Death Takes a Bow

by Frances Lockridge

  “But somebody killed him,” she said. “So it doesn’t matter that he might have run into some involvement he couldn’t solve, and killed himself.” Her tone ended the divagation.

  Sproul might, Weigand pointed out when she passed the conversation to him, have run into some involvement that couldn’t be solved by someone else, who had as a result killed him. It was, he told her, interesting to find out what could be found out about Sproul from people who had known him.

  “Men arrange their own murders,” he said. “By being what they are, doing the things they do, meeting the people they meet.”

  She smiled a little, and told Weigand he was a philosopher. Mullins moved uneasily, the leather belt which aided his suspenders in the task of supporting the Mullins trousers creaking. The creak said that Mullins thought all this was pretty silly. Weigand smiled faintly to himself, and to Mullins. Then, to Jean Akron, he shook his head.

  “A policeman,” he told her. “Merely a policeman, asking questions. So—”

  She had known Sproul well, he gathered. At one time she had known him well. How well? She shrugged to that one, as if the question were beyond answer. She looked at Weigand and answered.

  “Not that well,” she said.

  “How well?” Weigand was patient.

  “At one time,” she said, “very well. Almost that well. We were—we thought we were—well, we talked about marriage.”

  “And something happened?” Weigand said.

  She shrugged. Nothing had happened, in any tangible sense. It was merely that nothing did happen. She was very casual.

  “We drifted apart,” she said. “We—we each met other people.”

  Sproul, Weigand assumed, had met Loretta Shaw. She nodded. And she—?

  “Other people,” she said. “Just other people.”

  And now, Weigand thought, watching her, she is too casual; now she is showing that she is showing nothing. He was blunt.

  “Were you in love with him?” he said.

  A kind of blankness came in her calm eyes. She said she did not understand.

  “I was quite clear,” Weigand told her. “Were you in love with Sproul? Did he—well, to put it bluntly, did he drop you for Miss Shaw?”

  She said, “Really, Lieutenant!”

  “Because,” Weigand said, “it would be interesting to discover that you had been very much in love with Sproul, Miss Akron. And that he had, perhaps, pretended to be in love with you and that he wanted to marry you. And that he had left you, suddenly, for Miss Shaw.”

  “And,” she said, “that I killed him?”

  It was, Weigand told her, her own conclusion to the series. To such a series, she would admit it was an apt conclusion.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know people like that—violent people. I suppose such things happen.”

  Such things might happen, her tone made clear, among the people with whom Weigand associated; of whom, her tone almost suggested, he was one. Crude people.

  “Such things happen,” Weigand assured her. “To people of all sorts, Miss Akron. Violence is no respecter of persons.” He looked around the apartment, making it obvious. “Or of incomes,” he added.

  The girl stood up.

  “I think there is no point in this,” she said. “I think you and”—she looked at Mullins—“your man had better go.”

  Mullins started to get up, but Weigand’s gesture stopped him.

  “We’ll go,” he promised. “Quite soon. When we’ve finished. Do you deny you were in love with Sproul, and that he left you for Loretta Shaw?”

  “In love?” she said. Her tone rejected the phrase as sentimental. “I was fond of him at one time. At that time I might have married him, if he had been in a position to marry. But it was not a—not a violent attachment. When we lost interest—when we both lost interest—we drifted apart.” She looked down at Weigand, who was still sitting. “You can’t make melodrama out of it,” she told him.

  “Right,” Weigand said. “I’m not trying to make anything out of anything. I’m trying to find out who killed Sproul. Why don’t you sit down and help me, Miss Akron? If you want to help.”

  “I can’t help,” she said. “I don’t know anything. And I don’t kill people.”

  Weigand let that lie. It did not seem a point to bicker over. He smiled faintly, accepting that much as read. He let a pause punctuate, and began again.

