Death of a Tall Man

by Frances Lockridge

  One of them did not look up. She was blonde and slim, and she was lying on her back on a sofa against the wall. She was not looking at anything and her face was white; it was evident that she had fainted. Standing near her was a nurse. Tall, slender, broad-shouldered, the nurse was. Bill felt that, before she turned slightly to look at him, she had been looking at nothing. There was remoteness in the lines of her face; it was as if she had only partly returned from nowhere. At a desk, down the room from the entrance door, near another doorway guarded by another uniformed patrolman, a very young girl with long brown hair was sitting. She had been crying. A tall man, not much older than she, stood by the desk. He might have been looking down at her. Now, he was looking at Weigand, and with the other emotions—the emotions he shared with the nurse, and the girl at the desk—there was something else in his face. Antagonism? They’d see. There was still another man—a man in his middle fifties, at a guess—and he was standing in front of one of the upholstered chairs along the wall. He was standing as if he had just got out of the chair. He was a solid man of medium height, and he had short gray hair. There was strain and puzzlement on his face. No antagonism.

  Bill Weigand did not appear to look at any of these people and Mullins, Stein and Jones, following him; did not seem to look at them either. The four, in file, went toward the policeman standing in the doorway near the desk, and he saluted as Bill came up. There was sharp light momentarily on the wall behind him; in a moment there was another flash of light. The photographers from the precinct were at it. It was quick work.

  The lieutenant of the precinct squad was watching the photographer who, standing on a chair, was shooting down at something which was shielded from Weigand by the photographer’s body. The flash went off, the photographer got down. He went around to the other side. The body was that of a man, rather heavy, of middle height. It was slumped forward, head and shoulders resting on the desk. The precinct lieutenant walked a few steps toward Weigand.

  “Well,” he said, “there it is, Bill.”

  Bill said he saw it.

  “Gordon,” the precinct lieutenant said. “Andrew. An eye doctor. Somebody bashed the back of his head in.”

  “Well,” Weigand said. “Well, well.”

  “Yeah,” the precinct lieutenant said.

  “The M.E.?” Bill said.

  “Coming.”

  “Right,” Bill said. He jerked his head toward the waiting room. He said they seemed to have picked up quite a few people. The precinct lieutenant shook his head at that. He said they hadn’t picked them up.

  “Found them,” he said. “Here when we came. The babe passed out on the sofa is the guy’s wife. The young fellow is his son. I don’t know exactly who the gray-haired guy is. The other two work here.”

  “Right,” Bill said. There was movement at the door and he looked around. A small, round man with a black bag came in. He had a pink face and a pink bald head. He waved his free hand at everybody and said, “What’ve we got, boys? What’ve we got?” He did not wait to be answered; it was greeting, not enquiry. He crossed briskly to the desk and looked at the body. He regarded it; bent over it. He straightened up.

  “Somebody bashed in his head,” he told them. “Blunt instrument, boys.”

  Bill Weigand smiled at him.

  “Thanks a lot, Doctor,” he said. “We needed you to tell us.”

  “Sure you did,” the doctor agreed cheerfully. “Obscure to the lay mind, naturally. You hit somebody with something heavy—hit him on the head—and the skull caves. Always assuming he’s not a policeman. Messes the brain up.”

  “Always assuming he’s not a policeman,” Bill Weigand said.

  “Smart boy,” the doctor told him. “Then he dies. Like this one.” He turned and faced Bill Weigand. His face was not as cheerful as his words. There was a hurt expression on his face, like the hurt expression on a child’s face.

  Bill smiled, faintly.

  “Funny, aren’t we?” the doctor said. “All right. Who was he?”

  “Didn’t you notice when you came in?” Weigand asked. “His name’s on his door. Gordon. Dr. Andrew Gordon.”

  “All right,” the doctor said. “I hoped he wasn’t. Never met Gordon. He was a good man, you know. Very good man.”

  Bill nodded.

  “One of the two or three best,” the assistant medical examiner said. “A damned good eye man. The boss called him in once or twice. Very interesting malignancy, one case was. Question: Contributing cause? Gordon said no.” He turned and looked at Gordon’s body. “Now he’s dead,” he said. “Pity.”

