Debbie poured a drink into a small, flaring glass. She carried it with her and went to a window and looked out.
“It’s dark,” she said.
“Wind shift,” Westcott told her. “A hard one and then it will clear.”
“Yes,” Debbie said, not thinking about it. She was restless. She went to another window.
“Sit down, Debbie,” Eve said. “Dan can take care of himself. Walking?”
“I suppose so,” Debbie said. “I know he can take care of himself.”
She stayed by the window, looking out.
“She’s upset, Eve,” she heard Lawrence Westcott say, behind her.
“Of course,” Eve said. “Of course, Larry. Who isn’t?”
Debbie went out of the room and across the hall and into the study. She sat by a window, looking out, and sipped her drink. The trees were bending in the wind. She did not turn on the lights, but, after sitting for a time, she reached out toward a table radio and clicked it on. “Fifteen minutes of the latest news,” the radio said, in cultivated tones, interrupted a little by distant static. “But first, a word from our sponsor.” The sponsor had a good many words. “And now Frederick Erkhart, with the latest news,” the announcer said. Frederick Erkhart said “good evening.”
Things were happening in Washington. And in London and in the Balkans. And even, it seemed, in New York.
“Now,” Mr. Erkhart said, “for the human interest story of the day. A tall ungainly figure, familiar to almost everyone living in certain blocks of New York’s East Side—a figure so tall and emaciated, so almost grotesque—that no one could pass without a second glance—a figure of fun, perhaps, to the street-playing children—today played an inappropriate part in tragedy. Robert Oakes, six feet six inches tall, weighing under a hundred and thirty, killed himself some time this morning by inhaling gas in the small flat in which he lived alone. Several hours later the collected gas exploded, almost wrecking the building, seriously injuring an unidentified young woman who, it is thought, may have been on her way to interview Oakes. Why? Because Oakes, almost grotesque figure of fun, is now revealed as an important witness in the murder of Dr. Andrew Gordon, famous eye surgeon. Oakes, a patient of Gordon’s, is believed to have been in the physician’s office when Gordon was killed. Police are still seeking the person who, early yesterday afternoon, beat the doctor to death in his office. Now, the official forecast from the United States Weather Bureau. Tonight, showers or thundershowers and much cooler. Tomorrow—”
But Debbie Brooks did not hear the forecast. She was looking at nothing, and there was a puzzled line between her eyes.
“But that couldn’t be,” she said, speaking aloud. “That couldn’t be. It wasn’t in the afternoon. I know it wasn’t.”
She sat for a moment and then stood, suddenly. She went to the desk and took the telephone from its cradle. Then she hesitated, replaced it and stood for a moment thinking. Then she took up the telephone again. She dialed information. “I would like the number of Mr. Gerald North at—” she said.
Deputy Chief Inspector Artemus O’Malley was very enthusiastic about Robert Oakes. Oakes was God’s gift to policemen; O’Malley was clearly annoyed that Weigand did not, freely, accept him as such.
“Why not?” Inspector O’Malley said, and leaned across his desk and brought a plump fist down on it. “Tell me that, huh?”
“Nothing to go on,” Bill Weigand said. “Could be. Needn’t be.”
“You young cops,” Inspector O’Malley said. He leaned back and sighed, pantomiming hopeless resignation. “Doing everything the hard way.” He thought of something, and leaned forward again. “How did this Mrs. North get into it?” He was accusing, now. “I thought I told you—”
“Right,” Bill said. “You told me.” He felt he should say something else. But he could think of nothing else to say. Inspector O’Malley looked at him accusingly. Then, unexpectedly, he dismissed Mrs. North with a wave of his hand.
“This guy Oakes,” he said. “He killed Gordon. He saw the police were about to get him. He suicided. What’s wrong with that?”
“Well,” Weigand said, “we weren’t about to get him. That’s one thing wrong with it.” He spoke mildly.
O’Malley dismissed that with a wave of his other hand.
“Sure we were,” he said. “The boys had been trying to find him.”
“Merely to make a routine check,” Weigand said. He would have gone on, but O’Malley interrupted.
