“I’m sorry,” Pam said. “It comes over me sometimes. I plan not to but I do in spite of it. Penn Station.”
“Do what?” the taxi driver asked.
“Penn Station,” Pam said. “Talk to myself.”
“I don’t get that about hiccoughs,” the driver said, in a rather gloomy voice. “Which side?”
“Hiccoughs?” Pam North repeated, in apparently honest puzzlement. “Both sides, usually. Right in the middle, really. What about hiccoughs?”
“What about—” the driver began, reaching back to push down his flag and stopping, bemused. “How should I know what about hiccoughs, lady? They’re your hiccoughs.”
“I haven’t got the hiccoughs,” Pam said. “I want to go to the Pennsylvania Station.”
The driver turned around and stared at her.
“Listen, lady,” he said. “Can we just start over? You get into the hack and you say—what do you say, lady?” His voice was beseeching.
“Oh,” Mrs. North said. “I was thinking about the murder. Pennsylvania Station.”
“O.K.,” the driver said. “Pennsylvania Station. What murder? Murder!”
It seemed to reach him slowly.
“Back there,” Pam told him. “That’s why all the police cars. And if you’ve got to talk, can’t you do it while we go? Because they’re little girls and I’ve got to meet them. It’s always the woman who has to; while men do interesting things.”
“Your—,” the taxi driver began. He lapsed, staring straight ahead for a moment. Then he shrugged, lifting both hands from the steering wheel. He lowered his right hand to the gear shift level, still staring ahead, and pulled. There was a grinding clash which seemed to please him, and the cab started. The driver stared straight ahead, a little wildly. Mrs. North dismissed him from her mind.
It was true, she thought (and this time she thought silently) that when there were dull things to do, women were ordinarily chosen. If it came to a choice between murder and nieces, men got the murder and women got the nieces. And you couldn’t deny that murder was more interesting than nieces. Murder was tremendously, engrossingly interesting.
Realizing how interesting it was, Pam North felt a little worried about herself. Probably, when you came down to it, it wasn’t good for you to be so interested in murders. “Habit-forming,” Pam thought. You started out able to take murder or leave it alone—never dreaming of taking it, really. And one murder led to another, and it became—well, a sort of game. And it should never be a game; not really a game. Or, she corrected, not essentially a game, because it would always be in the nature of things a kind of game. A dreadful kind of game, at bottom, but still a game. It would be—Pam tried to think of a simile—it would be like tennis, if, after the set was over, the loser was shot. That would make tennis a rather horrible game, but it would not keep it from being a game. The strokes would be the same, the maneuvering for position, the sparring for openings. Watching it, you would still be watching a game. Only you would care more.
And would it, Pam wondered, be morbid to watch tennis of that sort? She grabbed the handstrap at the side of the cab, which seemed to be going very rapidly, even for a cab—which seemed to be progressing toward the Pennsylvania Station with a kind of desperation. The driver was certainly in a hurry to get there, Pam thought, in parenthesis. But would it be morbid?
I don’t really know what being morbid is, Pam thought. Of course you’re more interested in things which are important, like life, than in things which are not really important, like tennis cups. Is that morbid? And you are more interested in murder than in nieces, and there is no use pretending that you are not. Because, Pam told herself, murder is always important. Maybe it is the most important thing in the world, because it is the most final thing in the world.
“You can’t be interested in life without being interested in death,” Pam told herself and realized that, this time, she had again thought out loud. She realized it because the driver bent a little lower over his wheel, as if he were shrinking from something. She was sorry she had spoken aloud, but after all it was true. That was one reason why almost everybody was interested in murder—everybody who was alive. It was because, however you thought about it, it was in itself a thing of major importance.
It isn’t morbid, Pam thought. Not really—not being interested in it isn’t. People always are, as long as they’re interested in anything—anything human. Some people pretend not to be, but it is either pretense or they aren’t interested any more, in anything. Even uninteresting murders are interesting and you read about them in the newspapers. You read enough, anyway, to find out that the details are not interesting. But you read that much, always, because murder is interesting. It is horrible and frightening and dangerous, and perhaps it is morbid. But it is interesting.
