Murder within Murder (24 page)

“There, my dear,” Mr. Burt said. “There.”

They sat down in front of the Norths. Mr. Burt saw Mrs. North in the gloom and bowed with dignity and restraint, as befitted the surroundings. The Burts sat decorously. Three women came in whom Mrs. North had, as well as she could tell in the light provided, never seen before. They looked at the flower-covered coffin and one of them dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief and they sat down. Pam looked across at Bill Weigand and he shook his head. He shook it again when another middle-aged couple entered. These were newcomers, Pam thought; Amelia Gipson had had more friends than they had found. Then the manager of the Holborn Annex came in, looking very sad and grave, and after him a tiny, fluttery woman who was probably, Pam thought, the hostess of that tea-room at which Miss Gipson had so often eaten. She looked, at any rate, like the hostess of a tea shop. Then a man came in by himself and looked around and sat down next to Jerry. Even through the heavy fragrance of the flowers, Mrs. North detected a fragrance which was, she decided, gin. If Mr. Spencer had really come, this should be Mr. Spencer. She looked across at Bill and formed the name “Spencer” with her lips. Bill looked puzzled a moment. Then he nodded. The music came up then and the curtains at the end of the chapel were held aside by a white hand, and Nora Frost came into the room, with her brother behind her. She was in black. John Gipson wore a black armband. They both wore grave, detached expressions. Major Frost came in after his brother-in-law and he looked as if he wished he were somewhere else. The music swelled and, behind Major Frost, a man who could only be a clergyman came into the room. The white hand let the curtains fall back, then.

The music continued as the Frosts and John Gipson sat down in one of the front pews. It continued as the clergyman moved around the coffin and stood in front of it. He stood there, gravely, unhurried, and the music faded and died away.

“Let us pray,” the clergyman said.

Detective Sergeant Angelo Farrichi finished his coffee, sighed comfortably and looked at his watch. It was almost two o'clock. Reluctantly, he pushed his chair back and, contentedly tasting coffee, red wine and, under them, veal parmigiana, he went toward the street. Passing, he slapped the proprietor on the back; outside he paused and lighted a cigarette. He strolled toward headquarters. But as he entered the building he ceased to stroll; he became the alert detective returning with the spoils. He went to the photolab.

“And what are you made up as?” the lab technician asked him, looking at him with amusement. Farrichi's sense of peace was not disturbed. He waved at the technician and went into a darkroom. He got to work, not hurrying. He found he had something; he made a contact print. It was pretty good for that kind of job. He put the print in the dryer and went to a telephone. He asked for Lieutenant Weigand and got Weigand's office. He got Stein.

“Well,” Farrichi said, “I got the Burts. How many prints does the Loot want?”

“Where the hell have you been, Farrichi?” Stein wanted to know.

“Listen,” Farrichi said, his sense of peace diminishing. “It took time to get them. The way the Loot wanted it done. How many prints does he want?”

Farrichi had better ask him, Stein said. If he were Farrichi he would go and ask him, taking the print he had. He told Farrichi that Weigand was at the funeral.

“Listen,” Farrichi said, “is he in a hurry, Bennie?”

“I don't know,” Stein said. “But if I were you, I'd be in a hurry. He might like it. He won't not like it. See?”

Farrichi saw. He wangled a car on the plea of emergency. It took him almost half an hour, all told, to get the car and get, in it, to the Stuart Funeral Home. It was 3:20 when he got there. The crowd was still outside; it looked at him with mild interest. The rotund man at the door looked at him with mild interest and it was not noticeably enhanced when Farrichi asked for Lieutenant Weigand.

“Inside,” the rotund man said. “The service is almost over. It would be better if you waited here.”

Farrichi sat down. The rotund man went back to the door. It was a hell of a dismal place, Farrichi thought; the darkroom was cheerful by comparison. He'd just as soon give the print to Weigand and get along. He got up and walked over to Chapel A, from which reverent sounds were coming. He started in and bumped into Mullins, standing just inside the door. He pushed an envelope containing the print into Mullins's hand, said, “For the Loot, ask him how many prints he wants,” and backed out. Mullins came out after him, opening the envelope. He peered at the photograph in the half-light, holding it this way and that. Then he looked around, saw the door marked Office, and went through it, beckoning Farrichi to follow him.

