A Pinch of Poison (32 page)

But Weigand wasn't looking at him. Weigand was staring down at the body. Clinging to the rough wool of Bolton's trousers, visible now that the body was straightened and laid flat, was a length of orange silk. It fell away from the body and lay bright against the neutral carpet of the aisle. It was—

“Look,” Pam North said, unexpectedly behind the Lieutenant, “it's a swatch. He was going to match something.”

“A what, Pam?” Weigand asked. Kirk was looking at Mrs. North with some surprise, and Dr. Francis with interest. But Weigand did not seem surprised.

“A sample,” Mrs. North said. “From some material for—” she bent, not looking at Bolton more than she had to, and examined the strip of orange silk—“for a dress, I think,” she said. “Something he was going to match for a woman, probably.”

Weigand knelt beside Bolton's body and smoothed the silk between his fingers. Then he drew it from the loosened hand and stood up. He held it out to Kirk.

“Was one of the costumes to be made of this material?” he asked. “One of the dresses for the play, I mean? You'd know, wouldn't you?”

He waited, then, because Kirk waited to answer. Kirk made a great business of looking at the silk and a great business of thinking about it. At just the moment when thought might reasonably be concluded, he shook his head, slowly.

“No,” he said. “I wouldn't know, necessarily. Not unless it had been decided upon … this might just have been something Mary was showing one of the girls as a possibility. So I wouldn't …”

He trailed off and looked at Weigand. It was an inquiring look, and Weigand recognized it with interest. It was the look of a man who wondered whether he was putting something over. Weigand nodded at him, cheerfully.

“Naturally,” Weigand said. “I see how you might not recognize it.”

Anything, within reason, to satisfy a suspect, Weigand believed, at this stage of the game. But Kirk knew something about the orange silk; knew something he didn't want Weigand to know. Weigand felt like shaking hands with him. Kirk had produced a ripple in waters previously too calm.

“A good detective is always more or less suspicious and very inquisitive.” That was the classic definition from the “Rules and Regulations and Manual of Procedure for the Police Department of the City of New York.” Weigand agreed with it entirely. He welcomed, as cases started, small discrepancies which nurtured suspicion and encouraged inquisitiveness; or, more exactly, small things which localized suspicion. Five minutes before, Weigand had been suspicious of fourteen—no, with Jimmy Sand, fifteen—people. Now Kirk, who knew something he didn't want to tell, had taken one step forward from the even line of suspects. And every little helped.

Weigand changed the subject. He told Kirk he wanted to try something. Would it be possible to run through the second act again, for his benefit? Run through it, as nearly as possible, precisely as they had run through it earlier.

“Because,” Weigand said, “I want to get things clear in my mind. It's all very confused now, naturally—where people were, and all that; because we can take it, I think, that Bolton was killed during the run-through. Would that be possible, Mr. Kirk?”

Kirk pushed back the hair, waited for it to fall, and said, “Sure.”

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “swell! We kill two birds with one stone—you get the picture, we get more rehearsal, which heaven knows we can do with.” Kirk ran his hand again through the forelock and pulled it anxiously. “Every time I think of Monday I quake,” he said. “The next time I let anybody talk me into opening a show cold, I'll …” He broke off. “Sure,” he said, “I'll go line them up.”

He turned and went off down the aisle, calling, “Jimmy! Hey, Jimmy!” Weigand heard Jimmy say “Yeh, Humpty.” Weigand looked after him and turned to Pam North, who was looking after him, too.

“He knows about the material,” Mrs. North said, suddenly. “The orange silk, I mean. It belonged to the pretty girl.”

“Miss Grady?” Weigand said. Mrs. North was impatient with him.

“She is
beautiful
,” Mrs. North explained. “It's a great strain on her. And Mr. Kirk doesn't care. The other girl—the James girl.
She's
pretty. And Mr. Kirk does care. Therefore—the silk belonged to her.”

Weigand said, “Um-m.” He was about to go on when one of the detectives who, now that the body was gone from its cramped place in the seat, had been examining the seat and carpet beneath it with devoted care, interrupted him. Did the Lieutenant want to have a look before they cleared things up and took them away?

“What things?” Weigand said. Detective Stein pointed with a shaft of light from his electric torch. Weigand said “Um-m-m” again and bent closer.

There were several things to see; following the guiding finger from the flashlight, Weigand checked them off:

Wedged in between backs of two seats immediately in front of the seat in which Dr. Bolton had sat: a paper cup, crumpled at the bottom where it had been forced into the small gap. In the bottom, Weigand's finger told him, a quarter of an inch of water. For a moment Weigand was puzzled; then it was obvious. The cup was intended as an ashtray—the water in the bottom to extinguish cigarettes. There were no cigarettes in it.

On the floor, a little to the left of Bolton's chair, a cigarette, broken in two in the middle as if the fingers which held it had suddenly twisted convulsively; as, Weigand thought, they very well may have. The cigarette had been lighted, but it had fallen before more than two or three drags had been taken, and then it had, lying on the carpet, gone out. Weigand took the light from Stein and bent lower, examining the cigarette carefully without touching it. It was marked at one end with a manufacturer's insignia which Weigand recognized.

“Virginia,” Weigand said. “Straight; so it went out.”

“Right,” Stein said. It was not parody; it was emulation.

On the carpet near the cigarette, two paper matches, both burned.

Weigand said “Um-m-m” and withdrew. Stein pointed to the carpet behind the seat Bolton had occupied. Obediently, Weigand illuminated the carpet with the torch.

There was another burned paper match there. It was, however, a special paper match, being shaped like a bottle. Weigand picked it up and regarded it with interest.

“I think,” he told Stein, “that I'll keep this one. It might come in handy.”

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About the Authors

Frances and Richard Lockridge were some of the most popular names in mystery during the forties and fifties. Having written numerous novels and stories, the husband-and-wife team was most famous for their Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries. What started in 1936 as a series of stories written for the
New Yorker
turned into twenty-six novels, including adaptions for Broadway, film, television, and radio. The Lockridges continued writing together until Frances's death in 1963, after which Richard discontinued the Mr. and Mrs. North series and wrote other works until his own death in 1982.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1941 by Frances and Richard Lockridge

Cover design by Andy Ross

ISBN: 978-1-5040-3113-4

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THE MR. AND MRS. NORTH MYSTERIES

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