Murder Is Served

by Frances Lockridge

  She was not looking at him, now. She was looking down at her hands, twisting in her lap. She gave the odd expression that she was really looking carefully at her hands. She’s afraid her eyes will give her away, Bill thought. It was about time.

  “Now,” he said, “you say you weren’t at your husband’s office today? Not there at the time he was killed?”

  She did not look up. She merely nodded. Weigand stood up, he moved around the desk and half sat on it, looking down at her.

  “Now, Mrs. Mott,” he said. “I’m going to have to tell you that—”

  And then the telephone rang. Bill Weigand was nearest, and scooped it up. He listened, speaking little, and his face set; he looked down at the girl sitting in front of him, and his eyes and his face were hard. Then, into the telephone, he said, “Right. We were late.”

  He recradled the telephone and sat for an instant looking down at the girl. She did not look up at first; then she did, and fear came into her eyes anew as she saw his face. It ought to, Bill Weigand thought; you ought to be afraid, Mrs. Mott.

  Then, with a gesture of his head, he summoned Mullins and went toward the door, with Mullins after him. In the room outside, Bill jerked his head back toward the door of his office.

  “She stays there,” he said. “And get one of the girls with her. She might—”

  He did not finish, being already through the door to the corridor. He was moving very fast. He’s sore, Mullins thought. The Loot’s sore as hell, this time.

  It was only when they were out in the corridor, going toward the street, that Bill Weigand told Mullins what had happened. Then Mullins swore.

  Police cars were tucked against the curb in front of a tall, narrow apartment house on Central Park West. Mullins tucked the squad car in among them, switched off its blinking red lights. There were two large, long apartments on each floor of the house and there was no trouble in finding the right one. The door was open, light streamed out, the foyer and the living-room seemed crowded. A uniformed patrolman on duty at the outer door did not know Bill Weigand and Mullins; Mullins made the introduction curt. The precinct detective lieutenant knew Bill and, seeing him, seemed relieved. The precinct lieutenant was round and comfortable, free of ambition and of jealousy.

  “Yours?” he asked Bill, and there was a note of hope in his voice.

  “Right,” Bill said. “I’m afraid so, George.”

  “The boys are working out on it,” George said. “The M.E.’s been.”

  “And?”

  “Dead,” George told him. “Dead for hours.”

  “Literally?”

  “So the doc says. Let’s see, now it’s eleven forty-five.” He looked at his watch again. “Forty-six,” he said. “The doc looked at her—oh, say fifteen minutes ago. He said he’d guess. You know ’em.”

  Bill knew them.

  “Nothing definite, wait ’til we cut it up, when did she eat—that sort of thing. Then he guessed. Dead at least five hours, probably not more than six and a half. Gives a nice wide hole to duck into, of course. For the M.E.”

  “Before six-thirty, then,” Bill said. “Not before five. Right.”

  “Looks as if she was dressing to go out somewhere,” George said. “Not that that helps a lot.”

  A flash bulb went off in the room beyond the living-room; another bulb went off. George O’Hanlon said that ought to be about the size of it. They went toward the other room and police photographers were packing their camera cases.

  Elaine Britton had fallen back on the satin cover of her bed when she was stabbed below the left breast. Blood had soaked the thin negligee she had worn, had soaked the satin coverlet, had soaked into the bed. It appeared that she had been standing beside the bed, had fallen when she was struck and had died where she fell. There was no expression on the face; the pretty mouth was open, and the round eyes stared up at nothing on the ceiling. She was even thinner than Bill Weigand had thought when he talked to her that afternoon.

  “No knife?” Bill said to Lieutenant O’Hanlon. “But it was a knife?”

  “That’s right,” O’Hanlon said. “Pulled out and taken along. But it was a knife all right. See what I mean about her getting ready to go out?”

  He motioned toward the bed. Near the foot, a black evening dress lay flat on the pale yellow satin, lay as if it had been placed there carefully. The blood had not quite reached it.

