A Pinch of Poison

by Frances Lockridge

  “While we’re up here,” he said, “we may as well look in on the Grahams. Find out how the lady is. That would be polite, wouldn’t it, Mullins?”

  “Listen, Loot—” Mullins said.

  “She was all right this afternoon,” Weigand told him. “A little nervous and strained, maybe, but all right. You know, Mullins, she didn’t look to me like a woman who was getting ready to collapse. She didn’t look that way at all.”

  The Graham house blazed with light; even the porch was flooded.

  “Looks like a party,” Mullins said as they drew up. “I thought she was sick.”

  So, Weigand said, had he. They parked and Weigand led the way to the door. He had barely touched the bell when the door swung open. The man who faced him was about medium height and thin, but it was, Weigand guessed, the thinness of the wiry. The man’s light hair, graying at the temples, was disordered as if excited hands had been running through it. In the instant before he spoke, Weigand felt that eagerness drained out of the man.

  “Oh,” he said flatly. “Who are you? What do you want?”

  Weigand identified himself.

  “I came to ask about Mrs. Graham,” he said. “I was up here, anyway. I was talking to her this afternoon and—”

  “Were you?” the man said, bitterly. “So you were talking to her this afternoon, Lieutenant? And what did you say to her, I’d like to know?”

  Weigand shook his head.

  “I don’t get it,” he said. “I just asked her some routine questions. Why?”

  “Because,” the man said angrily, “she’s gone! You scared her somehow and she’s run away, or—or something’s happened to her. Did you scare her about the boy?”

  “No,” said Weigand. “I didn’t scare her about anything, Mr. Graham.”

  The man stared at him and appeared to accept the statement.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’m—well, it’s got me. She was all right this morning. This afternoon the nurse who takes care of my father called and said that Mrs. Graham was hysterical. I came home at once and she’d gone—just like that—gone. The nurse said she had seemed quieter after a few minutes and had been willing to lie down. The nurse had to go back to Father then, and didn’t know anything more. But apparently Margaret just got up and—and went away. When I came home she wasn’t here.”

  “Perhaps,” Weigand suggested, “she’s just gone to see a friend or—”

  “And stayed away more than four hours?” Graham said. “When she knew the nurse had telephoned me and that I was coming home? You’ll have to do better than that, Lieutenant.” He stared at Weigand and Mullins. “Oh, come on in,” he said. “I was going to call somebody anyway—get the police on it.”

  Weigand and Mullins went in.

  “I thought maybe she’d gone to see somebody,” Graham said. “I thought maybe she was nervous and upset about something and couldn’t stand to stay here alone. And when she didn’t come back I telephoned a lot of people. And then—well, it was crazy, but I’m pretty near crazy about it anyway—I went out and looked for her. I thought—God knows what I thought. That she had been going some place and that something had—happened to her. It’s lonely up here. I—I looked in all the loneliest places.”

  He pressed his temples with the palms of his hands. “Where is she?” he demanded. “What’s happened to her?” He seemed himself to be on the verge of hysterics.

  “Take it easy,” Weigand told him. “Probably—probably it’s nothing. The chances are she’s all right and—”

  “Why are they?” Graham broke in. His tone seemed desperate. “You don’t know what’s happened to her, do you?”

  “Why, no,” Weigand said. “How should I know? But most people who disappear turn up all right, eventually. The chances are they will.” He looked at Graham. “I can’t promise anything, of course. But we have ways of finding people. Do you want to make a report about her?”

  “I don’t care what I do,” Graham said. “I’ve got to find her.”

  “Right,” Weigand said. “Just take it as easy as you can. I’ll get on to the Missing Persons Bureau and start things moving. Now she was—let’s see—about how old?”

  Dully, Graham described his wife. She was thirty-two, he said, and weighed about a hundred and twenty pounds; she was blond and had blue eyes and probably was wearing a pale blue silk dress and a white linen hat. He, helped by the nurse, had looked through his wife’s clothes, and those things seemed to be missing. Weigand, at the telephone, turned the particulars over to the Missing Persons Bureau.