“O.K.,” O’Malley said, heavily. “So he knew it was just a routine check, I suppose? Here he is, jittering on account he’s bumped a guy off. And here’s a cop, wanting to see him. How’s he going to figure it’s a routine check?”
Weigand would give the inspector that. He did.
“Also,” he said, “Oakes was going to die of cancer before very long—very painfully. Maybe he merely figured gas would be easier.”
O’Malley leaned back across the desk. He was very earnest.
“Let me tell you something, Bill,” he said. “You’ll never get anywhere if you make things hard for yourself. Not in this business. You’re wandering all over the lot. Sure—maybe that’s the reason he did it. Maybe a girl turned him down. Maybe he lost a fortune. My God—maybe anything. Why don’t you take what’s in front of you?”
“Because—” Bill Weigand said, before he was interrupted again.
“Let me tell you something, Bill,” O’Malley said. “You’ve got a setup. Here’s a guy wanted in a kill. He bumps himself off. So what? So he did the kill. So we’ve got a nice clean job, all wrapped up and put away. So we forget it. What’s wrong with that?”
“Only,” Bill said, speaking rapidly, “that we’ve no real evidence that he did the kill.”
O’Malley leaned back in his chair, regarded the ceiling, mutely abandoned Bill Weigand as moronically perverse. He sighed deeply and closed his eyes. He opened his eyes.
“Sometimes you’re a great trial to me, Bill,” he said. “With this we could make the A.M.’s. I suppose you hadn’t figured that.” He looked at Bill. “Damn near everything I have to think of myself,” he said. “Damn near everything.”
“Give me time,” Bill said. “Don’t spring it yet, Inspector.”
“The last decent kill we gave the afternoons a break,” he said. “O.K. So this time we give it to the mornings. You ought to see that, Bill.”
“Right,” Bill said. “I see that. But make it the mornings, day after tomorrow—or whenever we get it. Friday. Next week.” He leaned forward in turn. “Look,” he said. “We can’t make this one stick.”
O’Malley looked at him pityingly. He pointed out that they would not need to make it stick. Oakes was dead.
Bill Weigand stood up. When he spoke his voice was detached, without emphasis.
“Obviously,” he said, “the decision is yours, sir.”
O’Malley looked at him—and then he grinned suddenly.
“The hell with that,” he said. “The hell with that, Bill. We’ll hold it. Until day after tomorrow, anyhow.” He continued to grin. “Only just don’t make it too fancy, Bill,” he said.
Bill Weigand said he’d try not to. He went back to his own office. Mullins got hastily out of Weigand’s chair. Weigand sat in it. Mullins looked at him.
“Been seeing the inspector, Loot?” he said. He examined Weigand. “You look like it,” he said. “Wants to pin it on this guy who bumped himself off, I suppose. This long stringy guy.”
“Right,” Bill said.
Mullins nodded.
“O.K., Loot,” he said. “Why not?”
Weigand sighed, reminded himself of O’Malley, broke the sigh off.
“Why?” he said.
Mullins gave it thought.
“Well,” he said, “it fits. Sort of.”
Sort of wasn’t good enough, Bill told him.
“Look,” he said, “I want to find out what happened. As long as you’re working with me, you want to find out what happene
d. Right?”
“O.K., Loot,” Mullins said. He was equable.
“Look at it,” Weigand directed him. “Maybe Oakes killed himself. But maybe somebody killed him. Maybe he killed himself because he’d found out what was the matter with him. Maybe he killed himself because he killed Gordon and thought we were after him. Maybe he was killed because he saw something—or didn’t see something he was expected to see. Maybe when he was there he saw somebody do something suspicious. Maybe he heard something. Maybe—” He broke off. “Actually,” he said, “we don’t know anything at all, Mullins.”
Mullins shook his head. He said they knew something.
“We know he was there,” Mullins said.
“Yes,” Weigand agreed. He spoke abstractedly. Then he stiffened suddenly and looked at Mullins. “What?” he said.
“We know he was there,” Mullins repeated. “On account of the card. We—” Mullins looked at Weigand and stopped speaking for a moment. “Listen, Loot,” he said then, anxiously, “we do know he was there, don’t we?”
