Murder in a Hurry (24 page)

“Aegisthus came down,” Jasper Halder said. His voice was oddly harsh. “Came down fast and yelped. Looked around, heard Mary's voice, apparently. Went to tell her his troubles.”

“Down the stairs?” Bill asked, nodding at the spiral staircase.

They all agreed.

“He had been lying on one of the beds,” Barbara Whiteside said. “He's very badly trained. I put him off, closed the door of the room. I suppose that—annoyed him. He's not supposed to be above this floor at any time.”

Mary Halder had come back with Pine.

“He's just a little dog,” Mary said. “A puppy, almost. Barbara's very—stern with him.”

“Really, Mary,” Barbara Whiteside said. “Somebody's got to be.”

Mary did not deny this.

“I came back, carrying Aegisthus,” Mary Halder said. “And then J. K. stood up. He—he looked at us. That is, at me, of course.”

Bill looked at Pam. She stood up.

“Then he said something like, ‘I'm going, now. Good night,'” Mary Halder said. “And—well, just went.”

Weigand looked around at the others.

“That's the way it was,” Whiteside said. “Only, Barbara came down—oh, just as Mary was returning with the dog. I think it was about then, dear?”

The last was to his wife. She returned from her exclusion, joined the others. She had, she said, reached the foot of the stairs almost at the moment her father had stood up.

“He looked hard at Mary,” Barbara said. “Of course, dear, I don't mean—” This last was to Mary.

“I've already said that,” Mary Halder said. “I'm sure the lieutenant heard me, Barbs.”

The edge in her voice was faint; it might almost have been the edge of amusement.

But Bill had turned away for the moment, was conferring with Sergeant Mullins. When he turned back, he was almost as abrupt in leave-taking as J. K. Halder had been. They were to stay in town, stay available; they were to see that they could be reached at any time. Weigand gestured with his head to Pam and Jerry North and started toward the door. Then he seemed to remember something.

“Oh, Miss O'Brien,” he said. “Will you come here a moment, please?”

She went down the room toward him. He spoke for a moment in a low voice, his words indistinguishable to the others. She answered him, shaking her head.

“Right,” Weigand said then, his voice more carrying, an edge of exasperation in it. “I can't force you. I think you should let us—” He broke off; they could see him shrug. He gathered Mullins and the precinct detective; he departed.

Pamela North announced, out of the darkness, that she didn't care what Jerry said.

“Fine,” Jerry said. “In that case I'll go back to sleep.”

“You!” Pam said, and turned on the light and sat up in bed; then leaned forward so she could look around the light at Jerry in the other bed. She was wearing the nightdress which had looked so attractive partially on Liza O'Brien. It was also partially on Pam North. “What do you say?” Pam demanded.

“Hel
lo
,” Jerry said, looking at her

Pam reassembled the nightdress, insofar as that was possible. She told Jerry to be serious. Why did he think everything would be all right?

“After all,” Pam said, “it seldom is.”

Jerry sighed; he reached for a cigarette and lighted it; he was told to throw one to Pam and did so, and pushed the lighter to her across the night table between the beds.

“Because,” he said, “unless I am very much mistaken, Bill is planning to put something over. Is, specifically, setting a trap.”

“With Liza as bait,” Pam said. “Would you like me as bait?” She leaned forward again.

“Well,” Jerry said, thoughtfully.

“Will you be serious?” Pam asked him.

“Seriously,” Jerry said. “Of course not. Which is one of the reasons I think we should leave—”

“Whatever you think, we can't do that,” Pam said quickly. “Because we could have insisted. We could have
made
her.”

Gerald North drew deeply on his cigarette and sat up in bed.

“Listen, Pam,” he said. “We asked Miss O'Brien if she wouldn't feel safer coming here with us. We said—you said—you'd feel much happier about things if she did. We insisted. And she said ‘No.' And her hair's too short.”

“What?” Pam North said. “
Jerry!
”

“Sauce for the gander,” Jerry said. “To drag her by.”

Pam looked at her husband with some suspicion. His expression was guileless.

“Some time,” Pam said, “I'll take that one up. There's something wrong with it, somewhere. Do you argue we just lie here?”

Jerry didn't, he told her. He argued they should go to sleep.