  “Why wasn’t Sproul in a position to marry, Miss Akron?” he asked. She looked at him suspiciously, said that he probably knew already. However—

  “He was married,” she said. “He had married somebody when he was very young—back in the west somewhere. They were still married. She was some—some sweet little thing from a small town. It was a mistake for Victor, of course. She was—oh, a homebody. At any rate, that’s what I gathered. She wanted a house and a yard, and Victor mowing the yard, and babies and—and the Middle West. Victor used to talk about her, and laugh—laugh rather oddly. As if he were laughing mostly at himself.”

  Weigand nodded. He could see the picture Sproul had painted; the picture of himself as an impetuous youth, long ago, his youthful ardors stimulated by a pretty girl, of the home town, perhaps—and this hinted—a girl’s premature surrender. And after that, by the mores of the community, marriage and respectability. And, for them both, maladjustment, as she did not “grow” with him. Weigand nodded.

  “And she never divorced him?” he said. “I assume he deserted her?”

  Jean Akron’s shrug was detached. About that, it and her words told Bill Weigand, she did not know. She assumed certainly that there had been no divorce, since Sproul said they were still married. Possibly he sent her money; possibly it had been, through the years, merely a separation and nothing final. She smiled faintly.

  “And, for Victor, a protection,” she said. “In the old days. But lately he wanted to marry and—settle down. The small town boy was coming out, I think.”

  She was calm, again, and detached. Since the questioning had turned, finally, from her own relations with Sproul, she was detached. She was trying to be helpful. She did not recall that Sproul had ever said so, in direct words, but she had got the impression that Mrs. Sproul still lived back in the Middle West, where she and Sproul had met. With a little house and a little lawn and a little garden, but without Victor Leeds Sproul. It seemed the inevitable thing to happen to Mrs. Sproul, as described.

  Weigand let the questioning drift from Sproul to others in the group—the Paris group, but his questions were idle and her replies were not freshly illuminating. It was lulling and Mullins stirred restlessly. He knew what the Loot was up to. He was listening to the girl’s voice, watching her eyes and her hands, trying to decide how she felt and thought and how she might act. “What makes the wheels go round,” Mullins thought to himself. The Loot was wondering if she was the sort of dame who would get sore at being ditched and knock off the guy who had ditched her; if she would pretend and smile and put morphine in the soup. Or, more likely, the drink. Mullins knew what the Loot was up to. Which didn’t keep it from being, to Mullins, dull. He looked at the dame and wondered would she? and thought maybe she would. He thought she had nice legs and curved well where she should, and that in general he liked the little ones. You wouldn’t, Mullins decided, call Jean Akron a cute trick, and cute tricks were the best in the long run. In the short run, however—Mullins found himself looking at Jean Akron with speculation and sighed. It was too bad, in a way, that she had so much jack.

  Mullins’ mildly pleasant day-dreaming was interrupted. Weigand got up and said, “Thank you, Miss Akron,” and started to move toward the door. Mullins got up, and Weigand turned around.

  “By the way, Miss Akron,” Weigand said casually. “For the record. Where were you this morning? About eight o’clock?”

  “When your Mr. Demming was killed?” the girl said. She was quick. Weigand nodded. “Here, Lieutenant,” she said. “In bed. Just waking up and getting ready to ring
for breakfast.”

  Weigand said, “Right” and nodded. It was the inevitable answer; probably the maid would confirm it; possibly both Miss Akron and the maid would be telling the truth. True or false, it was the story to be expected. He said, again, “Thanks,” and again started for the door and again appeared to think of one more question.

  “And your brother, Miss Akron,” he said. “He lives here?”

  She nodded.

  “Do you happen to know where he was around eight o’clock?” Weigand said. “This morning?”

  “On his way to the plant,” she said. “He commutes—in reverse. He lives in town and works in the suburbs—his factory’s in the suburbs. He leaves here every morning about seven-thirty and goes to the plant, and he comes home every evening. Usually fairly late. About eight o’clock he was—oh, I suppose on the train.”

  “Right,” Weigand said. “Where is the factory, Miss Akron?”

  His tone was still casual, indicating merely routine interest.

  “In New Brunswick,” she said. “Just outside New Brunswick.”

  Mullins’ eyes opened and his lips parted. But Weigand looked at him and his lips closed. They opened again outside in the car.