Slowly, his eyebrows drawn together so that a line was sharp between them, Weigand shook his head.
“Come to think of it,” he said, and he spoke softly. “We just know a name was there. Just a name, Mullins.”
“But—” Mullins said.
“Just a name,” Weigand repeated again. “A name on a referral card. Remember what he looked like, Mullins. So tall—so thin—everybody noticed him. Not just average size—average weight—average face. A freak, pretty near.”
“Sure,” Mullins said. “But—”
“Did anybody—it would be the receptionist or the nurse—did either of them say anything about Oakes? Except as a name? Did either of them say—oh—‘one of the patients was a funny-looking man, about seven feet tall.’ Did they?”
Mullins went back into his memory. He shook his head.
“Not that I remember,” he said. “But—”
“And this guy Oakes was a—a sensation,” Weigand said. “Everybody who ever saw him remembered him. All around where he lived, people remembered him—‘that funny-looking guy.’ And neither Miss Brooks nor the nurse mentioned him.”
Mullins shook his head.
“Why would they?” he said. “Why would they figure it had anything to do with—anything?”
Weigand shook his head while Mullins was still speaking.
“I don’t know why,” he said. “I know people do. Suppose—suppose one of the patients had been a dwarf. A guy about two feet tall. You mean to say that Miss Brooks, say, wouldn’t have told us there were six compensation cases yesterday afternoon and then added—whether she thought it meant anything or not—‘one of them was a dwarf a couple of feet high’? You mean to say anybody—you—me—O’Malley—anybody—would see a freak where he didn’t expect to see one and never say anything about it?”
Mullins thought. His face showed thought. Then he began slowly, reluctantly, to nod.
“O.K., Loot,” he said. “You make it sound—I guess I’d mention it. I guess anybody would.”
“And,” Bill told him, “nobody did. Nobody did, Mullins.”
“Well,” Mullins said, “where does it get us?”
For that, Weigand had no answer. He seemed to have forgotten Mullins, and he sat staring at the opposite wall, tapping his fingers on his desk. He sat so, for what seemed, to Mullins, like a long time and Mullins could tell that Weigand was working something out. This was always very interesting to Mullins, and very obscure. When Weigand reached for the telephone, Mullins was interested, because whatever Weigand did from now on would, he realized, be a surprise.
Weigand put in a call for the home of Dr. Andrew Gordon, in North Salem, New York—a person to person call, to Miss Deborah Brooks. He replaced the telephone and went back to looking at the wall, and tapping out a kind of tune with his fingers on his desk. Then the telephone rang. Weigand picked it up, said, “yes,” listened and put it back. Now the line was between his brows again.
“Temporarily out of order,” he said. “There’s a storm up there, apparently. I suppose—” He broke off and sat for a moment more, looking at the wall. Then, abruptly, he stood up.
“Get the car, Sergeant,” he said. “We’re going places.”
When you live with a cat, certain conventions are adhered to by all parties. Certain places belong to the cat; other, and less desirable places, may be contended for on a basis of relative equality. Thus Martini had proscriptive rights to a position on Gerald North’s shoulders when he was shaving with an electric razor, because Martini was interested in electric razors and found the sound they made soothing. Mr. North had the right to argue about the chair he and Martini both liked and, as a last resort, to pretend that he did not know she was there and to prepare to sit on her. Martini owned all emptied cigarette packages, and either of the Norths had a right to throw them for her, in which case she would bring them back if that were her mood. The question whether Mr. North’s cigarette case was to be considered an emptied cigarette package was moot, Martini being in the affirmative. Martini also owned Mr. North’s right hand, which she chose to regard as an animal—distinct from the larger animal which was Mr. North—and subject to periodic destruction. But it was understood on both sides that Martini did not use claws or, at any rate, did not use them fully extended. Whether Martini also owned the cream which was left in the pitcher after breakfast was not yet decided. The subject was opened afresh each morning, on Martini’s part with an air of innocence; each morning, Martini found the cream pitcher anew, with a pretty pretense of surprise and pleasure.