  “There may be a hookup of some sort with the Winston case,” he told the lieutenant at the Bureau. “Give it what you’ve got, Paul.”

  “They’ll do all they can,” Weigand told Graham, turning back. “As fast as they can. There’s nothing for you to do but sit tight and stay by the telephone. The chances are she’ll call up. There’s no sense in your wading around in vacant lots.”

  “I know,” Graham said. He seemed calmer now. “There never was. But I had to do something.”

  Weigand said he could understand that. But now there would be good men working on it and—

  “I’ll tell you,” he said. “Maybe we can do something else. Not that I think anything will come of it, but it will relieve your mind. I’ll get the precinct to send a couple of men to look around the neighborhood just on the chance—well, that she might have fainted, or something. Right?”

  Graham nodded.

  “It might help,” he said. “I wish you would.”

  Weigand called the precinct and listened to the desk sergeant. He agreed that it was too bad; that already the precinct was using a lot of men to look for things he wanted found; that the precinct wasn’t made of men. He said it was tough, but there it was. It needed to be done. The sergeant lapsed into mere grumpiness; finally he agreed that it would have to be done. Weigand hung up and turned to Graham.

  “They’ll put a couple of men on it,” he said. “It’s their busy night.” He looked at Graham thoughtfully. “Mrs. Halstead was killed tonight,” he said. “You know who she is, don’t you?”

  “Halstead?” Graham repeated. “It seems to me—” He looked up suddenly, his interest appearing to quicken. “Wasn’t she the woman who had Michael?” he asked.

  Weigand nodded.

  “Killed?” Graham said. “You mean, in an accident?”

  “No,” said Weigand, “she was murdered.”

  Graham looked at him, and his expression of worry and alarm deepened.

  “What’s happening, Lieutenant?” he said. “First Miss Winston and then Mrs. Halstead and—Lieutenant, what about Margaret?”

  “Take it easy,” Weigand said. “There’s nothing to show any connection. I don’t think anybody is after your wife, Mr. Graham. Unless—”

  “Unless what?” Graham said. Weigand paused.

  “Well,” he said, at length, “I’m assuming that Mrs. Halstead was killed because she had some information which was dangerous to the person who killed Lois Winston. I don’t know that’s true, but I think it is. If Mrs. Graham had similar information she might be in similar danger. But apparently she hasn’t.”

  He waited for Graham to say something. Graham merely looked at him.

  “That’s right, isn’t it?” Weigand said. “She didn’t know anything?”

  “No,” Graham said. “She didn’t know anything. What could she know?”

  Weigand shrugged.

  “If I knew that—” he said, and let the sentence trail. “I suppose you don’t know anything yourself, Mr. Graham, which might be—dangerous? To yourself or to your wife?”

  Graham looked surprised.

  “I?” he said. “What would I know?”

  Again Weigand shrugged.

  “Nothing, I suppose,” he said. “Unless you saw something at the roof last night—something, perhaps, which didn’t mean anything to you at the time, or even something you’ve forgotten. Something that might be dangerous to the murderer?�
��

  Graham shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “I wasn’t there long, as I told—as I told this man.” He looked at Mullins.

  “Mullins, Mr. Graham,” Weigand said. “Sergeant Mullins.”

  “As I told Sergeant Mullins,” Graham said.

  “By the way,” Weigand said, “when were you there?”

  Graham thought it over.

  “From about seven-thirty,” he said. “At a guess. Until—oh, perhaps a quarter of nine. Then Miss Hand and I went back to the office and worked for about two hours, or perhaps longer. I didn’t see Miss Winston.”

  He paused.

  “Or,” he said, “I didn’t recognize her if I did. I’d only met her once, and not for very long and I don’t remember people very well. And when they’re all dressed up, in their war paint—well, I can recognize the paint more easily than the women.”

  Weigand thought a moment.

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “That’s your business, isn’t it? Something and Paulette, isn’t it?”

  “Henri et Paulette,” Graham said. Mullins looked startled at the pronunciation. “Cosmetics and perfumes and the like. Why?”