“… an exemplary life,” the clergyman was saying, “devoted to that most sacred duty—instruction of the young—the opening to them of the doors of light. In her life, Amelia Gibson” … the “B” was very clear in his excellent diction, but Amelia Gipson could not hear it; could not correct it … “gave to all of us an example of consecration, of devotion. She.…”

It was hard to listen to. It was sincere, it was worthy. Some of it was true. It was not Amelia Gipson as she had been; it was Amelia Gipson as an abstraction. But some of it was true. She had taught. Perhaps she had opened to some of those she taught a door that led to light. If there was a doubt, she deserved the benefit of it. But it was hard to listen to.

Pam North stopped listening. She watched the backs of heads, wondering what went on inside the heads. She looked at the back of Helen Burt's head, and wondered if she were thinking—now—that she had caused all this; if now she were thinking that she would give anything she might ever have to have this thing undone. She looked at the back of Willard Burt's head, and wondered who he reminded her of when he spoke; she looked at Bill Weigand's profile, dim on the other side of the aisle, and wondered if he really knew, or had guessed—or had a hunch. She looked at the back of a dignified male head two rows in front of Weigand and wondered if he were Mr. Backley, the lawyer, because he looked as a lawyer named Backley ought to look, and then she looked at Jerry and smiled faintly as she thought of the theory to which Jerry had pretended. Mr. Backley, indeed. Mr. Purdy, indeed.

Because Mr. Purdy was—

The man beyond Jerry stood up. He stood up and swayed a little, and he spoke in a voice which was neither hushed nor reverent. He spoke in a harsh, strained voice, and very rapidly.

“This is an outrage,” he said. “This is unbearable. Sir, you are insulting every teacher who ever tried to bring a glimmer of intelligence into the head of some forsaken brat. Amelia Gipson was—”

Everything stopped. The clergyman stopped; there was in the room a kind of startled stillness; it was as if the room gasped.

“She was a liar,” the man said. He almost shouted it. “She hurt everybody she could reach. She was a vicious—a vicious, poisonous hag. She.…”

Bill Weigand was standing up. Men moved toward the speaking man from the shadows, men Pam North had not seen in the shadows. Bill Weigand spoke and his voice was level and hard.

“Sit down, Spencer,” he said. “Sit down.”

Philip Spencer did not sit down. He turned toward Weigand.

“The policeman,” he said. “The ever-present policeman. The upholder of propriety; the seeker out of the evil doer. Lieutenant whatever your name is, you make me sick.” He looked around. “You all make me sick,” he said. “A bunch of sniveling—”

One of the men who had come out of the shadows reached Philip Spencer. He took hold of him roughly, and pulled him out into the aisle.

“Sniveling fools, whining over a lying—” Spencer said, and the detective who had him clapped a hard hand over Spencer's mouth. And Philip Spencer went out of Chapel A very abruptly, as if he had suddenly flown into the air. The clergyman stood with his mouth open, looking at the backs of heads. Then the heads turned and all the eyes focused on the clergyman, as if he now would do something to justify this affront. He kept his mouth open for a moment. Then he spoke.

“I deeply regret this unseemly …” he said.

Pam North didn't doubt his regret; Philip Spencer had been unseemly enough. She whispered to Jerry.

“He was drunk, wasn't he?” she said. “Or crazy?”

“Drunk,” Jerry whispered. “Very. Maybe crazy, too.”

The clergyman was obviously unsettled. He looked at his audience with what seemed to be reproach; he moved just perceptibly away from the coffin, as if he held its quiet occupant in some way responsible for this flouting of decency and interruption of remarks. He looked at some notes, and apparently had difficulty reading them. He abandoned eulogy, and turned to the prayer book.

Pam listened then, to sad and beautiful words, but she listened uneasily. Her nerves tingled, as if something else were going to happen. They still tingled, as the clergyman finished and the organ began again, very soft at first, swelling slowly. The clergyman held up a hand of benediction as the music swelled.

Bill Weigand seemed to have gone, very quietly, from his seat. She wondered if he was arresting Philip Spencer. Would it be for disturbing the peace? But the only peace that mattered—the only peace in the room which was real and quiet—had not been disturbed. Amelia Gipson had not heard the voice of drunken hatred which upbraided her.