One of Martini’s inalienable rights was to help Mr. North make cocktails. Here the routine was established. Martha, the maid, brought in ice, glasses, mixer, and gin and vermouth. She put them down on the living-room chest which served as a bar. Martini arrived next, leaping from any convenient position, not quite landing on the glasses. She then awaited Mr. North, meanwhile experimenting to see whether her head still fitted into the mixing pitcher. On such occasions, Mr. North was always commendably prompt.
With his arrival, Martini sat back and watched. She watched with disconcerting intentness and, Mr. North sometimes thought, a rather censorious expression. It occurred to Mr. North, at intervals, that Martini was a conservative; that she thought three-to-one quite dry enough. She had been known to touch Mr. North’s hand lightly, remindingly, when he was for the fourth time filling the measuring glass with gin. Once she had succeeded in upsetting the mixing glass and spilling its contents, but this was not unalloyed triumph. Some of the gin wet her right front foot and she departed angrily. She later licked the foot, without pleasure but also, so far as the Norths could determine, without ill effect.
When the drinks were mixed and the glasses filled—very full because the Norths tried to limit themselves to two each, and there was no sense in not making the most of them—it was understood that Martini would leap from the chest top to Mr. North’s shoulder. This was always an interesting moment, since if Martini timed it perfectly, so that Mr. North had a brimming glass in each hand, there was almost certain to be spillage. The cause of temperance was thus served. Martini was then privileged to ride—moving now and then as it occurred to her—until Mr. North had given Mrs. North her cocktail and had sat down with his own. The game ended then; Martini was supposed to think of something else.
This evening went as usual. Martha entered at a few minutes after six, according to ritual. Martini entered two seconds later, having taken off from the mantelpiece. She put her head in the mixing pitcher and took it out as Mr. North arrived. Mr. North mixed and poured, took a deep breath for steadiness and reached to pick the glasses up. Then the telephone rang.
Bells excited Martini. The doorbell was best, because there was always a chance that it would lead to an opportunity to catapult herself into the outer hall. But telephone bells were all right too, and demanded attention. A cat could race to the box in the hall which held the bells and sit down and wa
tch it. This telephone bell excited Martini and she took off—unhesitatingly, with grace, with no feeling of responsibility. She knocked over both filled glasses, scratched one of Mr. North’s extended hands in her passage, and landed running. Mr. North started convulsively and his right hand hit the vermouth bottle. It tottered and he lunged for it, caught his sleeve on the handle of the mixing spoon and tilted the pitcher against the gin bottle with a sharp crack. Mr. North said, “Damn!” with intense feeling; Mrs. North said, “Teeney!” and then, into the telephone, “Hello.”
“One moment, please,” an operator said. “Here’s your party.” Then, on the heels of that, a girl’s voice said, “Hello, hello. Is this Mrs. North? Mrs. Gerald North?”
“Yes,” Pam said. “Ouch.” Martini had returned, landing on Mrs. North’s shoulder. “That was just the cat,” Pam North said. “Who is this?”
“Deborah Brooks,” the voice said. “In North Salem. Did you hear the radio?”
Her voice was quick and seemed excited.
“What radio?” Mrs. North said. “No, I don’t think so.”
“About the man who killed himself,” Deborah said. “The man named Oakes. I just heard it. And I know him and he wasn’t—”
And then the voice stopped. It was not as if Deborah Brooks had stopped speaking. There was a crackling noise, and then silence, except for a faint humming. Then, very far away there was a voice, which might still be Deborah’s, saying something that sounded like “—had to tell—” Then there was silence again, and this time it was unbroken.
“Hello,” Mrs. North said. “Hello. Hello.”
Nobody answered her. She put the telephone back and looked at it. She looked at Jerry, who was examining the mixing pitcher.
“Not broken,” he said. “But I’ll have to start all over. And one glass is. Who was it?”
“Deborah Brooks,” Pam said. “But something happened. And—it sounded important. About Mr. Oakes.”
“What about Mr. Oakes?” Jerry wanted to know.
“I don’t know,” Pam said. “She said, ‘he wasn’t’ and then something happened. I don’t know what he wasn’t.”
Death of a Tall Man Page 17