“And,” Pam thought, “what really is morbid is not to be interested in things which are interesting.”
The taxi driver spoke. His voice was uneasy, tentative.
“Which side, lady?” he said. “Penn or Long Island?”
“Oh,” Pam said. “It doesn’t matter, really. I’m meeting … Either side—Penn, I guess. Or right in front.”
“Thanks, lady,” the driver said. “Right in front all right?”
He seemed to be a very odd taxi driver, Pam thought. He wasn’t like most taxicab drivers, really. He was—sort of subdued. Which was inappropriate in taxi drivers. The cab stopped and she left it and paid her fare and looked thoughtfully at the taxi driver. He was inappropriate, although he looked appropriate enough. It was—
The word “appropriate” seemed to have done something to her mind; it had stirred her mind and found a lump in it, of which Pam had not a moment before been conscious. It was a lump of something she ought to remember, or think about; it was a lump of something odd, not yet arranged in its proper place—not yet resolved by her mind. It was a lump about something else which had been inappropriate and not what she expected, although both what had been at odds with expectation and what the expectation had been were only uneasy feelings, not ideas.
It did not, Pam thought, walking along the arcade of the Pennsylvania Station toward the stairs leading down to the concourse, apply essentially to the taxi driver. He was clear in her mind, and he was inappropriate, and that was that. This was either before the taxi driver, or was to come after him. The inappropriate thing was either in the past or in the future—something which had been wrong, or something which was going to be wrong. Like going to the Penn Station to meet people coming in at the Grand Central. Although it wasn’t that, because the girls were coming from Philadelphia, and that was Penn Station. So it couldn’t be that.
It was in the past, Pam decided, and, because it was now bothering her noticeably, she went into the past to look for it. It felt like being in the very recent past—today’s past, probably. She went over her day—over breakfast with Jerry worrying about his speech, and over luncheon with Dorian at the French place in Radio City, where they had taken up the outdoor tables and were laying a kind of floor, probably for the ice skating which ought to begin before long, now; over cocktails at Charles with Jerry and dinner afterward at home—dinner early because of the lecture, and with Jerry still not eating anything much, and turning every topic of conversation into something about the introductory speeches he had to deliver. (Jerry is so foolish about things, Pam thought. He’s so sweet, really.)
There was nothing inappropriate in the day up to then, or at the Today’s Topics Club. Nothing until Jerry had turned, after a really very nice little talk, and invited Mr. Sproul to get up. And Mr. Sproul hadn’t got up—that was inappropriate, all right. Pam thought about it, going down the stairs, and shook her head. That was a big thing; this which bothered her was a little thing. It wasn’t about Mr. Sproul—or, anyway, not about Mr. Sproul’s being dead. It was a little thing, perhaps afterward, which was at odds with expectation. It was—Pam tried again to make it come clear—it was as if a picture you had once seen and now
saw again had subtly changed in the meantime; it was as if the tree in the right foreground had turned, between the two times of seeing, into a bush.
Pamela North went through the doors which always seemed to her to open by magic, and in whose opening she never trusted, always reaching out hands to push just as the doors receded of their own miraculous accord. She went downstairs to the arriving train level, still trying to identify the discrepancy which continued to bother her.
It felt right, she decided, for the discrepancy to concern one of the people she had encountered on the platform after the murder—or encountered somewhere between the time that Mr. Sproul failed to stand up and the time she got into the taxicab to come and meet her sister’s little daughters. It felt right that she had met one of those people before, or seen one of them before, under conditions which did not accord with the conditions under which she had seen them this evening. If she had, for example, seen Dr. Dupont turning cartwheels in a vaudeville show, that would account for it. “Although,” Mrs. North admitted to herself, “a little extremely.” If she had seen that other doctor—the real doctor—acting as a traffic policeman on Fifth Avenue, that would explain it. Or if she had seen the woman who had preceded Mr. North at the lectern, and was presumably the program chairman of the club—Mrs. Williams or something—performing as a ballet dancer, that would be the sort of thing it was.
