Death Has a Small Voice

by Frances Lockridge

  Jerry stood in the open door. His face was lined as she had never seen it. His eyes were incredibly tired.

  She waited only an instant. She watched, in that instant, the utter change in the eyes—the dear eyes!—in the whole face, as Jerry saw her standing there. She saw that he was about to speak.

  “Yes?” Pam said then. “I’m afraid the office isn’t open yet. If you wanted to see Mr. North. He’s—I’m afraid he’s out of town, anyway. If you will—”

  She heard her voice going on. She saw Jerry’s face change again. Understand! she told him, without words, her mind driving at this. Understand!

  “Just making the rounds, lady,” Jerry said. “Saw you had a light on in here. Figured it was pretty early is all. Thought I’d better check and—”

  “Come in, Mr. North,” the whisper said from the door of the washroom. “Come in and join your wife. Perhaps you can persuade her, you know.”

  The hand with the revolver in it appeared in the door opening.

  Jerry hesitated for an instant. Then he stepped forward. And then Pam went into his arms.

  “Very touching,” the whispering man said. “Tell him what I want to know, Mrs. North.”

  The revolver seemed to nod at them.

  They had stopped by the Norths’ apartment, using to enter it a key which had come into the possession of the Weigands once when, the Norths away, Dorian had acted as a cat sitter. They found three cats, no humans. The cats watched while Bill Weigand wrote a note, “Gone to your office. May need you there,” and left it where Jerry would see it when he returned—on the desk in his study.

  There was a typescript on the desk, neat in a gray binder, with an envelope inserted in it to mark the place. The typescript of a full-length book, Bill judged from its bulk, looking at it absently. About the size, probably, of the script of Hilda Godwin’s novel—of the novel which, found and read, might tell them all they needed to know; the novel which, if a murderer could prevent it, they were not going to find or read. A novel which had, almost certainly, been destroyed.

  As he thought that, turning away, words echoed in his mind—words J. Bradley Osman, literary agent, had used, among so many others. “There’s something sacred about a manuscript, you’d think.”

  To a writer, Osman had meant. The sanctity, he had indicated, appertained primarily to the manuscript of an author’s own composition. Bill stopped suddenly. Had Osman meant that? Or, casually, had he implied more—that, to a writer, there is something especially to be prized about any manuscript, even one of somebody else’s fashioning?

  It could be true, Bill thought. It could be that, to a writer, a typescript, almost distinct from the matter it conveyed, might seem to have a special value. Among the intangibles with which a writer dealt, the physical manuscript might come to seem something tangible and immediate; more immediate even than the printed book. Perhaps a writer might hesitate to destroy, to blot out, even another writer’s typed pages. Through his association with Jerry North, Bill had met a few writers. There were few among the human vagaries he would put beyond them.

  And, now that he thought of it, there was another thing, perhaps less fanciful. Suppose a man to have special interest in literature—as a practitioner of it, or merely as a reader. Or as a collector, say. Would such a person perhaps hesitate to destroy, irretrievably, a work he thought good, even if he would go to the extent of murder to prevent its publication? Would a critic,” or another writer or, when one came to that, a publisher or a collector (which Shaw might readily be) not think a good book more to be prized, and preserved, than the author of the book? Suppose “Come Up Smiling” was as good as Osman said it was, or almost as good, would not Wilson, say, find the killing of it more difficult than the killing of a person?

  It was worth looking into. Bill picked up the telephone on Jerry’s desk and called the office in West Twentieth Street. The State Police were to be communicated with. Requests were to be made. The searches were to be thorough.

  Sergeant Mullins listened and was doubtful. You went to a lot of trouble—which murder was, after all—to prevent the publication of a book (not that that in itself wasn’t screwy enough!) and then, with your hands on the book, you didn’t destroy it? Maybe the Loot knew best. In recent years—since the long ago day when a cat’s footprint and the taste of lobster had guided to the solution of a case—they had met a good many screwy people. Mullins waited, without comment.

