Murder Has Its Points

Murder Has Its Points

A Mr. and Mrs. North Mystery

Frances and Richard Lockridge

MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

1

When Gardner Willings came into a room he came in largely. The size of the room mattered very little, nor did the density of its population. The Gold Room of the Hotel Dumont was reasonably large, and on this November afternoon it was filled with the thirsty. And, Pam North thought, the talkative. And why Gardner Willings?

Strait, this afternoon, was the gate into the Gold Room and, at it, behind a table, Miss Arby from the office sat guard. On the table, it was to be assumed, invited guests dropped their invitations and received, in exchange, smiles. It did not seem to Pam, as she looked between people and around people, that Gardner Willings had hesitated long enough to drop. Which was, she supposed, like Gardner Willings. He was his own ticket of admission to anything. At least, he wasn't wearing a sweater. A slight ripple occurred in the crowd as Gardner Willings, his red beard a plow, proceeded through it toward the bar.

“I'm so sorry,” Pamela North said. “It's so hard to hear anything, isn't it?”

The woman was quite tall. She was not, Pam thought, with sympathy, quite sure about the pink chiffon dress. Presumably she has a name and, Pam thought, it's skipped off my mind like a skittering stone off water. Somebody's wife, doubtless. Pam was slightly embarrassed by the thought. So, she added, am I. She said again that she was sorry, and added “so” for good measure.

“At home so much of the time,” Pink Chiffon said. “At least I'd think—not that Ned isn't a dear but all the same—”

Pam North's mind riffled itself hurriedly. The unexpected advent of Gardner Willings did not justify rudeness; not even if Willings, famously, brought rudeness with him. She must have been talking about something to Pink Chiffon. Something concerning Ned.

“Of course,” Pink Chiffon said, “he isn't like yours.” She looked down at Pam North rather, Pam thought, as one looks at the feeble-minded. “Ned, I mean,” Pink Chiffon said. “What I mean is, he doesn't
write
.”

Husbands, of course. Husbands who did not go to offices. Husbands who merely stayed at home and
wrote
. No—WROTE.

“Goodness,” Pam said. “Neither does mine, Mrs. Um-m-er.”

She was looked at blankly. At that, Pink Chiffon had, Pam thought in spite of herself, something of a head start.

Pink Chiffon said, “But—”

“Publishes,” Pam said. “He's—he's North Books. I mean—
this
is North Books.”

She started to gesture around the room. Her knuckles hit something hard, and with a ping. “I'm so sorry,” she said, to the waiter, who said, “Not at all, miss,” in a hopeless voice.

“I was told,” Pink Chiffon said, “that you were Mrs. Payne.”

“I'm so sorry,” Pam said, calling on her reserves of sorrow. “North. Mrs. Gerald.” She laughed what she trusted was a hostess's laugh, and thought it sounded a little hysterical. I could have stayed at home, Pam North thought. I could go home. I'll tell Jerry I've got a—

“So hard to keep track of so many—” Pam said and, behind her, heard, “Pamela!
Darling!
”

She turned, too quickly, and the drink she held—had, it seemed to her, been holding for hours—sloshed. Thank heaven not on Pink Chiffon. She said, “Hello, Alice,” to Alice Draycroft, and was conscious of inadequacy. “Darling,” Pam added, and knew she missed the lilt. Alice did not fade; Alice kept the lilt. “Mrs. Um-mer—”

“Cook.”

“Mrs. Cook. Miss Draycroft.”

“Darling,” Alice Draycroft said. “Such a
brawl
, isn't it?”

“Alice is an actress,” Pam said. She felt she owed Mrs. Cook, née Pink Chiffon, that. At least that. Get her off on the right foot. Get myself off—

“You haven't a drink,” Pam told Mrs. Cook, in a tone unexpectedly one of accusation. “I'll find a—”

An opening appeared and Pam took it. One learns self-preservation. One had better. “Over there,” she told a waiter, in passing. “The one in pink. Talking to the one in gray, with mink.”

She put her sloshed-out glass on a table, and took what might, with tolerance, be considered a martini from the waiter's tray. A tall, and very thin, and very dark-eyed youth in a white coat picked the used glass up and took it to a tray of other glasses, and lifted the tray to his shoulder. The shoulder of the white coat was dark from other trays. As he went off with it, he seemed to limp slightly.

Poor child, Pam thought. Everybody so gay and he carrying trays of dirty glasses—trays too heavy, filled with glasses marked by the lipstick of the gay. I'm getting maudlin, Pam thought. My soap-opera's showing. When Jerry was his age, Jerry was waiting table at college.
And
washing dishes. Where on earth is Jerry? I'll tell him I've got a—

“Pam,” Tom Hathaway said. “Don't know if you've met Jim Self. Jim, this is Mrs. North. The boss's wife.”

Self said, “Mrs. North.” Pam said, “I'm so glad.” Tom Hathaway—publicity, North Books, Inc.—said, “Get anybody a refill?” He looked quickly at Pam's glass, at the almost full glass of Jim Self. “Get myself one, then,” Tom Hathaway said, and slipped from there. (One learns self-preservation. One had better.)