But it was not any of these things, and it was not, Mrs. North decided, anything she was apt to get straight until something else resuggested it to her mind. Eventually, perhaps, something would happen which would throw an oblique light on her puzzlement and give sudden illumination. Or it might be, of course, that nothing would happen until the puzzlement had slowly faded away.
She was ten minutes late for the train, Mrs. North observed as she passed a clock. But on the other hand, she saw on the arrivals blackboard, the train was twenty minutes late for itself. She lighted a cigarette and waited, wondering about Mr. Sproul. Red caps went down the stairs, which meant the train was coming. Mrs. North could have gone down; but she decided that that way there would be greater danger of missing the little girls. She could stand here, between the two stairways—the Pennsylvania Railroad had certainly arranged things awkwardly—and look in both directions and pretty soon see them.
The stairway leading to the rear of the train probably was the better bet, she decided, because her sister would have sent the little girls in a Pullman, and asked the porter to look after them. So she stood nearer the stairway leading to the rear and looked down it and saw people beginning to come up.
She could not see any little girls coming up the stairway, so she hurried to the other and looked down it. More people were coming up it, including what was evidently a large part of the army, and no little girls. “Damn the Pennsylvania Railroad,” Mrs. North said, and dashed back to the other staircase. Still no little girls. She took a place between the staircases and vibrated her head as rapidly as she could, making her neck hurt. Still no little girls. And now the stream of arriving passengers was reduced to a trickle—two trickles, specifically. Mrs. North began to be worried.
And then there was a glad young voice behind her. It said:
“Auntie Pam! Auntie Pam!”
That was one of the girls. Margie or—or the one you mustn’t call Lizzie, but must remember always to call Beth. Somehow they had got around her.
Mrs. North turned quickly, with a welcoming smile. There were no little girls. There were—
One of the two young ladies confronting Pam North beamed and gamboled forward.
“Auntie Pam!” she said. “Darling!”
Mrs. North gasped. They were not little girls; they were almost grown up girls. And attached to each, with a kind of firm hopefulness, was a sailor. The sailors were looking at Mrs. North with anxious doubt, like uncertain puppies. They were very young sailors.
“But not that young!” Mrs. North thought a little frantically, as she started foward. “Not nearly young enough!”
“Children!” Mrs. North said. For the first time in my life, Mrs. North thought, I sound like a mother. “Margie! Lizzie!”
“Beth,” said the foremost of the children, and she let her sailor slip away to meet, it was evident, this new and greater emergency. “Beth, Aunt Pam.” There was a kind of wail in her voice. “Not Lizzie!” She blushed furiously, then, and looked back at her sailor in evident anguish. The sailor, however, merely looked uneasily at Pam North.
4
Thursday, 9:25 P.M. to 10:20 P.M.
Bill Weigand watched Pamela North drop to the auditorium floor and go off to meet her nieces. He turned back to the platform, counting off. There was the dead, Victor Leeds Sproul. There were the quick—Gerald North; Dr. Klingman, who still hovered over Dr. Dupont; Dr. Dupont himself, who at first glance seemed somewhere between the quick and the dead; the woman who, Weigand gathered, had introduced Mr. North so that he might in turn introduce Sproul, thus earnestly duplicating efforts; a very well finished off, rather saturnine man at the moment unidentified; two men without distinguishing characteristics who presumably were somehow connected with Today’s Topics Club; Sergeant Mullins and assorted policemen.
It was a mixed bag, Weigand thought. There was no particular reason to think that the cat in it was a murderer, or even that there was a cat. But detectives must start somewhere. Weigand looked the catch over speculatively, wondered about Mr. North’s little dark man and where he was and who he was and if he had anything to do with anything, and let his glance fall on Dr. Klingman. But he already, through Dr. Francis, knew what Klingman could tell him as a physician and it was not clear that Klingman had any other capacity. Weigand looked at Dr. Dupont and decided he had to start somewhere, and that the tall old man might as well be the where.
