Death of a Tall Man (10 page)

“Perfume,” he said. “Sweetish.”

Mullins spoke then. His voice was hurried.

“Listen, Loot,” Mullins said, “the M.E. said there was something on the guy's hair. The doctor's.”

“Yes, Mullins,” Weigand said. “Yes—he said that. He smelled it on his fingers.” He hesitated a moment. “The body's gone?” he said. Mullins looked unhappy. He said the body was gone—out the back door.

“Look,” Pam said, “let me.” She leaned close to the half-sphere in Weigand's hand. She sniffed. She stood up and closed her eyes and remembered. “It is,” she said. “It's the same. And you know I—”

She stopped because Weigand's smile finished the sentence. She resumed. “Well, I
do
,” she said. “Better than most people, anyway.” She challenged contradiction.

“Right, Pam,” Bill said. “I know you do.”

“Then this,” Pam said, and indicated the glass weight, “this is what he—somebody—used?”

Weigand nodded slowly. But he did not seem entirely satisfied. He said he supposed it was.

“Only,” he said, “why put it back in the drawer? Which drawer, Barney?” Barney told him the left-hand upper drawer. “Why?” Weigand said. “To hide it? But it wasn't really hidden. Why?”

Nobody had an answer for a moment, and then Pam had.

“Maybe he was just neat,” she said. “A neat murderer.” Nobody replied to that. “Look,” Pam said, “while you think about it, Bill, I want to call Jerry. All right?”

“In a minute,” Bill told her. He turned back to Barney Jones and held out the weight. “Wrap it up and take it along,” he said. “Technical lab. See if it is hair oil. And so forth. And take this young woman home on your way. See she gets home.” He looked at Debbie Brooks. Her eyes were wet again. “See that you stay there, Miss Brooks,” Bill told her, in a voice without sympathy.

Barney Jones wrapped part of the
Daily News
around the glass paperweight, loosely. He got his hat from one of the chairs. He said, “All right, Miss Brooks,” and they went to the door together. Jones moved beside and a little behind her; he opened the door for her. His manner was protective. The door closed.

“Bill!” Pam North said. Her voice was indignant. “You deliberately—you went out of your way to be tough. You wanted to scare her!”

“Obviously,” Bill said. “Of course, my dear.”

“But—” Pam began.

“Because I want her to run,” Bill explained. “I want her to get scared and run. To her boy—to young Gordon. To warn him.”

Pam looked at him and said, “Oh!”

“And you'll follow her,” she said. “You think she knows where he is?”

“We'll follow her,” Bill agreed. “I think there's a good chance she can at least guess where he is. Better than we can.”

“Oh,” Pam said again. She considered it. She shook her head.

“I suppose it may work,” she said, “but I don't think it's very fair. Can I call Jerry, now?”

She dialed. She said, “Hello, darling.” She listened. She said, “I know.” She listened again. She said she was sorry. She hesitated.

“Well,” she said, “actually it's a murder. I just sort of—well, I was just walking past and—” She stopped, and she had the expression of somebody who has been interrupted. Bill listened, amused, to the sound of Jerry's voice coming from the telephone. The words were not distinguishable; the tone was unmistakable.

“I didn't,” Pam said. “It isn't fair to say I look for them. But I found I could get a taxi and so of course—”

She was interrupted again.

“No,” she said, “not exactly. It would be silly to tell a taxicab man to drive straight to the nearest murder. At least, I think it would.”

The interruption was shorter this time.

“Listen, dear,” Pam said, and her voice was firm. “It's too long for the telephone. Bill will want to use it. It's just as I said—I was passing by and there it was. So of course—” She was not interrupted. She let it die away. “And, Jerry,” she said, “I got you a new tie.” She listened. “Of course it isn't,” she said, with some indignation. “There isn't any blood on
anything.
Not even the body. It's—it's a very neat murder.”

She listened again. Then she told him where she was. Then she listened. Then she said, “But, Jerry—” and then she hung up.

“He's coming,” she told Bill Weigand. “Jerry's coming up to get me.” She smiled faintly, gently. “He says to take me home,” she added. There was the faintest possible emphasis on the word “says.”