Bill Weigand looked at Philip Spencer with distaste. Spencer looked back at him, and there was still anger in his eyes.

“All right,” Spencer said, “it made me sick … the whole thing. So … I created a disturbance.”

“Drunk and disorderly,” Bill said. The man who held Spencer by the arm nodded. Bill looked at Spencer. “And I may as well tell you,” he said, “I'll try to get you sent to Bellevue for observation.”

“Much good it will do you,” Spencer said.

Bill said it might do good.

“Obviously,” he said, “you've very little control over yourself, Mr. Spencer. Obviously, you're … possessed by your hatred of Amelia Gipson. Where were you Tuesday afternoon, say? Was it a cunning hatred then … and did you pull this to make us think you're only an emotional, harmless drunk?”

Spencer asked him what he thought. He was surly.

“I think I'd like to have the doctors look you over,” Weigand said. “Take him along and get him booked.”

He turned away, heading back toward the door of Chapel A, in which there was now a stir of movement. But Mullins came through the door from the office and Mulllins's voice stopped the movement. Mullins's voice was low—Mullins did not easily ignore a religious atmosphere—but it was urgent.

“Loot!” Mullins said. “Come here. I want to show you something.”

Mullins led Weigand back along the corridor which led to the office, and Mullins was moving fast. The office was not funereal; the office was bright and businesslike. Mullins had a photograph flat on a desk, under a light. He pointed at it.

Weigand looked. Farrichi had done an O.K. job. But it was only a picture of Mr. and Mrs. Willard Burt, getting out of a taxicab; only of the Burts and the man who drove the taxi. Bill Weigand looked enquiringly at Mullins.

“Loot,” Mullins said, “you know I never forget a face. Right?”

“Sometimes you do,” Weigand said. “Mostly you don't. Well?”

Mullins pointed. Weigand followed his finger. He looked at Mullins.

“You know who that is?” Mullins asked, and there was triumph in his voice.

Weigand looked again. He looked back at Mullins again.

“Let's have it, Sergeant,” Weigand said, and now his voice was crisp.

Mullins let him have it. When Bill looked at him he nodded.

“Hell yes,” he said. “I worked on it. I never forget a case, Loot.”

They went fast down the corridor to the reception-room. Jerry North was standing in it, obviously waiting. They went past him into Chapel A, and came out almost at once.

“They've gone,” Jerry told him. “Where's Pam?” He did not sound worried.

“It isn't Pam …” Bill began, and then stopped. “I thought she was with you, naturally,” he said.

Jerry shook his head. He said some people from the office had stopped him and, when he turned back, Pam had gone.

“So had you and Mullins,” he said. “I supposed she was with you.” And now there was a note of uneasiness in Jerry North's voice. The uneasiness grew among the three of them as they looked at one another. It was very real by the time they had made a quick search of the funeral home and found no Pamela North anywhere in it.

But the rotund doorman had some news. They identified Pamela for him, and after a moment he nodded.

“She went out a couple of minutes ago,” he said. “With an older woman. I guess she got in a cab with her. Anyway, they were headed for a cab.”

There was a moment when the funeral service ended when Pamela North found herself alone. Some people from Jerry's office had come to the funeral—to pay respect to a former colleague and also, Pam thought, to get an afternoon off—and one of them had called to Jerry and Jerry had turned to speak to them. Bill had gone out and apparently Mullins was with him. Pam turned to join Jerry and the little group from the office, and then Helen Burt was beside her. Helen Burt was small, almost wispy, in the scented gloom and she put her fingers on Pamela North's arm. The fingers were trembling. Pam turned.

“Oh, my dear,” Helen Burt said. “My dear Mrs. North. Can you—a moment?”

Pam looked at Mrs. Burt, who was very excited, very keyed up.

“Mrs. Burt,” Pam said. “Yes?”

“I want to tell you,” Mrs. Burt said. “Then you can tell your husband—the detective. I see now I can—all the time I've wanted to. Oh, all the time.”

She was not very coherent. Her words came whispered, rushing from her mouth. She kept her fingers on Pam's arm. She was like a frightened person, but Pam did not think she was frightened.