The Dishonest Murderer (33 page)

“Darling!” she said. “Listen to me! I wasn't in it. I—I just happened to go there.”

“Of course,” he said. “All the same—”

“And anyway—” she began.

“Liza!” he said. “Please, dear!” His voice was roughened, almost impatient. “I'll call back as soon as I can.” Then his voice, she thought by an effort, became softer, more his voice. “Wait for me, dear,” he said. “Don't worry. It's nothing to do with you.”

And then, while she was still saying, “All right,” there had come the click as he cut the connection.

It would have been better if he had not called at all; better for her nerves, less rasping in her mind. He was strange, not Brian at all; what he said was incomprehensible; his whole attitude told her that, beyond even his father's death, there was some strange thing, some enormity, of which he was a part and from which he was trying to shield her. She did not know, could not tell from anything he had said or done, whether he even felt grief at his father's death; he was excited, upset; it was as if the old man's death were not an ending, but the beginning of something more complex, more threatening. But they did not even know how the old man had come to die. Then Liza O'Brien thought: I mean
I
don't know; that's all I mean.
I don't know what Brian knows or doesn't know
.

It was a little before seven when someone knocked on the apartment door. She went quickly; although it was not Brian's usual knock, it might still be Brian on this evening when nothing was as usual, nothing serene and accustomed. But it was not Brian. It was a man almost as tall, a man with a dark, sensitive face. She put her hand up to her mouth, the knuckles against her lower lip and did so instinctively and, dimly, was aware of surprise at her own action.

“Miss O'Brien?” the man said. His voice was courteous, without emphasis. “I'm Detective Sergeant Stein. Lieutenant Weigand would like to see you, if you don't mind.”

“Weigand,” she said. “Why that's—” She broke off.

“He's a Homicide man, Miss O'Brien,” Sergeant Stein said. “Just a couple of questions he wants to ask you.” He looked down at her. “About West Kepp Street,” he said. “Do you want to get a hat, or something, Miss O'Brien?”

She got a light coat while he waited. She went with him in the elevator to the street level, walked with him across the sidewalk to a car parked in front of the building. They might have been a young man and a girl going out to dinner, going to the theater, going somewhere to dance. He opened a front door for her, closed it after her, went around the car and got in beside her, under the wheel. From the building, which was in the Murray Hill district, they went east, then up First Avenue.

The car, after slowing while Sergeant Stein peered out for street numbers, stopped in Sutton Place, in front of one in a row of houses which, Liza remembered, had rear gardens, rear windows, from which one could see the East River. The house in front of which they stopped was larger than most of them; several other cars were parked nearby, as if their occupants also were in the house.

“Guess this is it,” Stein said. He paused after she had joined him on the sidewalk and looked up at the house. “Quite a place,” he said. “Come on, Miss O'Brien.”

“But you said—” she began.

He looked down at her, and his face was, momentarily, friendly.

“The lieutenant's inside,” he said. “Talking to some other people.” He took a police badge from his pocket and showed it to her. “See?” he said. “It's all right.” Then, unexpectedly, he smiled. “But you should have asked sooner, Miss O'Brien. You shouldn't be so trusting.”

Then they went up to the door of the house, which opened at once, as if someone had been expecting them, had seen the car stop. The man who opened the door was a large man, with a broad, weathered face and, rather unexpectedly, gentle brown eyes.

“Miss O'Brien,” Stein said. “O.K., Al?”

“Go on in,” the big man said. “Take her right along. We're getting quite a crowd.” He paused. “
And
the Norths,” Sergeant Aloysius Mullins added, more or less to himself.

There was an entrance hall, and, beside it, a small room which, as Liza glimpsed it through the open door, seemed to be lined with books. Two steps up from the little foyer brought them into a very long, rather narrow room which seemed to run the full length of the house, to tall windows looking out on the garden in the rear. Near the right wall, as Liza looked toward the windows, a spiral staircase led up. And Pamela North came up the room toward them, walking quickly.

“I'm sorry,” Pam said. “Bill knew the cats. There wasn't anything I could do. Why did you leave it?”