The telephone rang then. Bill picked it up. He said yes, this was Weigand. He listened.

“Right,” he said. “We're still here. Will be for some time yet.” He listened again. “Now's as good a time as any,” he said. “Come along, Mr. Smith.”

He cradled the telephone and looked at his watch.

“Mr. Smith has decided there's something we ought to know,” he said. “He's been thinking things over. He's coming down to tell us.”

“What?” Pam said.

Bill Weigand looked at Mullins, and Mullins looked back at him. They both seemed interested.

“What?” Pam repeated.

Bill Weigand shook his head. He said he didn't know. He said it was always interesting when people began to volunteer things.

“Helpful,” Mullins said. “Helpful guys. Where would we be without 'em, Loot?”

“Right,” Weigand said. “Where indeed, Mullins?”

“Maybe he does just want to help,” Pam said.

Bill Weigand said there was no doubt of it. He wanted to help—somebody. The question was, who?

They waited, then. It was not a long wait. The door opened and Nickerson Smith came in. As he came in, Bill looked at his watch again.

“Quick work, Mr. Smith,” he said. “Four minutes, on the nose.”

“Really?” Mr. Smith said. He seemed pleased. “I was lucky with the elevator,” he said.

He came across the room to them and, when Bill Weigand motioned, he sat down beside the desk. Bill sat in Debbie Brooks's chair. He said, “Well, Mr. Smith?”

It took Nickerson Smith a time to get started. He said that he felt himself to be in an unfortunate situation; he said he had hesitated. But what he had to tell would come out sooner or later, whatever he said. He thought it would be better all around to have all the facts available from the outset.

“Know where you are, that way,” he explained to Bill Weigand.

He realized that what he said might be misunderstood, that his saying it might be misunderstood. “Look as if I'm trying to direct suspicion,” he said. It wasn't that.

“Actually,” he said, “Dan's the last man in the world to do anything like this. Even now. I know him, and any suspicion of him would be absurd.”

Weigand was patient. He did not follow any of the alleys Smith opened for him. He agreed in general; he agreed in detail; he praised Smith's attitude, and mentioned how much better it would be if all people were as reasonable and straightforward. But he did all this in few words. Gently, he nudged Nickerson Smith from generality toward particulars. He got him there.

Dan's mother—“my sister, that is”—had been a wealthy woman. “From our father, you know.” She had left her estate to her son, Dan. Her estate amounted to about two million—“then,” Smith added. The income was to be used for his education, and other needs; the principal to go to him when he was twenty-five. “In six months—no, nearer five, now.” She had made her husband, Dr. Andrew Gordon, and her brother executors.

“Now,” Nickerson Smith said, “I'm the sole executor, of course. That's the pinch.”

Weigand nodded and waited.

“Because,” Smith said, “it isn't anything like two million now. That's the catch. It's not more than half a million, if that. Gone with the wind.”

Weigand made regretful sounds.

“What wind?” he said.

That, Smith told him, was really the rub. “It's embarrassing,” he said. “I feel guilty as hell. The fact is—I left things to Andrew. Too much to him, I realize now.” Smith diverted himself; explained. It would be easy to explain if Weigand had known Andrew Gordon, alive. He was—“forceful.” He was a man who got his own way. And, of course, Dan was living with him as his son. It was natural that he should have the greater share in controlling the estate; it was simpler for him, for example, to pay school bills, and college bills; to fix Dan's allowance as a boy. “But,” Nickerson Smith said, “I realize that these are merely excuses. I was negligent. I can't deny that. Easygoing. And Andrew was not the businessman he thought he was.”

Under the terms of the will, Smith explained, the executors were allowed considerable latitude. Gordon had taken it—unwisely. He had invested the money—“with the best intentions, understand” and, to be brief, he had lost three quarters of it. At least three quarters.

“Actually,” Smith said, and he sounded morose, “actually, I'm equally liable, of course. Subject to censure. Perhaps to legal censure. But there it is—spilt milk. Anyway, that's the setup.”

“And—?” Weigand said.

Smith looked at him.

“That's all,” he said. He looked relieved. “Maybe I've been worrying myself too much,” he said. “Not about the money itself. I don't mean that. There I worried too little, obviously. But about any possible connection of all this and—what happened to Andrew.”

