Murder in a Hurry (18 page)

“He got mixed up on the time,” Mary Halder said. “The day. We had an engagement for last evening, not Monday. But he got mixed up somehow and when I didn't meet him, he came around to get me. When he saw how things were, he went away, of course.”

She stopped, then, and looked at Bill Weigand, seemed to study him. She said she hoped he wasn't going to make a mistake about this.

“Sherman and I are friends,” she said. “Everybody knows it. My husband knew it. Merely friends. There would have been no reason for Sherman not to come in, except that—well, we thought it was going to be a family discussion of some kind; that J. K. had arranged for it to be. Having Sherman drop around wouldn't have upset my husband. Wouldn't have annoyed him.” She paused, deliberately. “There was no concealment,” she said. “There was no reason for concealment. It will be simpler, Lieutenant, if you decide to believe that.”

Bill did not indicate what he had decided to believe. He took her over the incident several times, getting always the same details. She had recognized Sherman Pine, she had gone down the room to the foyer, she had held out her hand to him and he had taken it; she had said something like, “Sherman, what on earth?” and he had asked why she had not met him as they had planned. It had taken only a moment to straighten the matter out; he had apologized and left. Could her husband have seen this? He could have; she believed he had sat facing toward the foyer. He had not mentioned the incident. Nor, she agreed, had she; it concerned nobody but Sherman Pine and herself. And, in any case, her husband had almost at once announced that he was leaving. No, she had not thought there was any connection between the two things; she did not think so now. They went over it again; Weigand was patient, she was not impatient. On the second or third repetition, she remembered that, while she was talking to Pine, she had heard Aegisthus yelp and that, a little later, the dog had trotted down the room toward her, and that she had picked him up.

“Incidentally,” Bill told Pam North, “she doesn't lisp when she mentions the pooch.”

“Neither would I if somebody thought I had done a murder,” Pam said. They all looked at her. “Too important,” she said. “Every word counts.”

There was a pause for verbal digestion. Then Jerry said that Mary Halder's did not seem to him a particularly substantial story. Pam did not agree; it was not, she said, necessarily insubstantial. “Because, Jerry,” she said, “we went to a party once a week before it was, or a week after. A day would be easy.”

“Who, precisely, is Sherman Pine?” Dorian asked.

Precisely, Bill told her, he was an actor; not a star, now and then featured, rather generally employed. Employed now.

Dorian looked puzzled; Jerry expressed puzzlement. Pine had gone to the Sutton Place house some time after nine on Monday. On Tuesday, until later than that, he had been at the house again—had been there when Sneddiger's body was found. A question arose.

Bill Weigand agreed that it did. But it was not difficult to answer.

“He's in a play which has performances Sunday and none Monday,” he said. “Which takes care of Monday. And—he doesn't come on until the last act; doesn't have to be at the theater until around ten or even, in a pinch, a little after. Gives him a short day. He's free, of course, a little after eleven.”

“My,” Pam said, “it doesn't even cut into his evenings much, does it? What kind of a part does he play?”

“A murderer,” Bill said, without inflection. They all looked at him. “The play's a melodrama of some sort. Pine comes on in the last act and kills people.”

“And then wipes his hands and goes out to supper?” Pam suggested.

Apparently, Bill said, it was something like that. Pam said it was very interesting. She said she wondered if he always stepped out of character. “After the play's over, I mean,” she said, and was told by Jerry that they knew what she meant. But Pam's face remained thoughtful as Bill went on with the little more he had to tell them.

They had, Bill said, not much more information about the relationship between Pine and Mary Halder than Mary Halder had given them. It could be merely friendship; it could be much more. They would find out.

“Meanwhile, thinking the worst,” Dorian pointed out.

“That's the way it is,” Bill said.

(Did she still hate it? Bill wondered. She said so little about it nowadays; seemed so completely to accept his profession, which required that he so frequently think the worst of people—of pretty young things like Liza O'Brien, of women like Mary Halder; which made him the pursuer of fearful people running. Once, Dorian had hated all that; because of all that, she had once almost not married him.)