The drawing pad! That was it.

“I—I just forgot,” Liza O'Brien said. “I was—scared, I guess.”

She looked at Pam, who smiled at her, and suddenly, for no reason at all, except the friendliness, the interest, in a small, expressive face, Liza felt better. Then she looked beyond Pam North at a man of a little over middle height who was moving toward them, and moving rapidly although he did not seem to hurry.

“Pam,” the man said. “Wait a minute.” Then he spoke to Liza, saying, “You're Miss O'Brien?” She nodded. “My name's Weigand,” the man said.

“I know,” Liza said. “You're Dorian's husband.”

He looked at her quickly, doubtfully; she felt she had said the wrong thing. But he said, “Yes, Miss O'Brien,” his tone noncommittal.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I didn't mean to—to—”

“Right,” Bill Weigand said. “I'm sorry to have to bring you up here, Miss O'Brien. But you couldn't just walk out, you know. Walk out, then telephone the police and report. What made you think you could?”

“After all,” Pam North said, “she forgot she'd forgotten. The drawings, I mean. Otherwise she could have. Probably she was just frightened.”

Bill looked at Pam North for a moment; he checked the movement of his right hand toward his hair. All the men in Pam North's life, he thought momentarily, distractingly, acquired disarranged hair. It was also evident that Miss Liza O'Brien, little and pretty and with the freshness of a young animal just beginning, had acquired a partisan. As quickly as that, perhaps merely by looking like that.

“Let Miss O'Brien answer, Pamela,” Bill Weigand said, mildly. He turned back to the girl. “You did find Mr. Halder's body, down at the pet shop?”

For a moment she hesitated. But it was no good, now; whatever Brian planned was no good now.

She nodded.

“Tell me,” he said. “No, wait. We don't have to stand here.”

He turned away and looked down the room. Liza had been conscious that there were other people in the room, clustered at the far end of the room, near the tall windows. Now she looked at them. There were two men and two women, and, sitting detached from them, a third man. One of the women was full-bodied, with white hair piled high, very recently piled high by expert fingers. The other woman was younger; if the large woman was in her late forties, the slighter one, the blond one, was about thirty-five. The two men were nearer an age, roughly, like the older woman, in their middle or late forties. One of them was heavily built, wore a double-breasted suit with squared shoulders, stood solidly erect. The other was tall—why, Liza thought, he's as tall as Brian. Then she realized that she had thought this because, elusively, he looked like Brian Halder. Then it must be—

“Oh, Colonel,” Weigand said, and the heavily built man turned from the window and gave attention. Then he walked toward them, his face full of gravity. The third man, as if this were a signal, stood up in front of the chair in which he had been sitting. Liza recognized him; he was Mr. Gerald North, to whom she was going to show her sketches of cats.

“This is Lieutenant Colonel Whiteside, Miss O'Brien,” Weigand said. The lieutenant colonel nodded gravely. “I have a few questions to ask her before we go on. I wonder if—”

“The library, by all means,” Whiteside said. He nodded toward the small room off the foyer. “Have you—?” His voice was anxious. Bill Weigand shook his head, absently. “I haven't heard anything as yet,” he said. “Miss O'Brien?”

They went to the small room. She preceded him into it; then he hesitated, looked back. “Pam,” he said. “You and Jerry. Will you come in for a minute or two?” The Norths came. The room was comfortable for four; it would hardly have been for six. The books, Liza thought—and was puzzled that her mind was now, of all times, capable of the irrelevancy—the books in the shelves were impassive, as if for a long time they had not been disturbed and no longer expected to be. At Weigand's indication, the three of them sat down. Weigand himself remained standing.

“Go ahead, Miss O'Brien,” he said.

She had made up her mind, by then. To a point, she would tell it just the way it was, the little old man and everything. She did; Weigand did not interrupt. She told of the little old man's disappearance while she was getting him a drink. Then she paused, involuntarily.

“Go on,” Bill Weigand said.