  “Right,” Bill said. “How—”

  “Long,” the assistant medical examiner finished. “When was he found?”

  “About three. Thereabouts.”

  The doctor looked at his watch. He turned back to the body; he touched the forehead; he lifted the head and looked at the eyes. He went behind the body, picked up the dangling hand and held it by the wrist. Then he lifted the body back in the chair, moving quickly, expertly. He opened the unbuttoned suit coat, placed a clinical thermometer under the arm and pressed the arm down against it. Leaving the thermometer there, he went across the room and looked at a thermostat on the wall; he returned, removed the thermometer and looked at it.

  “Warm in here,” he said. “Makes a difference, of course. You want a guess?”

  “Yes,” Bill said.

  “Not later than two,” the doctor said. “Not earlier than—oh, say twelve thirty to be safe. Few minutes one way or the other.”

  Bill Weigand only nodded.

  The doctor lowered the body again so that it lay in its original position on the desk. He bent over it and examined the wound. He pressed it lightly with his fingers. He sniffed his fingers. “Used something to keep his hair down,” he said, casually. He stood looking at the head.

  “No skin broken,” he said. “Something round and smooth. About as big as your fist. Something like—oh, a big knob on a cane. Hell of a big knob for a cane, of course. Almost as big as a baseball, only smoother. Fit anything you can think of?”

  “Oh yes,” Bill said. “A big knob on an ornamental poker. A knob off an old brass bed. A heavy paperweight, rounded on one side. A round stone, thrown by somebody. I can think of plenty of things.”

  “Good,” the doctor said. He looked down at the body again. “Damn shame,” he said quickly. He picked up his bag. “Well,” he said, “you know what to do with it, Bill. You’ll get your report copy.”

  He went, quick and pink—and with the puzzled expression of a hurt child. Weigand looked after him, smiling faintly.

  “Hates murder,” Bill said, more or less to the precinct lieutenant. “Can’t understand anybody so—unkind. Won’t be able to eat dinner tonight, poor guy. We get ourselves into funny jobs.”

  “Yeah,” the precinct lieutenant said. “You boys taking over?”

  Bill nodded, abstractedly. Except for the men on the doors, he said, they would take over.

  “The nurse found him,” the precinct lieutenant said. “That’s about as far as we’d got. O.K.?”

  “Right,” Bill Weigand said. He crossed the room and stood looking at the body. He looked around the room. He crossed it and opened the door leading into the first of the examining rooms and looked at the room without going in. He went to the other door beside it and out into the corridor and looked down it.

  “Funny setup,” he said. “We may need a sketch of it, Barney. O.K.?”

  “Sure, Loot,” Detective Barney Jones said.

  “A rough, for now,” Weigand told him.

  “O.K.,” Barney said.

  The precinct lieutenant, two other detectives from the precinct squad and the two photographers went out, in a long file. Weigand waited until they had gone through the waiting room. Then he went to the door. He stood looking into the room, and the people in it looked back at him, worried again, waiting uneasily. He stood for a moment and was about to speak when the door at the end of the room,
which had just closed on a police photographer, opened again. Bill Weigand looked down the room at Pam North.

  “Is this—” she began, and then she saw Bill.

  “This is the place,” Bill Weigand told her, his voice grave and businesslike. “We’ve been waiting for you, Mrs. North.”

  Pam looked, momentarily, very much surprised. She looked hurriedly at Bill’s face.

  “I—” she began.

  “Yes, Mrs. North,” Bill Weigand said, his voice very official. “You’re late. However, now that you are here.” His official voice had resignation in it. “Now that you are here, we’ll go ahead. In here, Mrs. North.”

  Pam, still looking puzzled, came down the room. All the people in the room looked at her. Bill took her arm as she passed him, in a gesture which seemed one of direction.

  “Ouch!” Pam said, in a low voice. “Bill!”

  Bill herded Pam North in front of him into the private office of the late Dr. Gordon. He closed the door behind them.

  “Now!” he said.

  “Hello, Mr. Mullins,” Pam said. “Mr. Stein.” She looked at Barney Jones, who looked at her with round, appreciative eyes.