He took a step toward Dr. Dupont and the well finished, saturnine man intervened. He stepped forward briskly, a man who knew what he was about, and confronted Bill Weigand. Weigand stopped and looked at him.
“Y. Charles Burden,” the saturnine man said.
“I don’t know,” Weigand said. “Why?”
The saturnine man smiled faintly.
“I’m used to that one,” he said. “Very used to it. I am Y. Charles Burden. The ‘Y’ stands for Young, which my misguided parents thought to be a suitable name for an offspring.”
Mr. Burden stopped, leaving it up to Weigand if he wanted it.
“Very interesting,” Weigand told him. “I am—”
Mr. Burden did not think it necessary for Weigand to finish.
“A detective,” Mr. Burden told him. “Heard about you. Read about you some place.” He looked Weigand’s spare figure and thin face over with interest. “Ever lecture?” he inquired. “Might go, you know. Secrets of the police; famous murders I have solved; how to catch saboteurs. Very interested in saboteurs, people are just now. Naturally.”
“And I, just now, am interested in a murder,” Weigand told him. “This murder. Have you anything to do with it?” He considered Burden. “You’d be his lecture agent, probably,” he said. “Right?”
“I was,” Burden said. “I certainly was. Booked him from coast to coast—and back. Can you picture what this means—cancellations, substitutions, program chairman frothing, re-routing all over the place?” As he spoke his tone grew accusing; he ended in a stare which seemed to hold Weigand responsible. Weigand merely looked at him, blandly. When Burden seemed to expect an answer, Weigand told him that it was unfortunate.
“Murder usually is,” Weigand said. “Inconveniences a lot of people. Friends, relatives, business associates, the police. To say nothing of the corpse. You have something to tell me? Right?”
Burden shook his head quickly.
“Just placing myself,” he said. “I saw you looking at me and thought you probably were wondering. Thought I’d clear it up.”
It was the evident conviction of Mr. Burden that people had only to look at him to wonder about him. He did not suppose that any gaze, even on
e of pure chance, could remain utterly indifferent after it had encountered Mr. Burden. And probably, Weigand thought, he’s right. And he was the first end of the tangle to come to hand. Weigand decided to pull.
“Right,” Weigand said. “Cooperative of you. And, so long as you have, we may as well find out what you can tell us. About Sproul—in case it turns out he was murdered. You knew something about him, of course?”
Y. Charles Burden nodded. That, he indicated, was obvious. He amplified. He knew that Sproul had written a book that was a hit, he had heard that Sproul could talk on his feet and that he had manner, he knew that he could sell Sproul to women’s clubs.
“From coast to coast,” Weigand prompted. Burden, relaxing, grinned. He said, “Precisely.”
“That’s all you knew?” Weigand pressed. “What you’d heard of him, which made you think he’d be useful in your—your list?”
“Stable,” Burden said.
“Right,” Weigand said. “That’s all you knew about him?”
Burden seemed to hesitate, although Weigand was convinced that he had expected the question, planned how to answer it, probably introduced himself to Weigand to bring it up. Y. Charles Burden was not, Weigand thought, a man who did things on the spur of the moment. But now he gave every evidence of making up his mind on the spur of the moment.
“As a matter of fact,” Burden said, “I did once know the guy. Years ago, here in New York. But too long ago to matter—before he went to Paris. And I knew him in Paris for a while, in the old days—1928 or thereabouts. When everything was high, wide and handsome and the boys and girls were living on the fat of the Left Bank.” Burden smiled slightly in reminiscence. “I came back in ’29,” he said. “With my tail between my legs. Sproul stayed on, of course.” He abandoned the softness of remembrance. “However,” he said crisply now, “I never knew him at all well. And I don’t know anything that will help you.”
Death Takes a Bow Page 5
