Death Takes a Bow

by Frances Lockridge

  “Miss B. L. Bounti. Tourist came to stay … artists and writers—WRITERS—circumspect. Br. Lovely lady—curious tastes—surprising under braids … CUT LOOSE.”

  What, on this framework, had Sproul planned to build? It was less than a framework; less than a blueprint. It was a penciled rough, such as an architect might sketch to remind himself of plans he might some day make … Miss B.? Weigand read it again. Braids? A little girl with braids, who had cut loose in Paris and revealed curious tastes? Paris was, or had been, a place for those with curious tastes—for circumspect young women who had a surprising “b” under braids. Brain? Or “bees” as in “bees in her bonnet?” But it would come to the same thing. And was “br” again “brains” or was it—any one of a hundred other words. “Bright,” perhaps—perhaps she was a bright young lady. Or perhaps she merely had a brother. Or was brillig. ’Twas brillig and the jabberwock … To hell with it!

  A circumspect young woman who wore her hair in braids—Then Weigand remembered. Jean Akron’s blond hair was coiled in braids around her head, unfashionably but with effectiveness. And she had a brother—she certainly had a brother. And you would call her circumspect; it was possible to conclude that, to Sproul, she would have seemed in Paris a “tourist (who) came to stay.” And was an artist or a writer? No—who was interested in artists and writers. Particularly writers? And was there a kind of leer in the planned reiteration of one of the varieties of mankind in which Miss B. was interested? Was there a kind of leer in the whole passage devoted to her; a kind of slyness, that hinted of hints to come? Hints, could it remotely be, about Miss B. and her brother?

  What had Sproul planned to say about Jean Akron, assuming, as it seemed reasonable to assume, that Jean Akron was Miss B.? Something Jean or her brother might have gone to considerable lengths—even to great and final lengths—to prevent his saying? The notes, Weigand decided, left the matter open. They left room for speculation. It would be his duty to speculate. This much he decided: The notes on Miss B. did not, at the worst, discount his theory that Sproul might have been killed to close his mouth; to prevent his repeating, from coast to coast, something which some person would be much inconvenienced by his saying anywhere.

  Weigand lighted a new cigarette and continued to Mr. C. He read:

  “Mr. C. Artist all know—monkeys.”

  That was all it said about Mr. C. He was an artist and there was something about monkeys. Weigand stared at it and said “Damn.” Mr. C. and his monkeys seemed to be new characters, making belated entrances. If Mr. C. was important, all that Weigand had so far done in listening to people, watching their faces, speculating over their inflections and the words they chose, was valueless. Which meant he would have to start over. On the other hand, he could defer Mr. C. He decided to defer Mr. C.

  “Mr. D.… excellent nws. Boon c—very boon … long in P. very few knew … little matter of pad. ex.ac. c.e. Wd. badly in Cin.”

  To hell with abbreviations. “Excellent nws” indeed. Weigand stared at it. “Excellent news?” Why was Mr. D. excellent news? Mr. D. was not excellent news to Weigand; he was not news at all. “Excellent news—” “newspaperman?” That was evidently possible. And “boon c” would be, obviously boon companion, presumably of Sproul … “very boon” might be Sproul’s way of saying that Mr. D. let himself go on occasion; that, like Miss B., he “cut loose.” He had been “long in P(aris)” and very few knew—“him?” Or “why” he had been so long in Paris? Had he remained in Paris because of a little matter of a pad. ex.ac.c.e., which, Weigand had to admit, meant nothing whatever to him at the moment. Nor did the information that Mr. D. had “wd,” which presumably was “weighed” or “wanted” badly in “Cin.” seem to mean much. Unless Sproul was a bad speller and had intended to say that Mr. D. had waited in sin, somewhere. Badly. That made no apparent sense.

  But Weigand did have a newspaperman on his list—George Schwartz. The lanky, pleasant copy-reader who was formerly the husband of Loretta Shaw, who was to have married Sproul. And who apparently was still in love with Loretta Shaw. Or, at any rate, wanted to get his arms around her, which might be the same thing. Weigand found himself speculating absently on the nature of love and drew himself harshly back. That was no way for the mind of a detective to behave.