  “Jones, miss,” Barney told her. He looked at Bill Weigand.

  “The sketch, Barney,” Bill said. “The sketch.”

  “Yeah,” Barney Jones said. He went to the door leading to the first examining room, opened it and went through.

  “Now, Pam,” Bill said. “How did you do it this time?” His voice was no longer official. It was merely very interested.

  Pam told him. She left out the part about the captured taxicab.

  “And how did you get in?” Bill said.

  “Well,” Pam said, “I’m afraid I used your name. And they seemed to think you’d sent for me, Bill—one of them seemed to think I was a relative or something—of the victim, I mean, not of you—and—”

  “Right,” Bill said. “Jerry won’t like it.”

  “O’Malley won’t like it,” Mullins said. He said it gloomily. He closed his eyes and opened them again. “At all,” Mullins said.

  Pam had seen the body. Her face was grave, suddenly. She turned to Bill and her face was still grave.

  “It was a—an impulse, Bill,” she said. “A sudden thing I do like—like the taxicab. I didn’t tell you about that. But coming here was like that. I’m—I’m sorry.”

  Bill smiled at her.

  “Officially,” he said, “I regard your actions, my dear, with—” He decided not to keep it up. “Actually,” he said, “I’m glad to see you, Pam.”

  Mullins shuddered; he made his shudder audible. Somehow he had got directly behind Pam, who jumped.

  “Mr. Mullins!” she said. “Don’t do that!”

  Mullins was embarrassed.

  “Look, Mrs. North,” he said, “it wasn’t to make you jump. It was just—I was thinking of the inspector.” He paused, considering. “Maybe I shouldn’t,” he said. “Only he’s sort of a hard guy not to think of, Mrs. North. You know that.”

  “She’s here, Mullins,” Weigand told him. “I let them think out there that she was—official. A policewoman or something. So she’s here. I’ll think about the inspector.”

  “You won’t like it,” Mullins told him. “But it’s O.K. with me, Loot.”

  Pam looked at Bill and her eyes asked a question.

  “They are uneasy,” Bill told her. “Off balance. At least, I hope they are. Because they’re the people we have to work on to begin with. The police have taken over—something impersonal has taken over. Not me—not Mullins or Stein—the police. You, Pam—you, unexplained—might have broken it. So I let them think you were police, too.”

  “Oh,” Pam said. “Then what do I do?”

  “Sit tight,” Bill told her. “Try not to say anything and if you do—” He considered that, rejected it as hopeless. “Try not to say anything,” he repeated. “Listen. And—use that mind of yours all you want to, Pam.” He smiled at her, and this time it was Bill Weigand to Pam North. “Very nice little mind,” he assured her.

  His smile went away. He opened the door of the private office, went to the doorway of the waiting room and looked at the men and women in it. The blonde who was, apparently, Mrs. Gordon was sitting up. There was a dazed look on her face. Weigand’s eyes went over her. They stopped on Grace Spencer. He made a motion with his head when he saw she was looking at him.

  “Will you come this way, please?” he said.

  He watched her as she crossed the room toward him. She was tall for a woman and thin, but it was an attractive, straight thinness. She moved well on long, slim legs; her shoulders were broad and square and they were held well back. Her face was faintly brown, as if tan from an earlier, hotter sun still lingered on it. When she reached him, he stood aside to let her pass. In the inner office, she did not look at the body, still sprawled across the desk. She looked beyond the body, out of the window behind the desk. But it was not as if she saw anything through the window.

  It was shock, Bill Weigand thought. Rather severe shock. Natural enough, but after all she was a nurse. He looked quickly at Pam. Her eyes were thoughtful as she looked at Grace Spencer.

  “I’m sorry about—” Bill said, and his head barely indicated the body. “It sometimes takes a little time for the ambulance—”

  Grace Spencer spoke then. Her voice was light, clear, and without expression.

  “I understand,” she said. “I quite understand.”