Mr. Self was not news media. A publicity man does not slip from news media, in whatever form. He might be connected, somehow, with the play. An actor? Or—

“I work in a bookstore,” James Self said. “Why does your husband publish Anthony Payne?”

The direct type. One meets all types.

“Because he sells,” Pam said. If he wanted it that way. “Why do you work in a bookstore?”

“I've heard of you,” James Self said. “You're a murder fan.”

Which was unfair—which was entirely unfair. When she got hold of Tom Hathaway—

The cocktail party, in dual celebration of the publication of Anthony Payne's
The Liberated
(North Books, Inc. $4.95) and the impending première of
Uprising
, a play in three acts by Lars Simon, based on the novel by Anthony Payne, had been going on for almost two hours. As became the co-host, Jerry had arrived early. As became Jerry's wife, Pam had come with him. She had had a drink and a half, counting the sloshed, and neither had been cold and both had had too much vermouth. She had met what she counted, mentally, as hundreds of people and names had poured unregarded, unretained, through her mind. She had been bumped into, and had bumped. Her feet had been stepped on, and had stepped on other feet.

She had said, “I really don't know, I hardly know them,” to a (presumptive) gossip columnist who had asked her what there was to the story that the Paynes were splitting up. She had said, “A good many people can't, of course,” to woman (red wool suit, with slip showing) who had told her, with superiority, that she couldn't stand cats. She had been left to hold, and had left others holding. She had been photographed, with Jerry and Anthony and Lauren Payne, by a man who wanted just one more until her smile ached and had been told, reassuringly by Jerry, that the chances were a thousand to one nobody would ever publish the picture and that, anyway, she would look fine in it, and that she always did.

This was one of the few times she had met Payne. She had said, “Why?” with a gesture that amplified, and Jerry had said, “God knows. It seemed like a good—there's Mulloy of the
Times
. Better see that he's—” and vanished.

Mr. Self was quite probably right about the books of Mr. Anthony Payne. Mr. Self would no doubt prove right about many things. Men like Mr. Self quite often were. Mr. Self might well be—Mr. Self probably was—a dedicated seller of books, and of such there are too few.

“Murder,” Pamela North said, “has its points. Excuse me, Mr. Self.”

It was an exit line—not, clearly, one of the best, but one accepts what the harried mind provides. Pam North turned briskly from Mr. Self, this time not sloshing, and confronted hemming humanity, all of it, it suddenly seemed, very large. An exit line—and particularly one not really very good—requires graceful, if abrupt, departure. One should sweep away, head high. It occurred to Pam North that, if she were to leave Mr. Self, she would have to do it on hands and knees. She turned back, seeking escape beyond him. He was regarding her with an expression of acute detachment. She smiled weakly.

“Lots of people, aren't there?” Pam said, in a voice weaker than the smile.

“Payne's public,” Self said. He spoke with bitterness.

“Just people,” Pam said. “All kinds.”

“Taken to make a world,” Self said. “Ugh.”

An angry young man? A little out of place? And not, really, quite that young.

“You came,” Pam said.

“Yes,” Self said. “Also—I go.”

And went, parting the hemmers-in with right shoulder lowered. Pam followed into a semi-clearing. Self went on. Goodness, Pam thought. And he's not even a writer.

She looked around, seeking Jerry. The Gold Room of the Hotel Dumont was a large oblong. Jerry was not in sight. Nobody she knew was in sight. The bar ran the long way of the room. The crowd was thickest, there. There seemed, midway of the bar, to be a slight turmoil—a disturbed area. Gardner Willings, no doubt. That was what she wanted to see Jerry about, in addition to the report of an impending headache. Why—

Pam moved, partly by intention, partly as a result of pressure. Along the edges of the oblong there would be chairs and sofas. If she could not rest her ears—how could a hundred people, hardly more, make so great a din?—she might rest her feet. She worked toward the nearest edge. Let Jerry find her, for a change. Let—

It was easier as one retreated toward the nearest edge. There were sofas. The nearest—

“Phew,” Pam North said, sitting on the half of a twin sofa now occupied by Lauren Payne. “In a word.”

Lauren Payne, wife of the afternoon's lion, was slim and lovely; her hair was coppery and there seemed to be flecks of copper in her eyes. She turned to look at Pam and Pam was conscious, as she had been earlier, of a peculiar nervous anxiety in Lauren Payne's movements. In her movements—in her eyes? I'm imagining it, Pam thought, as she had thought earlier. I'm making it up as I go along.

“Oh,” Lauren Payne said. Her voice was unexpectedly deep. She spoke, Pam thought, as if she had come back from some great distance. There was, for a moment, no recognition in the copper-flecked eyes. “Oh,” Lauren Payne said again, “Mrs. North.” Then she smiled; then she was back from wherever she had been. (From a place of creeping little fears? Nonsense. You're making it up as you go along, Pamela North.)

“It's nice to sit down,” Lauren Payne said. “Very exciting and great fun but—it's nice to sit down.” She smiled. No anxiety in her smile. “Such a lovely party,” she said. “We're both so—happy about it.”