  The door opened, and Mullins came in. Weigand looked at him absently.

  “Do you ever speculate about the nature of love, Sergeant?” he inquired, in a formal voice.

  Mullins stared at him and said “huh?” But he did not seem particularly surprised.

  “Skip it,” Weigand told him.

  “Sure I do,” Mullins said. “What’ja think I am, Loot? Other day, I ran into as neat a little—”

  “Right,” Weigand said. “You’ll have to tell me about her, Sergeant. Say in about a month. Right?”

  “In a month,” Mullins said, “I maybe won’t remember. But what the hell? Here’s some more reports, Loot.”

  Weigand waved at the desk. He scrawled on a pad in front of him.

  “Pad. ex.ac.c.e.” he wrote and tossed it to Mullins.

  “What does that mean, Mullins?” he inquired. “Without thinking?”

  “Padded expense accounts,” Mullins said. He stared at it. “Or maybe not,” he said. “I don’t get the ‘c.e.’ part.”

  Weigand stared at him wonderingly.

  “Mullins,” he said, “you’re wonderful. As Mrs. North says.”

  Mullins looked pleased.

  “Did she, Loot?” he asked, hopefully.

  “Hundreds of times,” Weigand assured him. “She says, ‘Mullins is wonderful.’ Dorian, on the other hand—”

  “O.K., Loot,” Mullins said. “O.K. I bit. O.K. But it could mean that. All except the ‘c.e.’”

  “Exactly,” Weigand told him. “You are wonderful. Probably it does mean that. And probably ‘c.e.’ means city editor. Probably it all means that Mr. D., who may be Mr. Schwartz, padded expense accounts when he was city editor of some paper in—probably in Cincinnati, where he is now badly wanted.”

  Weigand was pleased. Here, at any rate, was something they could check on. The Cincinnati police would cooperate; it was specific. Would Schwartz have killed Sproul because Sproul was about to reveal the peculations of Schwartz’s past?

  Weigand paused and thought it over, his feeling of accomplishment dwindling. It was unlikely that Schwartz would kill Sproul because Sproul knew so relatively unimportant a secret. If Schwartz was going to do any killing of Sproul, it would much more probably be over Loretta Shaw. If Schwartz killed, he might be expected to kill violently, in response to violent stimuli.

  Mullins was looking down at the desk. He said, “Ain’t those Sproul’s notes?” and Weigand looked at him absently and nodded.

  “Look,” Mullins said, “I thought you lost them. I thought somebody took them.”

  “Somebody brought them back,” Weigand told him. Mullins waited for him to go on, and he did not go on.

  “Just like that?” Mullins said. “Who?”

  “I don’t know,” Weigand said. “Somebody—sent them to me.”

  Mullins said that was funny. Then, after a moment, he made an addition.

  “So they don’t tell us anything,” he said. “Or the guy wouldn’t have sent them back.”

  Weigand held the sheets out to Mullins and showed him the marks. Mullins said it was sure funny. Weigand agreed.

  Presumably, Weigand explained, it wasn’t the murderer who had stolen the notes. On the contrary, they seemed to have been stolen by somebody who had, after looking them over, decided to turn assistant detective. Mullins nodded slowly.

  “Only,” he said, “there’s always a double bluff, ain’t there, Loot.”

  Weigand smiled at him encouragingly and nodded.

  “Right, Sergeant,” he said. “As you say. There’s always the double bluff.”

  Mullins looked down at him.

  “Hell,” he said. “Another screwy one. It’s those Norths again.” />
  8

  Friday, 12:15 P.M. to 2:10 P.M.

  Mrs. North dialed and waited. The telephone buzzed properly and then clicked and spluttered. Absently, Mrs. North reached out and removed Ruffy’s right forepaw from the telephone cradle, which Ruffy had been investigating. Mrs. North dialed again and a markedly wheedling voice said: “United States Weather Bureau forecast for New York City and vicinity: Twelve noon temperature fifty-six degrees, humidity ninety-five per cent. This afternoon and early tonight, showers. Not much change in temperature. Drive carefully and save rubber.”