  Bill Weigand did not touch the woman’s body. There was no need; it had been touched enough, would be touched more. There was fresh make-up on the face which had been pretty, fresh red on the lips. The reddened lips were startling, unreal, against the face, now. The blond hair was disordered against the yellow satin. But she had fallen backward and the front part of the hair did not seem to have been disturbed. Bill thought she had finished arranging it when she was stabbed to death. There would have been final touches, little rearrangements, after she put on the black dress.

  An evening dress, but not at five o’clock. The later hour became the more probable. She was dressing, starting to dress. She had been to the beauty shop that afternoon; undoubtedly had her hair done; there would have been little for her to do except freshen make-up. (He looked at the slender body. Why had she needed to walk up walls? But now it didn’t matter.) She had been dressing, or perhaps lying down, resting, before she dressed. Presumably she had been expecting somebody to pick her up; she had been wearing the thin negligee or, when someone came—the murderer came—she had put it on. She had gone to the door—Or had she left the door unlatched, and merely called, “Come in” when someone rang the bell. (Come in and kill me.)

  “Was the door locked when she was found?” he asked O’Hanlon. O’Hanlon nodded. “By the way,” Bill said, “who found her?”

  Her maid had found her. The maid was a colored girl named Agnes—Agnes Connors. Agnes had had the afternoon off, come back a little after ten, opened the door with her key and had been surprised to find all the lights on, including those in Elaine Britton’s bedroom. The bedroom door was open and the girl had called, “Mrs. Britton?” When there was no answer, she had investigated. Then she had called the police, not using the telephone extension in the bedroom, picking up the one in the foyer with a handkerchief around it.

  “A bright young woman,” O’Hanlon said. “You want to talk to her?”

  “Should I?” Weigand asked. “Is there any reason?”

  O’Hanlon did not think they had missed anything.

  “Neither do I,” Bill said. “Let her go home. We can always have her back.”

  The door had been locked. “Snap lock, I suppose?” Bill said, and O’Hanlon nodded. Then Elaine Britton had put on her robe—over nothing, evidently—gone to the door, let the visitor in and—and then? The best guess was she had left the visitor in the living-room and gone back to the bedroom to finish dressing. The best guess was the visitor had followed her there, and stabbed her—and gone, pulling the outside door to behind him. Only it wasn’t behind him, Bill thought. He was becoming pretty sure of that. Everything pointed one way, O’Malley’s way, toward the girl back in Weigand’s office. Even the little things—even that Elaine Britton might have been more willing, slightly clad as she was, to open the door to a woman. (Not that this would have weighed very heavily with her, probably.) He looked down at the body once more, thought of Pam North’s name for her. Poor little mink. Poor, bright-eyed, eager little mink.

  He went back to the living-room and O’Hanlon went with him. The fingerprint men were at work there. There was plenty of work, but Bill Weigand doubted much would come of it. There would be prints enough—of Elaine Britton, of her maid, of any casual guests who might have come since the room was last polished by Agnes Connors. It was too bad, Bill thought, that there was so seldom a telltale glass, marked with lipstick, laden with revealing prints; so seldom a cigarette of peculiar brand. Murderers were inconsiderate.

  “Right,” Bill said to O’Hanlon, and stood at the door. “It seems to fit, George. I don�
��t think you’ll be bothered with it much, or long. Send the dope along.”

  “Good,” George O’Hanlon said. “Fine by me. The Mott job?”

  “It looks like it,” Bill said. He summoned Mullins with a movement of his head. The elevator took them to the street. Mullins backed the police car from the curb, flicked on its flickering lights. Mullins said it was too damn bad. Bill agreed with him. They went, fast, downtown.

  He had gone abruptly, with the look on his face which frightened her. She had not needed to be told that she was to wait there in the little office, that she would be stopped if she tried to leave it. She sat where she was, looking at nothing, remembering the look on Lieutenant Weigand’s face, trying to understand why, seeing it, she had been again so frightened. She thought, finally, that he had looked as if he had, finally, weighed everything and reached a verdict—a verdict against her.

  She had been alone for only about five minutes. Then a woman, middle-aged, in a blue uniform, had come in and stood looking at her. After looking at her for several seconds, the woman had said, “Good evening, Mrs. Mott,” in a voice without animosity. The woman continued to look at her, after she had spoken, with bright curious eyes. She went over and sat on the window sill where the larger detective had sat before.