  “Well!” Mullins said. “There’s a guy could of bumped Demming. He was right there, if he wanted to be. He gets his usual train to New Brunswick, gets off at Newark, rides back and kills Demming, gets another train to New Brunswick—hell, it’s a setup.”

  Weigand nodded slowly, agreeing. But to Mullins, Weigand seemed a long way off. He watched the fingers of Weigand’s left hand beating a tattoo on the steering wheel; noticed the moment of abstraction during which Weigand sat staring at the dashboard and making no effort to turn on the ignition; saw the sudden decision of movement which sent the lieutenant’s lean right hand out toward the key on the dash and brought his foot down on the accelerator pedal. The motor started with a snarl. The car, suddenly alive, moved forward with a little jump.

  Mullins knew the symptoms. The lieutenant had a hunch. So it was about over. Mullins shook his head and wished he knew how the lieutenant did it. To Mullins, he admitted reluctantly to himself, it was still just as screwy as it had been when it started.

  The car turned left at the first westbound street; it crossed Madison and turned left again on Fifth. It moved right along.

  15

  Saturday, 1:55 P.M. to 2:45 P.M.

  Mrs. North paid off the taxi and looked at the building and remembered, belatedly, that it was Saturday afternoon. She might, she thought, as well have saved herself the trouble; she might as well have gone, after all, and bought stockings. Still, now that she was here—

  She went into the lobby and the lobby looked like Saturday afternoon. Two of the elevators had cards on them which said “Not Running” and the third, although it opened indifferently to the world, gaping sleepily at the lobby, did nothing to encourage passengers. Mrs. North went to it and looked in and found there was nobody there. She looked around the lobby. At one side there was a straight chair leaning perilously against the wall and in it was a man who was evidently asleep. He had on part of a uniform and Mrs. North presumed he was connected with the elevator. She pushed the call button and the elevator buzzed angrily, and the man came down in his chair, clacking on the tile floor. The man looked at Mrs. North with sleepy hostility, and she said she was sorry. She told him that she wanted to go up.

  “Nobody there,” he told her. “This is Saturday, lady. Saturday afternoon.”

  “Please,” Mrs. North said. “I think maybe the person I want is there. I’m sorry to wake you.”

  “You’re wasting your time,” the man told her. But he walked toward the elevator and said, “What floor?”

  “I don’t mind,” Mrs. North said. “It won’t be much time, really. Fourth.”

  The man closed the door and looked dully at nothing and ran the elevator up. He opened the doors and said, “Four” with weariness and clanged the elevator doors closed almost on Mrs. North’s heels. It was only after the elevator had gone down, leaving her in a peculiarly deserted corridor, that Mrs. North began to wonder whether she was being very wise. Because if she was right, she was not going to be popular and the fourth floor of an apparently deserted office building was a lonely place to be unpopular in. But probably, she decided, looking at the arrow which pointed toward rooms 410 to 422, the elevator operator was right, and she was merely wasting her time. She began to hope she was, and told herself not to be silly.

  She went along, looking for 418 and expecting to find that it, like the other doors, showed no light through ground glass. She came to 418 and read the gold lettering on the ground glass and found that there was a light behind it. And, furthermore, the door was not quite closed. Mrs. North was conscious of a sharp, unmistakable, disappointment. She was pretty sure, new, that she was being unwise. At the least, she should have told Jerry. Or Bill. Or even the nieces.

  But if she went back now she would seem very foolish to herself, and that was always an uncomfortable feeling. And perhaps, after all, there would be merely a stenographer in the outer office. Mrs. North opened the door.

  The door opened on a small room with a railing across it. There was a desk behind the railing, but it was a vacant desk; it was a clean, Saturday afternoon desk. To the left, as Mrs. North faced the railing, the wall was blank, but to the right there was a door. The door was closed, but there was a light behind it; and then Mrs. North heard voices. One was a man’s voice, and she heard it first.