  They went, then, expeditiously enough but in no great haste. The station wagon, having been located, was being watched. It would not be permitted to depart without authorization. Anybody who tried to depart in it would be held. Until then, enough rope was to be given.

  Bill Weigand was reasonably confident he knew what the man who had arrived in the station wagon was up to. He was also, although not to the same degree, confident he knew who the man was. Granting the validity of his whole chain of reasoning—which he had to, provisionally—there was one man who fitted better than any of the others.

  But he was not prepared to find Helder lying on the floor of one of the two elevators, breathing heavily, staring fixedly up at the dome light above him. He was not prepared for the little he got of Helder’s story before a sergeant and a patrolman arrived in a prowl car and said, “All right, what’s going on here?” in hard, suspicious voices. He was not prepared for the ambulance which arrived a few minutes later.

  “Quite a bump, but he’ll probably do,” the ambulance interne said. “All right, Georgie.”

  They started to pick Helder up on the stretcher. They were asked to wait a minute; to answer a question. Who reported this?

  The interne looked at a slip of paper. “Man name of North,” he said. “All right, Georgie.”

  The station wagon remained in the street outside. A precinct man materialized from shadows across the street. Nobody had gone out. Yes, one man had gone in. Yes, the rear exit was under observation. No, the only way from the bottom of the fire escape led through a narrow court which debouched within view of the man on watch in the rear.

  “Right,” Bill Weigand said. To Mullins he said, in a quiet voice, that perhaps they had better be getting along up. They would, he said, walk. The elevators were very noisy gadgets.

  They left the uniformed men in the lobby, to come if needed. A whistle would tell them if there was need. Bill and Mullins began to climb.

  X

  Wednesday, 7:20 A.M. to 6:45 P.M.

  Jerry had listened. They stood side by side, Jerry’s left arm around Pam, holding her tight to him. They faced the door behind which the whispering man waited, but they could not see him. They could see only the hand which held the revolver. The revolver was steady, now.

  The washroom was near a corner of the office. Its door, hinged on the left as they faced it, shut off light which otherwise might have entered it from the room. As a result, with no light burning there, the washroom was in deep shadow. They could, behind the gun, make out only the deeper shadow which was the waiting man.

  “Speak so I can hear you,” the man whispered across the room. “Tell him where it is.”

  “I don’t know,” Pam said. “I keep telling you. It’s gone from—from where I put it. You—why do you lie? You must have found it.”

  “I shall,” the man said. “I haven’t. Where is it?”

  “You’re sure it’s gone?” Jerry, asked, and Pam said, “Yes.”

  She was trembling with weariness, and with fear. But it was not so bad as it had been. Jerry’s arm helped; his presence helped. “I looked,” Pam said.

  “Then—tell him,” Jerry said.

  She hesitated. For so many hours there had been the one thing—not to tell. Whatever he did, not to tell. Because as soon as she told he would have no reason to keep her alive. It was now strangely hard to break down resistance in her mind. Her mind kept saying, “No. Don’t tell. Don’t ever tell.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference,” Jerry said. “If you are sure it isn’t there.” He
looked at the shadow behind the the door. “No difference to you, either,” he said.

  “Nevertheless,” the man whispered. “Tell him.”

  Pam told them both.

  “All right,” the man said. “Now—you.” The revolver pointed at Jerry North. “Where would they be if, as she says, they aren’t there now?”

  “I don’t know,” Jerry said. “After they’re transcribed, my secretary piles them there until—” He broke off. He looked down at Pam. “You’re sure you put this record there?” he said. “You really did?”

  “Yes,” Pam said.

  “Then it’s gone,” Jerry told them both. “They’re all gone.”

  “There’s no use in that,” the man said. “But—go on. What do you mean?”

  “They’ve been sent back to the company that makes them,” Jerry said. He spoke slowly. “To the local branch. Every Tuesday Miss Corning has a boy bundle them up—all the ones we’ve transcribed from, don’t want to save—and he takes them back to the Voice-Scriber people. And—they shave them. Whatever they do. Scrape off the sound so that they can be used—”

  “You’re lying,” the man said. “It won’t do you any good.”