  “Thought you’d want company,” she said, at length, unhurriedly. “You’re to wait, you know, dearie. The lieutenant tell you?”

  Peg Mott shook her head, slowly. Her eyes were opened wide.

  “Did something happen?” she said. “Did they—find out something?”

  “Now, dearie,” the woman in the uniform said, “you’ll find out, won’t you? Just take it easy for a while.” She nodded, agreeing with herself. “While you can,” she said.

  “What—?” Peg Mott began, but the woman shook her head, and there was clearly no use in finishing. The bright, curious eyes stayed on her.

  “You’re pretty, aren’t you?” the woman said. “That’s what does it, I guess. Being pretty.”

  There was a kind of rather dreadful impersonality in the woman’s tone. It was as if she were talking about somebody who had been; as if she were giving a verdict—again a verdict!—on something which was finished.

  “You ought to have a nice cup of coffee,” the woman said, after another pause. “A nice cup of coffee would help, you know. You want to send out for some?”

  Peg Mott shook her head.

  “Now, dearie,” the woman said. “I could do with a nice cup of coffee myself. What do you say, dearie? While we wait?”

  “All right,” Peg said. “Oh—all right!”

  “Now, dearie,” the woman said, and shook her head. “Just take it easy.” She nodded again, again in agreement with herself. “Just don’t borrow trouble,” she said. “We’ll just have a nice cup of coffee and a cigarette. You got cigarettes?”

  Dumbly, Peg nodded. Dumbly, she watched while the woman went to the door of the room, said, “We’d like some coffee, Mac,” to someone in the other room. It was almost ten minutes before the coffee came, in thick white cups, and dumbly Peg Mott paid for it. It was milky, sweetened, but it was hot; it softened, a little, the chill around her mind. She drank slowly, carefully, paying attention to what she did, so that she would not have to look at the woman, would not give the woman a chance to talk. She thought about lifting the cup, about putting her lips to the rim of the cup, about swallowing, making each of these actions a separate, separately willed, action. She did not know how long she took to drink the cup of milky coffee, but the coffee was only tepid when she finished. The woman in uniform had finished hers long before, and now was looking at Peg Mott, with the same bright, curious, impersonal eyes.

  “Feel better, dearie?” she said, when Peg looked up. “Nothing like a nice cup of coffee. You got a cigarette, dearie?”

  Peg produced cigarettes and the woman crossed the room and took one. Peg lighted one for herself and sat smoking, looking at nothing. Then she heard movement in the next room, and voices, and saw the policewoman cross quickly to the desk and snub out her cigarette in a tray. The woman looked at her and smiled and nodded.

  “On duty,” she said. “Not supposed to smoke. We’ll just forget it, won’t we, dearie?” Then she went to the door and opened it and said, “All right, Lieutenant,” to a question which must have been conveyed by an expression, by lifted eyebrows. Then Lieutenant Weigand came in, with the larger man behind him. Weigand went to his desk and sat behind it and, after a moment, spoke to her. His voice was level, without expression.

  “I’ll have to tell you, now, that you had better get a lawyer, Mrs. Mott,” he said. “Do you want to telephone?”

  She shook her head. She shook it slowly, as if the movement were an effort.

  “I didn’t do anything,” she said. “I don’t need—”

  “No, Mrs. Mott,” Weigand said. “I’m afraid it won’t work.”

  “Please,” she said. “What’s happened?”

  He looked at her, for a long moment.

  “Right,” he said, “if that’s the way you want it. Sergeant Mullins will take it down, you know. You’ll be asked to sign it. It can be used. You understand that?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” she said. She seemed to cling to it.

  “Remember,” he said, “I told you to get a lawyer. The sergeant heard me. You know that? You’ll try to back out of it later, you know.”

  “No,” she said. “What was it?”

  “You knew a Mrs. Britton. An Elaine Britton?”

  She wet her lips. She nodded.

  “Right,” Weigand said. “Now, I’ll tell you this. You say you weren’t at your husband’s office at noon today. You still say that?”

  She nodded again.