He roused himself; said that that was about where things stood. It could be any of them.

“You keep it in the family?” Jerry said and Bill said that, tentatively, he did.

“But not including the boy?” Dorian said. “Liza's boy?”

Bill shrugged at that. He said that, tentatively, they knew too little to exclude anyone. There were, he pointed out, at least two possible patterns: the simple pattern of murder for gain or, more specifically; to prevent loss; the more complex pattern to which the name of the little black dog might give a clue. Until they knew more—He broke off. He finished his drink. A little later they walked toward Charles.

There's something I almost remember, Pam North kept thinking as they walked. Something I almost thought of a while ago, something that was on the edge of my mind. But she could not remember what it was, or even decide whether it was important that she should remember. It was very annoying, particularly as (Pam thought) Bill was yet a long way from knowing what came next, and when that was true, it was always so possible that what came next might be unpleasant.

But actually, Charles' bar came next, and it was not unpleasant at all. Pam forgot, after a few minutes, that there was something she had forgotten.

After all their discussion, after what had been almost a struggle between them, it was ludicrous to have the elderly, bald man merely shake his head, merely say, in a bored voice, “Ain't here yet.” It was a relief, of course, but it was at the same time disconcerting. You prepared yourself emotionally to meet a problem, you thought what might happen and what you would do, your imagination built a confrontation on the grand scale, and a bored, elderly man, sitting in a kind of window, said, “Nope, ain't here yet,” and it was all nothing—all thin air. She looked up at Brian, who was scowling.

“What d'you mean?” Brian demanded and now the elderly man looked at him. But he was still, obviously, not much interested. He had met, one could imagine, a good many forceful people. He merely absorbed force.

“What I said,” the man told Brian Halder mildly. “He ain't here.”

“He's playing here, isn't he?” Brian asked. The theater doorman appeared to give this consideration; it was as if he decided to skip a point he might have raised. Then he nodded. He did not amplify, nor appear to think amplification indicated. It was apparent he considered the conversation closed.

“Will you listen to me a minute?” Brian asked, and his voice was harsh again, and strained. “I want to see Mr. Pine. He's playing here, you say. The curtain is supposed to go up in fifteen minutes. And you say he isn't here.”

The doorman of the Wrayburn Theater took his time. Then he looked up. Then he said, “That's right, mister.” But then he relented. “Goes on in the last act, Mr. Pine does,” he said. “Before that he's just another guy whistling in the wings. Get it?”

“No,” Brian said. He looked down at Liza. “Do you get what he's talking about?” Brian asked her, as if the man were not there.

“An off-stage sound,” the doorman said. “That's Mr. Pine, acts one and two. Another guy whistling. In the old days, he'd of done his own whistling. Nobody cares any more. No responsibility. Your Mr. Pine'll roll in about a quarter of ten. Ten, maybe. Slap some makeup on. Go on. Come off. Go wherever he goes. Calls himself an actor.”

“Maybe he can't whistle,” Liza heard herself say. She could feel, as much as see, that Brian made an impatient movement. But the doorman regarded her seriously.

“Sure he can whistle,” the doorman told her. “He has to. They just let him get away with it.”

“A quarter of ten, you say?” Brian said. “When does he go on?”

“About a quarter after. Twenty after, maybe. There's some laughs in the first act. Nearer four-thirty matinees, but you got to take it slower matinees. You know why? Women.”

But Brian Halder was already turning away; turning away abruptly. He, too, had been keyed up to it, Liza realized; he was angered, disturbed, by anti-climax. And my being here doesn't help, Liza thought. It would have been better if I hadn't come.

She did not put in words, in her own mind, precisely why she had been determined to come, to take part in this interview—this confrontation. It was true that she thought it would do little good; it was also true that they might read much in the way denial was spoken; it was true one could not tell what might come of it. And she had not argued with Brian after she had told him that he should tell the police, tell Lieutenant Weigand, what he suspected, feared, and let the police talk to Pine, and Brian had said, only, “No.” That, she had realized, would be a futile argument to press, however sound—however obviously sound—it was. It would be futile until Brian was assured that his mother was not involved, and of that there was no way to assure him.