“You thought there might be a connection?” Weigand said. He was polite, interested.

“No,” Smith said. “Not really. I'm glad there isn't.”

“You thought the son might have heard of this—this shrinkage?” Weigand said. “Possibly from Dr. Gordon himself? And that the boy wasn't—shall we say, as understanding as you are, Mr. Smith? That he might, indeed, have been very annoyed? Furious, even? Having a notoriously bad temper?”

Smith was shaking his head.

“The boy isn't really the way he seems,” he said. He spoke earnestly. “I realize how he seems to those who first meet him. He's—so quick and—well, angry. About little things. But underneath he is really—oh, not like that. That's all surface.” He paused. “I'm certain it is,” he said.

Weigand said he saw. He said it slowly, somewhat doubtfully.

“Then you don't think, knowing young Gordon, that he might have had—well, say, a sudden attack of rage when he heard about what had happened to his money? And—well, acted accordingly?” Weigand spoke slowly still.

“No.” Smith was emphatic. “That's what I want to make clear. I don't think that at all. I don't think it's possible. That's partly why I decided to tell you this myself. So I could explain how I, knowing him very well, feel about the boy.”

Bill Weigand said he appreciated that. He said he appreciated having been told about the estate; that he appreciated the cooperative attitude Mr. Smith had shown. And he was interested in hearing the opinion of Dan Gordon held by a man who knew him well. Smith grew contented under praise; his relief that it was over, and that he had done wisely, was apparent. He went, promising further cooperation up to the limit of his ability.

Bill Weigand and Pam North looked after him. It was Pam who spoke.

“Was he afraid you'd suspect Dan,” she said, “or—” She raised shaped eyebrows.

“Precisely,” Bill said. “Or that I wouldn't. I wondered, too. I wondered very much.”

“And, of course,” Pam said, “there's this—the doctor is dead, isn't he?”

There was no doubt of that, Bill agreed.

“Dead men,” Pam said reflectively, “have so little to say for themselves, don't they?”

Evelyn Carr Gordon was last, and at that time she seemed also to be least. She was entirely recovered from her faint when they sent for her; she was very calm, sufficiently polite, immeasurably withdrawn. The withdrawal might have half a dozen explanations; it was a waste of time to try to choose among them. It might represent only her manner. It might represent shock. Or it might indicate carefulness—a defensive carefulness.

She was Evelyn Carr Gordon, 32. She was blonde, her hair done high. She was attractive, in a not unexpected fashion—the fashion of straight nose, rounded chin, blue eyes framed in long lashes. She had been crying, they thought; her eyes had the look of crying. But she was not now; her voice was steady and she was composed. And she had little to tell.

She had come to town on the ten thirty-three, driving to Brewster for the train. She had got in a few minutes after noon, had done one or two errands and had gone to the Longchamps at Fifty-ninth Street where her husband had said he would meet her if he could. He had not come; after she had waited for perhaps ten minutes, she had got a table not far from the Madison Avenue entrance and had ordered a cocktail and then lunch, keeping her eyes on the door. He had not come. It was matter of fact in her statement, and Bill Weigand probed into that. Hadn't she been surprised? Or worried?

She looked, then, a little surprised.

“No,” she said. “Oh, no, Lieutenant. It was only a tentative engagement.”

“Still,” Bill said.

She shook her head. She said that he did not understand. She said it often happened.

“He met me when he could,” she said. “It was our understanding. He could never tell. An unexpected patient. An unexpected turn in some case at the hospital. I understand—and he knew I would understand. Today was like—oh, like many days. I said I was coming in. He said—or perhaps I said—we might meet at lunch. At about one. He didn't even need to say, ‘if I can make it.' That was understood. I would wait a few minutes, then I would get a table, then if he didn't come I would go on with my lunch. If he didn't come, I'd know he couldn't come. It was merely—sensible.”

Weigand nodded. Probably it was; any way of acting that people agreed upon could be sensible. This sounded sensible. Pam North's eyes narrowed for an instant and then opened again. Of course it was sensible. She often wished that she and Jerry would be sensible, like that. No, Pam thought, I don't really. But it is a sensible, quiet way to live.