  “But,” Weigand said, “Mrs. Britton saw you go into the office—into the building, anyway. And—you knew she had. You saw her. Right?”

  “No. Oh, no. I—I—”

  “You’re lying, Mrs. Mott. You went into the office. You may have quarreled with your husband. You may have planned it from the start. You killed him.”

  She did not speak this time. She merely shook her head, slowly, as if she would never finish shaking it, as if she had forgotten she was shaking it. There was a kind of hopelessness in the movement.

  “Then,” Weigand said, and now he leaned forward at the desk, getting closer to her, making the words bite, “then, Mrs. Mott, you remembered that Mrs. Britton had seen you going into the building. That made two dangers—Leonard, Mrs. Britton. You tried to get Leonard.”

  She still shook her head. She seemed voiceless.

  “And—you did get Elaine Britton. This afternoon—early this evening. Which was it, Mrs. Mott?”

  She stopped shaking her head, now. She looked up at him, her long eyes wide open, fixed. She’s afraid now, Weigand thought. It’s terror, now.

  “Between five and six-thirty,” he said. “Between five and six-thirty, Mrs. Mott, you went to Elaine Britton’s apartment. She let you in and went back to her bedroom. You followed her. You—used a knife! Again, Mrs. Mott. Your husband—Leonard—Elaine Britton. Why? Why did you start all this? The money? Because you hated him? Because—”

  “No!” she said, and suddenly she stood up. “No! No!” She turned, as if to run for the door.

  “Stop,” Weigand said. “It’s no use. You know it’s no use.”

  “I wasn’t near her apartment,” the girl said, and suddenly turned to face him. “You can’t prove I was there. I—I don’t even know where she lived. Was that—was that where you went? Did you just find out?”

  “Does that matter?” Weigand said, and his voice was level again, patient in a monotone. “You killed her.”

  “I wasn’t there. Not near there.”

  He shook his head.

  “And you say you don’t know where she lived,” he pointed out. “How do you know you weren’t near there?”

  “Central Park West,” she said. “Somewhere on Central Park West. I knew that. I wasn’t t
here. I was miles away—up by the University. Don’t you see?”

  “Lies,” Weigand said. “More lies. Prove it. Who were you with? Who can—” He saw her face. “You see,” he said, “it’s no go. You see that.”

  “I went up to Dyckman. I—I was trying to find somebody. That was about four-thirty. Then, about five, I hadn’t found this—”

  “Weldon Carey,” Weigand said. “Name him, Mrs. Mott.”

  “Weldon,” she said. “I telephoned his place. The—the place your man found me.”

  “Go on.”

  “About five, I think,” she said. “He wasn’t there. I waited and tried again in about fifteen minutes. He still wasn’t there. Then—then I didn’t want to stay at the University and—”

  “Because you knew we were looking for you, wanted to pick you up. Go on.”

  “I went to a movie. Some movie. On Broadway, I think. Way up on Broadway—miles from the park. You see?”

  “No. But go on.”

  “Because it was warm and—and—”

  “A place to hide,” Weigand said. “I know. Go on.”

  “I kept calling Weldon. Every few minutes I’d go out and try again. I had to go out to the lobby and—”

  “Never mind. Don’t make up details. Go on.”

  “It’s true. It’s what happened. I had to see him, talk to him. Then—it was almost seven—he was home. Then—then we agreed to meet. Downtown, in the Village. At about seven-thirty. Don’t you see?”

  “What? What is there to see, Mrs. Mott? Look at it yourself. The time’s open. Or do you say you talked to somebody, that somebody will remember you? Do you say that?”

  She shook her head again, slowly, still but not so automatically.

  “I don’t know. There was a girl there. Directing people, saying where there were seats. She might remember. I asked her where the telephone was. The first time. She might remember.”

  Bill Weigand shook his head.

  “No,” he said, “I don’t think she’ll remember.”

  “You’ll ask her? Find out?”

  “Right,” Bill said. “Naturally.” He did not tell her why it would be natural; that the police would have to protect themselves against some future defense; against a girl at a movie theater who suddenly remembered, at a trial. “We’ll ask her,” he said.