  “No reason,” Weigand told him. “It just happened to come up.”

  Weigand spoke easily, offhandedly.

  “It seems to be a good business,” he said. “It keeps you working nights, apparently.”

  “Not often,” Graham said. “But recently we’ve had quite a rush. That’s one reason I took Miss Hand to the roof—thought she rated some sort of reward for the time she’s been putting in.”

  He seemed, Weigand thought, rather unduly explanatory, as if having taken his secretary to the Ritz-Plaza were a little heavy on his conscience.

  “I suppose,” Weigand said, suddenly, “that Mrs. Graham understood—didn’t get any false impressions, I mean. Because if she did it might explain—” He broke off, as if embarrassed. Graham looked puzzled for a moment, and then rather indignant.

  “Oh,” he said, “I see what you mean. I suppose I can’t blame you for the notion. But there’s nothing in it. I telephoned Margaret and told her why I couldn’t get home last night, of course, and that I was taking Miss Hand to dinner.”

  “Oh,” Weigand said. “I didn’t really think—”

  “If you want to know what Margaret said, I’ll tell you,” Graham said. “She said, ‘Mind you take that poor girl to a nice place for dinner, making her work on a night like this.’”

  “And,” said Weigand, “you did. It’s all very reasonable.” He stood up.

  “Try not to worry about your wife, Mr. Graham,” Weigand said. “I think we’ll find her, safe and sound.” He looked at Graham, demanding his attention. “I really think we will, Mr. Graham,” he said.

  Graham stared at him, apparently attempting to find reassurance; apparently not finding it.

  “It’s easy to say that,” he said. “It’s damned easy to say that. But things don’t seem very safe around here, do they?”

  14

  WEDNESDAY

  11:00 P.M. TO 11:50 P.M.

  Back at Headquarters, Weigand stared at reports on his desk and spoke harshly of detectives. The reports had come by telephone from Hanlon and Smith and Healey, who had been set to dog the footsteps of, respectively, Randall Ashley, Madge Ormond and David McIntosh. All three detectives were very sorry and, Weigand suspected grimly, apprehensive. Hanlon and Smith, working together, had somehow managed to lose Ashley and the girl; Healey was beginning to have dark suspicions that he had lost McIntosh. All had good explanations and would, Weigand knew, have even better ones when they came on the carpet.

  Healey’s was the best; looking at it, Weigand was puzzled to think what he would have done in Healey’s place, with McIntosh taking cover in the Harvard Club. Healey, a high school man himself, had waited outside in Forty-fourth Street. He had waited from the middle of the afternoon, when McIntosh left his office and went directly to the club, until almost ten o’clock, getting more nervous and perplexed by the moment. Inside the Harvard Club, protected from high school students and other tribesmen without the law, McIntosh had grimly stayed. Or at least, Healey hoped he had stayed. There seemed to be very little Healey could do about proving it.

  Finally he had asked the doorman whether Mr. McIntosh was in the club. The doorman had looked at him doubtfully and asked, in less direct words, what it was to him. He might, the doorman admitted, have Mr. McIntosh paged if—Mr. Healey—insisted. The doorman seemed to doubt whether either Mr. McIntosh, the club or Harvard University, which, the doorman’s manner implied, had final jurisdiction, would approve. Still—Healey decided against having McIntosh paged. It would, eventually, have made an issue where there was no issue to stand on. He didn’t want McIntosh for anything; he merely wanted to know where McIntosh was. It would be difficult to explain this to McIntosh, son of the James McIntosh and much more influential than any first-class detective, if McIntosh did appear.

  So Healey had backed out and telephoned for instructions. Before he backed he had managed to find out that there was a service exit by which members could leave if they chose.