  Mrs. North said “thank you” and remembered that Jerry told her she shouldn’t, because the dulcet voice was really a recording and had no ears. But Mrs. North, although she believed this with her mind, did not really believe it, and it seemed rude to her not to say anything at all, particularly about driving carefully. Mrs. North removed Ruffy’s left forepaw, which was partly wedged under the depressible bar in the telephone cradle, parked the telephone and looked out the window. A gust of wind threw rain blindingly against the window, and the window rattled.

  “Showers,” said Mrs. North. “Probably intended to fool the Germans.”

  Because this wasn’t a shower. This was a deluge. Mrs. North rephrased the weather forecast, to make it conform with the fact. “This afternoon and early tonight, deluges.” Or maybe: “Occasional deluges.” It would have to end: “Swim carefully; conserve life belts.”

  It was, Mrs. North realized, being very boring for the nieces. Here was a Saturday and their first in New York, and on Saturdays sailors came in clusters. Not, Mrs. North thought a little anxiously, that the sailors must be allowed to do Beth and Margie any good. But on a sunny day, girls could look at sailors and know that sailors were looking at them, and that probably was enough.

  “It had better be,” Mrs. North thought, looking out the window and thinking of the now very disturbing trust put in her by her sister. But they’re really such nice little girls.

  “Aunt Pam,” Beth said from behind her and Mrs. North turned. Beth looked out of the window. “It rains a lot in New York, doesn’t it?” she said, conversationally.

  “Sometimes,” Mrs. North said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh,” Beth said, encouragingly, “It isn’t your fault, Aunt Pam.” But the exoneration sounded rather formal. “You can’t help it, really. I expect it’s just New York. Or the equinox.”

  “It’s too late for the equinox,” Mrs. North said. “At least I think it is. And I don’t really know if there is any, Beth. To make it rain, I mean. I think it just happened to rain.”

  Beth looked out at the window, which streamed.

  “It certainly is,” she said. “I don’t suppose we’ll be going out, Aunt Pam. I mean, out anywhere. Like a movie.”

  It didn’t, Pam thought, looking out the window in her turn, look much like it. But the alternative was Beth and Margie and herself and Martha, in a rather small apartment. Especially, she added to herself, Beth.

  “Oh,” Pam North said, “in New York people don’t let it stop them. Because of the subways.”

  “Can we ride in the subways?” Beth said. “We never have, Aunt Pamela.”

  Pam said of course they could.

  “But some day when it isn’t raining,” she said. “Today, because it’s raining, we’d better take a taxicab.”

  “To a movie?” Beth sounded surprised. “Don’t you drive your own car at all, Aunt Pam?”

  “Not when it’s raining, dear,” Pam said. “Hardly ever in town, because you can never stop anywhere. It’s really cheaper to take taxis.”

  Beth thought this over and looked at Pamela North with doubt. She compromised, it was evident, by saying she liked taxicabs.

  “But papa says they’re an extravagance,” she added. “He says street cars are good enough.”

  “Does he, dear?” Pam said. “I expect he’s right, at home. Only in New York nobody rides street cars.” She thought this over. “Even when there were any,” she said. “Except people who just sat in them.”

  Beth clearly didn’t get this. Neither, Pamela North thought, do I. Exactly. But that’s just what they did.

  “If we’re going to a movie,” Beth said, after a brief, puzzled pause, “I ought to change my dress. And tell Margie to change hers. Oughtn’t I, Aunt Pam?”

  Pam said she thought that would be very nice. Between the beating of the rain on the window, and Beth, she felt somehow hypnotized. She rallied.

  “I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” she said. “We’ll go out to lunch some place. And then a movie, if we find one. Would you like that, Beth?” She looked at Beth. “I’m sorry about the rain,” Pam said.

  “Oh,” Beth said, “I think that will be lovely, Aunt Pam. Could we go to an Automat?”

  “Well,” Pam said. “Wouldn’t you rather go some place else, dear. Where we can sit down?”

  “Oh,” Beth said, “do you have to stand up in the Automat?”