  Then, when Bill Weigand indicated a chair, she moved toward it, still moving well but moving with a kind of abstraction. It was almost as if she did not realize she was moving. She sat in the chair with her body straight and her knees together and her hands in her lap. Bill’s eyes, not seeming to, watched her hands. Sometimes it is hard to keep hands from moving. Her hands were not moving. But you could guess that only determination kept them quiet. She did not look at Mullins or at Stein; she did not look at Pamela North. She looked at Weigand, and waited. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, without emphasis.

  “I’m told you found Dr. Gordon,” he said.

  “His body,” she said. “Yes. I found it.”

  He waited.

  “It was about three o’clock,” she said. “A few minutes before three. The patients had begun to arrive. I—”

  She told him of finding the body, of dismissing the patients, of summoning the police. Then she paused and looked at the man from Headquarters and waited. There was an expectant stillness about her. But her concentration had faltered a little as she talked. Her hands were twisting together.

  “You acted very properly,” Bill told her. “Now we want to find out everything we can about what happened here today. You understand that, Miss Spencer? You realize why?”

  “Dr. Gordon was murdered,” she said. “I do understand.” She let her voice hang an instant at the end of the sentence. Bill Weigand interrupted.

  “I’m Lieutenant Weigand,” he said. “From Headquarters. These other men are Detective Sergeant Mullins and Detective Sergeant Stein. This is Mrs. North. She works with us.” He paused. His voice did not alter; it was detached, official. “Frequently,” he said. Pam looked at him and looked away again.

  “Thank you,” Grace Spencer said. “You have my name. I am—I was—Dr. Gordon’s nurse. I have been with him for three years. I am thirty-two years old and unmarried. I live—” She gave him an address in the Murray Hill district.

  Weigand nodded at Mullins, but Mullins had his notebook out. He nodded back.

  Grace Spencer began to tell what she knew of the events of Dr. Gordon’s day. But almost as soon as she began, they were interrupted. Two men in white came to the door of the office, looked in and then waited. Weigand said, “Just a moment, Miss Spencer,” and conferred with them. He turned back, hesitating a moment. Then he turned to Grace Spencer.

  “They’re going to remove the body,” he said. “It—it wouldn’t be pleasant to watch. I think we might move somewhere else, Miss Spen
cer. Would you suggest—?”

  She suggested one of the examining rooms, but Bill shook his head. They were very small rooms. The waiting room would be better, except for the others there. He preferred—Then he thought of the solution, and smiled faintly. It would be appropriate. He spoke to Sergeant Stein and Stein went into the waiting room. There was the sound of movement there, and in the examining-room corridor. Stein came back, and nodded. The others were now in the examining rooms.

  “The younger man and the girl wanted to be together,” he said. “I let them. All right?”

  Weigand nodded. After all, if they wanted to plan their evidence, they had already had opportunity. And it was sometimes helpful if witnesses tried to plan their evidence. It so often involved them in contradictions. The human mind was seldom as logical as it tried to make itself.

  The questioning of Grace Spencer moved to the waiting room. She sat at Deborah Brooks’s desk and Pam sat on one of the sofas near by. Mullins put his notebook on a corner of the desk. Grace Spencer went on with her story. She told of checking on the compensation cases, of relieving Miss Brooks—Deborah Brooks, the receptionist—while the doctor proceeded with his examinations.

  “There was nothing unusual about the doctor when he returned from the hospital?” Weigand asked her. “He was much as always when you told him the patients were ready?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He told her to go on. She told of Deborah Brooks’s return, of her own resumption of her desk in the corridor.

  “I sat at my desk so that I would be available if the doctor needed me,” she said, and Mullins took it down.

  3

  MONDAY, 4:55 P.M. TO 6:05 P.M.

  They gave Grace Spencer time, not hurrying her, not speaking. It would be better for her now that the tension had broken into tears. And it might be better for them. Waiting, Bill Weigand looked across at Pam North, and she tried to tell him something with her eyes, with her lips soundlessly forming the words. He could only guess at what she was trying to tell him, but he took a chance on the guess. He nodded. Then he looked back at the slender nurse and watched her shoulders shake under the white uniform. Then, suddenly, she lifted her head and looked at him. Her eyes were wet and her face contorted. He could see the effort which drew her face back into its accustomed lines.