“Well,” she said, “all at once I—I just got scared. I knew he was dead and there wasn't any way to help. And—well, I'm afraid I just sort of—of panicked. All at once I had to get out of there.”

“And you did?” Weigand asked. “Just like that.”

“Yes.”

“And locked the door after you?”

She had not thought of that; apparently the door had been locked when the police came. If she could remember about the lock. But she had no time to remember, to speculate.

“I don't think so,” she said. “I was—very worked up. But I think I just pulled the door behind me. Of course, if it's a snap lock, it would have—”

“Right,” Bill Weigand said. He did not say whether the catch on the pet shop door could be set to lock automatically. “And then? You thought better of it, decided to report what you had found, used a telephone?”

She nodded, not hesitating this time. If it couldn't be the way Brian wanted it, maybe this way would do. (But why? her mind asked. What's happening to us?)

“At about what time?” Weigand asked her.

And now again she had to hesitate. What time had Brian telephoned the police? Would there be a record? She could only guess, guess vaguely.

“I don't know, exactly,” she said. “Probably—oh, a little after four.” But then she realized that didn't fit. “No,” she said. “It must have been nearer five.”

“And said it was murder?” Weigand asked.

Again she had to guess, to temporize.

“Did I?” she said. “I don't remember. I—I suppose I did.”

Weigand said, “You did. If you made the call, Miss O'Brien. And you made it—”

And then the door of the little library opened suddenly, and Brian Halder stood in it, his height making it seem small.

“All right, Liza,” he said. He looked down at her. He managed to smile. “I guess it's no go, darling,” he said, and then he spoke to Weigand.

“She telephoned me,” he said. “I don't know quite what she's said. I suppose she's been keeping me out of it. She telephoned me, I went down, got her out of it, telephoned the police myself after I'd put her in a cab. About four-thirty, I'd guess. Does that fit?”

“Better,” Bill Weigand said. “And you said it was murder?”

“Yes,” Brian Halder said. “I guess I did.”

Bill Weigand looked at the tall young man slowly, carefully.

“How did you know, Mr. Halder?” he said. “You are Brian Halder?” Brian nodded. “How did you know it was murder?” Weigand asked, again, and his voice was oddly soft. “So long before we did? Because, you see—
we don't know that yet
. As far as we can tell, it could have been suicide.
How did you know?
”

They all looked at Brian Halder then, and to Liza, hoping desperately for an answer which would be simple, would wipe away the uneasy trouble in her mind, it seemed that his eyes grew blank. But, after that second, he seemed surprised and startled, and then almost angry.

“My God,” he said. “Didn't you see him?”

“Oh yes,” Weigand said. “We saw him. The medical examiner saw him. The medical examiner assumes poison. But—there's nothing to indicate how administered.”

“You saw where his body was?” Brian Halder demanded.

“I saw where it was,” Weigand said. “But—your father was eccentric, Mr. Halder. Very eccentric.”

“That's what they say,” Brian Halder said, and moved his head toward the door of the library, indicating (Liza realized) the others in the house. Weigand shook his head.

“What everybody will say,” he told Brian Halder. “What they said even in the old days, you know. And now—he had millions, owned this house. He kept a pet shop in the Village, on an out-of-the-way street; I doubt if he ever encouraged anybody to buy one of the animals; he lived in a little room behind the shop. You've seen the room? But of course you have. You saw it today, didn't you? Your brother—”

“Half-brother,” Halder said.

“Half-brother,” Weigand said. “He says your father liked animals so much that—well, that he would have seen all of you die if that would have saved—well, that sick boxer pup at the shop.”

“That's absurd,” Brian said. Now he seemed more convinced, was more convincing. “The old man didn't have to mean all he said. He didn't mean half of it.”

“Even half,” Weigand said. “Your father was eccentric. Perhaps bitter; perhaps more. He may have been ill, decided to kill himself, arranged these bizarre circumstances—to point up, somehow, his feeling about animals and people. And—to make the family ridiculous.”

“You've got quite an imagination, Lieutenant,” Brian Halder said.

“Is it easier to imagine somebody killing him and putting him in the pen to die?”