  “You have to walk around,” Pam told her. “And it’s hard with an umbrella. I think today we won’t go to the Automat. Although we will, while you’re here.” She smiled at Beth, feeling an unexpected kinship. “I used to like them too,” she said. “Jerry and I used to eat in them a lot.” She smiled, in reminiscence. “I was always thinking the cup would come out too,” she said. “And so the coffee went down the drain, of course.”

  It was a funny remembrance, and the remembrance of Jerry’s face when he saw her face as the coffee flowed uninterrupted from the spigot made it even funnier. She looked at Beth and saw the effortful smile on Beth’s face and remembered.

  “Of course,” she said, “you don’t know how they work. It wouldn’t be funny to you. But it was funny to us.”

  “Oh,” Beth said, “I’m sure it was, Aunt Pamela. It must have been very funny.”

  This conversation, Pam told herself, is unbelievable. It must be the rain. She turned briskly from the window.

  “You and Margie get dressed,” she directed. “We’ll go out to lunch, to some nice place, and then to a movie. I’ll tell you—we’ll go to the Roundabout.”

  “Oh,” Beth said. It occurred to Pam that Beth said “Oh” so often because it made her lips look as if they were prepared for a kiss. Pam rejected this speculation, but without finality; she deferred the speculation. “Oh,” Beth said, “that will be lovely, Aunt Pam. Is the Roundabout a nice place?”

  That, Pam thought, was certainly a question. Since she was taking the girls to the Roundabout primarily because she had once seen a woman who might be a murderer languishing publicly over a man who might be anything, and was certainly not the kind of man little girls should know, it was hard to tell even herself that the Roundabout was “nice.” The Roundabout was, in a sense, all things to all people, but more to them in the evening than at luncheon time. But that would be hard to explain to Beth.

  Really, Pam thought, the Roundabout was at least two places. At luncheon it was just a pretty good place for luncheon, with a trio including a xylophone. At night it was a place with a floor show, and not really a good place. She and Jerry had gone to see what it was like; it was a place you went to to see what it was like. But that, also, would be complicated to explain to Beth. To Beth, Pam noted, and also now to Margie, who had appeared behind her sister.

  “Very nice,” Pam said. “It’s really very nice, Beth.”

  Why was it, Pam wondered, that when you praised anything twice in the same words, you inferentially condemned it? She would have to ask Jerry. He would have a theory. He always had theories.

  “Very nice,” Pam repeated, more firmly than ever. “Change your things, children.”

  After the simplicity of rain, the Roundabout was surprising. It was too bright and too big, and there were too many mirrors; there were too many tables too pointedly secluded by too many mirrored pillars; there was too much bar with things too shining upon it. Pam wondered what Beth and Margie would tell their mother about it when they got home, and wha
t their mother would afterward write to Pam.

  The captain was too welcoming, and his accent was too quaint. But he had them, now, and there was no escape, except to shake a head when he led them toward a table practically under the bar, to continue shaking it in spite of the expression of puzzled surprise in his face, indicating that they were rejecting the very best table in quite the best restaurant in the world, and to nod only when he shrugged toward a table in a corner, where they could all sit with their backs to the wall.

  Pam had to shake her head again when the waiter suggested cocktails, shaking it in an undertone to match the tone of the suggestion. Pam had a mental picture of a martini, very cold with beads on the glass—because the glass had first been iced—and a lemon peel twisted over it but not dropped in. No olive, Pam told her mental picture.

  “I think the tomato juice cocktail would be nice, to start with, don’t you, girls?” Pamela North said, a heroine in her own right. And then, proving that virtue has sometimes rewards beyond itself, Mrs. North looked across the restaurant and saw what she had come to see. She saw Mrs. Paul Williams.

  Mrs. Williams was wearing a black silk suit over her corsets, and had let a fur jacket fall over the back of the bar chair. There was nothing languishing about her, although she was sitting between two men, and Pam was disappointed. Mrs. Williams was a busy woman, having a cocktail at a bar before lunch and this was not a discrepancy. Or, at the most, not a discrepancy you could build on. She was not making eyes at anybody. At first, Mrs. North thought she was not with anybody, and then she began to wonder.