  “No,” Jerry said. “The words are gone. Wiped off—scraped off—whatever they do. It’s all—erased.”

  Then, unexpectedly, he laughed. He was told, harshly, to be quiet.

  “Why?” Jerry said. “Don’t you think it’s funny? You kidnap my wife. Drag her around the country. Up to South Salem. You—”

  “Was that where it was?” Pam said.

  “Go on,” the man said. “Tell your amusing anecdote, Mr. North.”

  “Yes,” Jerry told Pam. “To South Salem.”

  “And,” Pam said, “the trunk—?”

  “A girl named Hilda Godwin,” Jerry said. “You remember? She wrote—”

  “Oh,” Pam said. “I remember. Little—songs.”

  “I told you to go on, North,” the man said. “What is funny? You talk too much.”

  “No,” Jerry said. “You did that, didn’t you?”

  His arm was tightening around Pam. He was—almost imperceptibly—pushing her toward the left; inching them both toward the left. He had been, she realized now, doing that for a minute or longer; he was talking to spin it out. He was, she supposed, lying about the records to spin it out.

  As they moved, the door came more and more between them and the man behind the door. If he opened it much farther—and he seemed, engrossed by what Jerry was saying, to be opening it slowly wider—light would fall on him. But if he did not, and they continued to move, there would be a moment when the door was between him and them.

  Jerry laughed again. There was no mirth in it; Pam had never before heard him laugh so.

  “Don’t laugh,” the man said. His voice—he no longer whispered—was almost shrill. “I told you not to laugh. I told you—”

  “You’ve forgotten,” Pam said. “You told her not to laugh. Before you killed her. Called her a name, and called her a snake and—”

  She stopped because Jerry’s arm pressed her again; urged her to move with him, inch by inch, slowly. Then Jerry laughed again.

  “The sound of your own voice,” Jerry said. “You must have talked a lot. Made a record of murder. She fooled you in the end, didn’t she? Turned the machine on when you began to threaten—”

  “Stand still,” the man said. “Where’s the record? You lied about it, of course. Where is it?”

  “On the wind,” Jerry said. “Scraped off and thrown away. So you made a fool of yourself, didn’t you? Made a fool of yourself again. She tricked you and chance tricked you. If you’d kept your mouth shut, first. Then, if you’d done nothing—just waited. But now—you can’t get away with it now, can you? The record doesn’t matter now.”

  He laughed again. He urged Pam again toward the left. She could feel the tenseness in his body.

  No, Pam’s mind said. Don’t. He’ll kill you. Don’t laugh—he’ll kill you!

  He had lolled when the girl laughed. When she called him pompous, taunted him.

  Don’t, Jerry, Pam’s mind said. You don’t know!

  “Quite a talker, you must be,” Jerry said. “Talked yourself into it, didn’t you? The sound of your own voice. And now they’ve rubbed out the sound you were so afraid of. And now it’s too late. Now it doesn’t matter. Funny, isn’t it?”

  He managed to laugh again. The revolver followed them. It seemed to shake.

  “Must leave you feeling pretty impotent,” Jerry said.

  The man behind the door screamed at them, then. His voice was shrilly high; words—ugly words, violent words—screamed through the office.

  And the revolver steadied.

  Jerry pushed hard and Pam reeled from him, caught herself against the wall. At the same instant, Jerry jumped for the door.

  There was one shot. Its sound seemed to fill the office. Pam’s hands sought to hold the smoothness of the slipping wall; she crumpled against the wall; was on the floor.

  Jerry’s body hit the door. The man must have moved quickly as the door slammed toward him, but he was not quite quick enough. The revolver was caught between door and frame, wedging the door a little open.

  Jerry’s hand reached for the barrel of the revolver, closed on it. For an instant Pam, her eyes wide, could see him struggle for it, twisting it away. Then the revolver came free in Jerry’s hand. He relaxed his pressure on the door for an instant and drew the gun out. He strained to close the door again, throwing the gun aside.