“Think of something else,” Pam said. “If you don't care about that poor child, who's going to do the pictures? Think of that.”

“In the morning,” Jerry said. But then he shook his head. “Seriously,” he said, “what do you want us to do? Bill's at least as conscious of the risk as you are. It's almost certain he's taken precautions.”

“Almost,” Pam said. “And once when he did, a vase got broken over—oh!”

“Precisely,” Jerry said. “He took precautions against a murderer.
You
broke a vase over my head. A heavy one.”

“Well,” Pam said, “it came out all right. And it was a good vase to get rid of. Aunt Flora would never have thrown it away. We could at least call her up.”

“Listen,” Jerry said. “It's”—he looked at his watch—“twelve minutes after two. After
two
. In the
morning
. Probably she's been asleep—”

“Don't say for hours,” Pam advised. “After all, we came straight here. It hasn't been more than—it hasn't been half an hour.”

“In ten minutes, I can go to sleep,” Jerry said. “In five. On a bet, I could—” But then he looked into Pam's eyes; saw the real worry in them. “Baby,” he said. “Call her, then. You won't sleep till you do.”

The telephone was on the table shelf; but Liza's number was in the address book by the living room extension. Jerry got it, read off the number for Pam, watched her fingers twirl the dial. He watched her expressive face as it prepared itself for speech, saw the breath drawn in. But she did not speak. He did not need to hear the tone of ringing, repeated over and over, futilely, to know that the telephone in Liza O'Brien's apartment went unanswered. But Pamela held the telephone toward him, so that he could hear the repeated tone.

Pam replaced the receiver and handed the telephone to Jerry. Sometimes, not often, she made a mistake in dialing. He read Liza's number again, dialed it carefully. He gave her plenty of time.

“Of course,” he said, “she may have decided to go out again. Been hungry, gone for a sandwich.”

Pam looked at him.

“All right,” he said. “Let's give her—oh, ten minutes. She could have been under the shower, not heard the bell.”

They gave her ten minutes. When again the telephone in Liza's apartment rang unanswered, Pam merely looked at Jerry and waited. He dialed again, this time the number of Bill Weigand's office. There was an answer, this time; no call to the office of Homicide West goes unanswered. But the answerer was not Bill Weigand, nor Mullins, nor Stein. When Jerry identified himself, there was polite elaboration of the earlier “Sorry, not in.” But it was merely elaboration; it added nothing. Bill and Mullins and Stein were out; probably together. The lieutenant was not at his home; when he called in, if he called in, he would be told the Norths had called. Was there another message?

“Tell him—” Jerry began, and decided it was fruitless. “Never mind,” he said. “Just that I called.”

He replaced the receiver. Pam was already out of bed, the nightdress sliding from her. And now Jerry, getting out of his own bed, reaching for clothes, did not protest. He did not even want to protest. They should have brought Liza home with them, should have insisted. Now he no longer believed, as he had told himself he believed, that Bill had laid a trap. A trap would necessitate that Liza remain, under guard, available; that she be in an expected place, her apartment almost surely. But if she were in her apartment—free, unhurt—she would have answered her telephone.

It was not until they had found a cab, with unexpected ease, and started uptown that Jerry thought of another possibility. By then, it had been more than an hour since they left had Liza O'Brien to go alone into the apartment hotel in which she lived; had waited until she was safely walking through the big, old-fashioned lobby, about to enter the automatic elevator.

12

Thursday, 1:45
A.M.
to 3:05
A.M.

I'm not brave, Liza O'Brien thought; I'm terribly afraid. She wanted to turn back, wanted to run through the lobby to the sidewalk, wanted to tell the Norths that it was wrong, all wrong, that she would go with them—be safe with them. Each step away from the entrance, toward the elevator which would carry her to her apartment floor, was possible only with a conscious effort; only by determining that now, once more, she would step away from safety, walk alone toward peril. If only Brian—

But she could not turn to Brian now, could not turn to anyone. That was in the bargain. It was the bargain that she was stubborn and unafraid; incapable of foreseeing danger, or imagining terror. She went into the small elevator and closed the door behind her and was solitary in the moving box, obedient now to the pressure of her finger. (As it will be to any finger, so that anyone may come.) Liza O'Brien, small and young and frightened, wanted to beat on the wall of the box, wanted to scream through it. But there was no danger while she was in the moving box.