  “I think you are not telling the truth,” the voice, light for a man’s voice, said. “There is no reason why you should not tell the truth to me. We are on the same side.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” the other voice said. It was a woman’s voice; it was Mrs. Paul Williams’ voice. It sounded as if Mrs. Williams was nervous.

  “Please,” the man said. Then his voice got low. Mrs. North went to the door and put her ear to the ground glass. “—for the side we are both on,” the man finished. “You must tell me.”

  “I think you’ve gone crazy,” Mrs. Williams said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ll call the police.”

  “Please,” the voice said. “That would be very foolish. The police are stupid; they would not understand. I would show them—”

  Mrs. North listened eagerly, but the man did not say what he would show them. Presumably he showed whatever it was to Mrs. Williams.

  “You’re making a mistake,” Mrs. Williams said. “I don’t know anything about it—about any of it. What country do you think you are in?”

  That was puzzling. Mrs. North pressed tight to the door in order to hear what country the man thought he was in. She steadied herself by holding onto the knob, and she must—she realized afterward that she must—have turned it. Because the door opened and Mrs. North, swinging on it like a child on a fence gate, swept violently into the room. She brought up with a jar when the door struck a doorstop.

  Mrs. Williams was sitting in her own office, at her own desk. The little dark man with the funny name was standing beside her, at the end of the desk, holding something. As Mrs. North crashed in several things happened.

  The man whirled away from Mrs. Williams and faced the door, and as he turned something dropped from his hand. It dropped to the floor and broke with the thin clatter of glass. And in Bandelman Jung’s other hand there was a pistol, and it was pointed at Mrs. North.

  For a moment the three stared at one another and then Mrs. North, in a strange, alarmed voice, said, “Oh!”

  “So,” Bandelman Jung said, “they sent you. They are fools!”

  “He’s got a gun,” Mrs. Williams said. Her voice was high and nervous. “He’s got a gun. I think he’s gone crazy.”

  “A woman!” Jung said, and there was surprised contempt in his tone. “They sent a woman!” He made a kind of snorting noise. It was almost, Mrs. North thought in a moment of alarmed lucidity, as if he had said “Bah!”

  �
�Who sent me?” she said. “I didn’t come to see you.”

  “You followed me,” Jung told her, with contempt. “The other one I fooled, but I did not know they would send a woman. The softlings.”

  “What?” Mrs. North said.

  “I tell you,” Mrs. Williams said, “he’s gone crazy. He was threatening to kill me. Like he killed—”

  “Shut up!” Jung told her. “I have killed plenty. Watch out I do not kill you.”

  He was, Mrs. North thought, still a preposterous little man. The pistol was too big for him, the words were too big for him. He was a small, absurd gesture. She wanted to laugh.

  “I don’t believe it,” she said. “You haven’t killed plenty. You’re—you’re too little.”

  He glared at her, and the pistol was an immediate threat. Mrs. North looked at his eyes and they were small, frightening eyes. They were blank in a strange fashion, as if they were solid and opaque. It came over Mrs. North, frighteningly, that she was making a terrible mistake. Little Mr. Jung was not at all funny.

  “You believe it,” he told her. The words were a command. “You better believe it. You are a softling.”

  There wasn’t any such word, Mrs. North told herself. The fact gave her an odd, tenuous, feeling of superiority. She looked again at Mr. Jung’s eyes, and again at the pistol, and the feeling vanished.

  “All right,” she said, “I believe it.”

  She tried to make it sound conversational.

  “I could kill you both,” Mr. Jung said. “She is a traitor. You are from the police. I could kill you both and get away.”

  “He’s mad,” Mrs. Williams said. “He’s completely mad. A traitor!”

  “You,” Mr. Jung told her, “you I would like to kill. But that is not for me. If I am told, yes. I should like to kill you.”

  It was, Mrs. North decided, entirely bewildering. She had come here with a theory, and thinking to ask two questions, and it had, at the last moment, seemed as if there might be some danger in it. But there was nothing in her plans about a little man with opaque eyes, and a gun; nothing about a conversation which seemed to be about incomprehensible things—about “traitors” and killing people one was told to kill.