  The man inside was pushing against the door. The crack did not narrow. It seemed to Pam slowly to widen.

  She moved, then. It was hard to move; her progress was harrowingly slow. She did not quite get to her feet as she crossed the office. Only at the last instant could she make herself stand erect, lean with Jerry against the door; push with him against the resistance within.

  It didn’t help much; she was too tired to help much, too slight in body for the force needed. It couldn’t help enough.

  But it helped. Inch by inch, it helped.

  Then, abruptly, resistance ended. The door slammed shut Jerry’s hand dropped to the knob, gripped it so his knuckles whitened.

  Pam did not hear his voice. Neither of them could ever decide, afterward, whether he had spoken. But Pam got the straight backed chair he wanted and they wedged it under the knob. He held the knob still; leaned still, with all his weight, against the lockless door. But the trap was closed.

  “Get—” he began, and this time he did speak. But he did not need to finish. Men were running in the outer office; the door of Jerry’s office banged open and Bill Weigand stood in it, gun ready. Mullins stood behind him.

  Explanation was not necessary. And Bill Weigand spoke.

  “All right, Wilson,” he said. “You may as well give up.”

  There was no answer from the washroom. For a moment there was no sound. Then there was a sound.

  “The window!” Jerry said. “He’s—”

  It took only seconds to wrench the chair away, to pull open the door they had so laboriously fought closed. But the seconds were too long.

  Weigand was in the doorway as it opened. He shouted, “Stop!” and his gun went up. But he did not fire.

  Bernard Wilson had got through the window, to the sill outside. He faced to the right, moved his feet so that he could leap along the face of the building; clung for an instant to the top of the opened sash.

  Then he leaped.

  They could not see his fingers just touch the rail of the fire escape platform outside the office window. They could not see the contorted face; the body twisting in a final, hopeless effort.

  But they could hear Wilson scream as he fell.

  Pam’s hands covered her ears, but they could not shut out the scream. She stood for a moment so, and then blackness circled in around her, circled closer and still closer—She did not know when Jerry caught her.

  It was a little before six o’c
lock. Jerry had made drinks, put them on a tray. He started to carry the drinks to Pamela North in her bedroom, but Pamela appeared at the living room door. She was pale still; her eyes were smudged in the whiteness of her face; the redness of her lipstick was too sharp against pallor.

  “I feel fine now,” Pam North said, and swayed slightly in the doorway. “Perfectly all right.”

  Jerry got her to a chair. She admitted that, sitting, she felt better. After a drink she felt better still; she even, Jerry had to admit to himself, looked better.

  Two of the cats sat at Pam’s feet and stared up at her, intent, as if to re-familiarize themselves with a face almost forgotten. Martini was less forgiving. She sat at some distance, back to her humans who would be required, in the end, to make their peace; to humans who must be taught that cats are not lightly to be left alone for days; that it is intolerable for humans; finally returned, to shut themselves away from cats and sleep the day away.

  “Martini’s very mad at us,” Pam said. The end of the little cat’s tail twitched, but the cat did not turn. “It’s over now, Teeney.”

  It was, or almost. Before they slept, Pam had told Jerry how the record had come, how she had listened, and been caught. She told him of the attic, and of the prat-fall when she dropped from the roof, and of the poison ivy. She examined her legs at that point; found them scratched but without ivy symptoms. It was too soon for that, Jerry told her, consolingly; that would come in time. He made her sleep, then, although he could not persuade her to take Nembutal. “You know I don’t take things,” Pam said, and took aspirin, which is not a thing in the category of “things,” and slept. Jerry slept too, awakening at intervals to look at the other bed, to reassure himself of a dear, if rather battered, presence. But they both awoke for cocktails.

  Bill Weigand arrived a few minutes after six. He had not slept; his always thin face was drawn. He hesitated to take a drink, pointing out that if he once sat down, once drank, he would, quite probably, never get up again; telling them he was on his way home.

  “Wilson’s dead,” Bill told them. “He died a couple of hours ago. He talked first.”