What was almost panic passed, had passed when the car stopped at her apartment floor. It was only momentary, Liza told herself; the first plunge was all that was hard. Walking away alone from Pam and Jerry North, from their offer of safety—that had been hard. And really, of course, there was no danger. That was part of the bargain too. She walked down the corridor to her apartment door, fingering in her purse for the key. Party of the first part covenants with party of the second part that—that—that what? It will be stopped in time? That party of the first part is almost sure it can be; will do everything possible to see it is? For—how did it go?—good and valuable consideration? Was that it? If the contract is duly fulfilled, if there are no acts of God, nothing which could not be anticipated, then tomorrow will be like, will be almost like—She had to remember back. Monday had been a good day; a fine day. She had made sketches of cats and they had come out well. Tomorrow would be like Monday, if she were good and brave, and there were no act of God, nothing which could not have been allowed for. It would be all over tomorrow.

That was the consideration, good and valuable. Not that it was promised so; nobody had undertaken that tomorrow would be like Monday. That was the interpretation of her own mind; the deep certainty of her own mind. Nothing they found out tonight, if they found out anything, could touch Brian; it would be all right for Brian. (Essentially all right for Brian; it was not to be supposed that any solution would leave any of them, for a long time to come, carefree; murder is no localized infection; murder spreads far. Afterward, even for those on the perimeter of its contagion, there is a time of convalescence.)

Liza opened the door of her apartment and went in, making her movement confident, making her body deny its fright. (It was too soon; far too soon. Nothing could happen for a long time yet; for hours yet. Now she only rehearsed assurance.) She switched on the lights, and closed the door behind her. She put the chain on the door. (It must not look too easy; it must not be impossible. That was the bargain.) The little living room was as she had left it, and she was surprised to find that there was evidence she had left hurriedly. What had she been doing when, so many hours ago, Brian had finally telephoned? Had she been reading the magazine which now sprawled on the floor by a chair and tossed it there, heedlessly, when she went across the little room to the telephone? Or had it been the drawing pad, as carelessly thrown onto the sofa, so that some of the sheets were bent back, she had discarded when she heard the telephone bell?

Liza stood for a moment inside the door and looked at the room and said to herself, you've got it bad, my girl. You've got it very, very bad.

The kitchenette was in a closet at her left and she opened the door and looked into it, hardly realizing that looking into it was a precaution. The inadequate alcove, with everything compacted into something else, was orderly. She went down the living room, toward its window, and around the corner into the bedroom, which paralleled the living room, had full possession of the other window, had the bathroom behind it. She had certainly been in a dither that afternoon while she waited for Brian to call. She had spilled bathpowder and then walked in it, so that tracks led to a chair, on which she apparently had sat to put on stockings. Anyway, she thought, looking at the footprints, the girl had nice arches. They can always say that about her. Liza O'Brien came to a bad end, but she had nice arches.

That's the way to do it, she told herself. Be flippant; you are young and gay. (
Oh, Brian! Oh, darling! I'm so afraid!
)

She straightened the bedroom somewhat, went back to the living room and looked at it irresolutely. What did she do now? Oh, yes—now she was to behave as usual; now she was not to worry. Well, her usual behavior at this hour was to go to bed. That much of it, at any rate, she could do.

She lowered the Venetian blinds at the living room and bedroom windows, turning the slats so that air could enter while privacy was assured. She undressed, hanging her clothes up neatly; much more neatly than usual. (Liza O'Brien came to a bad end, but she was a neat girl.) She remembered that her grandmother had always stressed the importance of neat underthings, because one never knew when one might be in an accident. Well, Liza thought, that was one way to look at it. Liza stepped into the stall shower and let the water plunge on her; shut out the world and the world's sounds. She left the shower reluctantly. She dried, dusted herself (she might as well smell nice too, while she was about it) and remade her face. Really, she thought, I
ought
to do all these things every night. After this I—She stopped suddenly, holding lipstick to her lips, not moving it. My eyes are so frightened, she thought; so terribly frightened.