  So, Weigand realized, they had no real way of knowing where McIntosh was during the period of Mrs. Halstead’s murder; no way at all. He might in the end emerge harmlessly from the club, and again into Healey’s ken, and still they wouldn’t know. If they had occasion to ask him he might say that he had been there all the time, and they would be unable to prove anything either way. So—

  Hanlon and Smith had less excuse, although even in their cases there was palliation. A little before six o’clock, Ashley had left his apartment and Hanlon had duly picked him up. Ashley had gone by cab to Madge Ormond’s apartment, or at least to the house in which her apartment was. Hanlon had joined the watchful Smith on the sidewalk and compared notes. Both “subjects” seemed safely cooped. Smith had suggested that Hanlon hold on while he, Smith, went around the corner to grab a sandwich and Hanlon had agreed, stipulating that when Smith came back he, Hanlon, would be wanting a sandwich too. The sandwiches had occupied the better part of an hour, and it was not until then that it occurred to Hanlon that most houses have front and rear doors.

  Hanlon had gone to the rear and verified his suspicion that this house conformed to the general rule, and the two had watched both doors industriously until almost nine. Then Hanlon, whose alertness, if not sensational, seemed more acute than that of Smith, had begun to wonder. Eventually, the two detectives had gone to Madge Ormond’s apartment and, when there was no answer to knocks, had let themselves in, illegally but understandably. Neither Ashley nor Miss Ormond had waited.

  Here was, at any rate, obvious intention to throw off surveillance, Weigand thought. McIntosh might have eluded Healey quite unconsciously—might not, in fact, have eluded him at all. But if Madge Ormond and Randall Ashley had got away, as they had, they could only have done it by plan. It was hardly likely that they made a habit of leaving the building by the back door, going through another door in a board fence, and emerging through the basement kitchen of a restaurant on the next street. Now, clearly they would have to be picked up. He directed that they be picked up, as soon as they reappeared, and brought in.

  The telephone rang. It was Lieutenant Kenman, calling from Riverdale with news. They had been lucky; with most stores and restaurants in the vicinity closed, they had come on a drugstore which Mrs. Halstead had visited—about, the clerk thought, eight o’clock or a little before. The rain was just slackening. The clerk knew Mrs. Halstead and could be positive in his identification. She had wanted aspirin and—this made Weigand blink—a package of Camels.

  “And this is going to get you,” Kenman went on. There was interest, close to excitement, in his voice. “She wanted to know about atropine sulphate.”

  “Did she?” Weigand said. “I’ll be damned!”

  She had asked the clerk and, when he was a little vague about it, had inquired whether they didn’t have a book in which she coul
d look it up. Knowing her, the clerk had seen no objection to letting her see the United States Dispensary. She had sat down on a bench and read about atropine sulphate and now and then, the clerk said, nodded as she read. Then she had asked how one could get it. The clerk had told her that she couldn’t get it in a retail store, but that with reason given, a wholesale supply house probably would sell it. It wasn’t a narcotic, he had told her, so that there was no law against its sale. She had nodded over that, and asked whether it was used for any commercial purpose—in addition, she explained she meant, to its stated medical uses. The clerk was vague, but thought it was. Somebody had told him that it was an ingredient in certain eyewashes. Mrs. Halstead, he said, had seemed interested and, curiously, pleased. Then she had gone out. There was still a little light, then, and he had seen her walk toward the corner she would turn on her way home.

  Weigand thanked Kenman, hung up and drummed on the desk. Mullins watched him. Weigand gave him a summary.

  “What’s the matter, Loot?” Mullins said. “Don’t it fit in?”

  “I don’t see it,” Weigand admitted. “Except that if Mrs. Halstead had been the murderer, she wouldn’t have needed to look up atropine at this date. But getting killed herself had pretty well cleared her, anyway.” He drummed further. “Kenman says she looked satisfied at the end. I wonder what she found out?”

  “Yeh,” Mullins said, helpfully. “I wonder?”

  Weigand called the Missing Persons Bureau and asked whether anything had been turned up about Mrs. Graham. The lieutenant in charge wanted to know what he thought they were? He said they hadn’t found her in the neighborhood; that they were preparing a description to go out on the teletype and that since Weigand was so interested, they were going beyond the routine applicable to this stage of the hunt—they were carrying on interviews, checking up on taxicab calls and generally worrying people.