making linoleum blocks or something. They came and went—beat it back home and earned some money or got some given them; came back and stayed a while. You remember?”

“I was an up-towner,” Weigand said. “But I got the picture. And Sproul came and went?”

Sproul had. Several times, Burden thought. He was sure that he had known Sproul in, he thought, 1924—known him as an individual, not only as a name which was known, vaguely or sharply, to most of the rather amorphous group. Sproul had been writing then and seemed to be in funds. This puzzled everybody, because Sproul was a great one for the misunderstood writer and the crass public.