But, since there was to be this meeting, she felt she must be part of it, because that way it would be better for Brian. She shied away from the word “safer” although something like it was in her mind. Since this had happened, there had been a kind of violence in Brian, now seeming to recede, now showing itself plainly. If she were not present when he met Pine, not there to temper the violence by her presence, by Brian's consciousness of his words hitting her mind (as well as Pine's) that violence might—She did not finish that thought, either; indeed, she rather felt than thought it all. But she would not be moved from her determination to go with him, and after a time Brian gave up his attempt to persuade her. And then they had gone to the Wrayburn Theater, found the passageway to the stage door, found an elderly bald man, found frustration.

Now they went back down the passageway by the side of the theater building and, on the sidewalk, stopped irresolute. (A man who, in full sight, remained inconspicuous, leaned against the iron fence, lighted a cigarette, looked at them vaguely, looked beyond them vaguely.) It was Liza who suggested they might try to get tickets, see the play, at least through the first two acts. Rather to her surprise, Brian agreed to this; rather more to her surprise, he managed to get two tickets. They had been turned in late and were not together; one was two rows behind the other and both were on the right side; the seat nearer the stage being also the one nearer the center—and the one to which, after they had waited together until the house lights began to dim, Liza was shown by the usher.

The play was one of those carefully casual, cheerfully British, studies of sadistic depravity, although little to indicate this appeared during the first act, which occupied itself with a tea party at the vicar's. There was the brusque, but dear, old lady who was, Liza suspected, destined for no long life; there was a comic servant, also—under her pleasing oddity—clearly marked by doom; there was a pair of young Londoners, correctly assorted as to sex, who were (or professed to be) on a walking trip and had been driven to the vicarage by a sudden rain; there was a pretty girl (a niece of the brusque old lady) and a man in middle life who remained—but whether by intention or auctorial carelessness was not entirely clear—suspiciously unclarified. Save for the vicar, the brusque one and, of course, the servant, who were on-stage when the curtain went up, these characters arrived at suitable intervals during the first act and, gradually, had tea, meanwhile making characteristic and socially identifying remarks. During the latter part of the first act, there was some discussion, still casual, of the shocking occurrence of the night before and the act was almost over before it was revealed that poor dear and neighboring Mrs. Mumble had been found dead in her own sitting room and found, moreover, in two pieces, one of which was her head.

To the perpetrator of this bisection there were no clues or, at any rate, none which seemed of much help to good old Superintendent Brunk, who had the case in hand, if the other characters could call it that, which they could only with humorous reluctance. The old boy was, they felt, a bit out of his depth in the matter, not getting much forrader nor likely to. All the dear old boy had definitely established, indeed, was that someone had heard, or thought he had heard (having had several pints of bitter at the time, and being notoriously tone deaf in any case), a man or woman whistling a phrase from an old madrigal which went like this—The man in middle life, and of undefined status, thereupon whistled a phrase which, for all Liza could tell, might well be from an old madrigal.

There was a pause of several beats after the man had finished the phrase and then, from off-stage, there came a repetition of the little tune and the brusque old lady dropped her teacup, which broke. The curtain thereupon came down.

Liza looked back at Brian when the house lights went up and he gestured with his head toward the rear of the house and pantomimed the smoking of a cigarette. She nodded and stood up and worked her way toward the aisle, past plump, reluctant knees. It took her a little time to reach the head of the aisle and Brian was already waiting for her. When she came up he made a facial comment, wordlessly, on the play. They went out to the sidewalk, with a good many others, and lighted cigarettes. They looked at posters, which bore selected quotations from reviewers. “Where,” Brian asked to be told, “is the ‘creeping violence' Mr. Barnes wrote about?”