Death of a Tall Man (15 page)

“No,” she said. “Oh, no! I'm not afraid. I know he didn't—” She stopped. “I know,” she repeated, but her voice wavered.

“And,” Weigand said, “you will do anything to help him, won't you, Miss Brooks? The thing you think of first—even futile little things, like turning off the lights. Is that it?”

“He doesn't need help,” Debbie said. She looked at the detective now. “Why should he?”

Weigand nodded. He said perhaps Dan Gordon didn't need help.

“I don't know,” he said. “Do you need help, Gordon?”

Gordon said he didn't know what Weigand was talking about.

“Yes,” Weigand said. “Oh, yes. You know. I'm talking about your stepfather's murder, Gordon. Did you know most of your money was lost?”

“Some of it,” Gordon said. “So what?”

“You knew your stepfather had lost it?”

Gordon shook his head.

“I don't know what happened to it,” he said. “I don't know anybody lost it.”

“Really?” Weigand said. “Really, Mr. Gordon?”

Gordon did not say anything.

“Suppose I think you did,” Weigand said. “Suppose I think that you heard something—perhaps your stepfather warned you that there wouldn't be as much money as you had expected. That a major part of it had been lost—somehow. Perhaps as a result of his bad judgment. Suppose I think you got to brooding about it, and wanted to know more—and arranged to meet him yesterday to find out more. Suppose I think you waited in the lobby downstairs until he came down and that you went up to him—and by that time you were very irritated. As you were here, a few minutes ago. Suppose I think he persuaded you to go back to the office, because he didn't want you making a show of it in the lobby, and that you went—and started in again when you were there, in his private office—which is more or less soundproof. So Miss Brooks wouldn't hear you.”

He stopped and looked at the girl, consideringly.

“Or perhaps she did hear you,” he said. “In spite of the soundproofing. And went in—and found that you'd grabbed up a paperweight and gone after him. The way you started to go at me a few minutes ago. And stood by you—and tried to help you. And making the kind of mistake—doing the kind of wrong, useless thing—she did tonight when she turned off the lights. Because she's young and—frightened—and will do anything to help you.”

“No,” the girl said. “No—nothing like that—”

“No?” Weigand said. “Suppose I still think it was, Miss Brooks? It wouldn't be murder, maybe—if you had called the police, and Gordon hadn't run from questioning—so he would have time to make up a good story, perhaps? Or work out an alibi?—it wouldn't have been murder. Manslaughter, at worst. An accident—one of those unhappy things we can blame on the war. You see, Miss Brooks?”

“It didn't happen,” the girl said. “Tell him, Danny. Tell him.”

“What's the use?” Gordon said. “Let him guess. That's what he's for.”

“Oh,” Weigand said, “perhaps you didn't hear anything, Miss Brooks. Perhaps you don't know anything. Perhaps you're just—afraid it was that way.”

The girl shook her head, her hair swaying.

“Why don't you leave her alone?” Gordon said. “Why don't you stick to this—this story about me? The one you're making up.”

“Am I?” Weigand said. “I don't know. You had motive. So far as I know you had the opportunity. You have the—temperament. If it happened the way I've described.”

“And I suppose I had another—disturbed period—and killed the nurse,” Gordon said. “Or had you forgotten about her?”

Bill Weigand said he hadn't forgotten.

“That wasn't the same thing,” he said. “That was murder. That was murder of someone who knew too much—and had come out here to talk it over with somebody. I should think with you, Gordon. Did she see you, after you killed your stepfather? Was that what she was going to give you a chance to explain? When you killed her?”

“What's the use?” Gordon said. “I didn't kill anybody. And I'm not crazy.”

Weigand agreed with that. He said he didn't think Dan Gordon was crazy.

There were lights and voices outside, then, and the sound of men moving. Mullins went to one of the french doors and looked out.

“Troopers,” Mullins said. Weigand nodded. It hadn't taken them long—now that they had a murder of their own. The doorbell rang.

The man who came in first was a short powerful man in civilian clothes. There were two younger men in civilian clothes with him. They were cops, all right, Pamela North thought. Then she thought something else.

“Why—” Mrs. North said.

“Well,” the short man said, in a strong, heavy voice. “Well. Old Home Week.” He looked around. He nodded to Bill Weigand. “Hello, Weigand,” he said. He made a joke. “Having another vacation, Lieutenant?” he said.

“Hello, Heimrich,” Weigand said. “Not a vacation, this one. Our murders cross. I've got one. You've got one. Division of labor.”

“O.K.,” Heimrich said. “They tie in?”

“Right, Lieutenant,” Weigand said. “They tie in.” He looked at Gordon and the girl beside Gordon. “Tight,” he said.

Lieutenant Heimrich, Bureau of Criminal Identification, New York State Police, looked at Gordon and the girl. He snapped his fingers.

“Sure,” he said. He spoke to Gordon. “You kill your dad, son?” he asked, in an interested tone. He waited for Gordon to speak. Gordon merely looked at him.

“O.K.,” Heimrich said. “Not my headache anyway. You kill anybody around here, son? That'd be my business, you know.”

He looked at Weigand. Weigand shook his head. Heimrich joined him and they walked down the room, out of earshot. They conferred for a moment. They walked back.

“I'll talk to you two later,” Heimrich said. “Meanwhile—I'm going to have you wait in your rooms.” He looked at the girl. “You're Miss Brooks,” he told her. “You got a room here?” The girl nodded. “O.K.,” Heimrich said. He spoke to the two detectives who had come in with him. “Take them up,” he said. “See that they stay put. Get a couple of the boys on their doors. Get it?”

The detectives got it. They took Gordon and Debbie Brooks out. She was holding to his hand. Lieutenant Heimrich looked at those who remained.

“There are a lot of us,” he said. He looked at them. “You're Mrs. North,” he told Mrs. North. “I remember you, from last time.” He looked at Jerry North. “You I've seen somewhere,” Heimrich said.

“With me,” Mrs. North said. “My husband.”

Lieutenant Heimrich thought this over a moment. He looked at Jerry North again.

“O.K.,” Heimrich said. “If that's the way you want it. Who are you?”

This was to Dorian Weigand. Bill smiled at her. He told Heimrich he ought to remember her.

“Dorian Hunt,” Bill said. “At the same time you met the Norths. And Mullins and me. Now she's Dorian Weigand.”

“Well,” Heimrich said. He looked at all of them. “That was quite a vacation you had,” he told them.

“Oh yes,” Pam North said. “It was one of our most interesting—”
*

The doorbell interrupted her. Mullins went to the door.

“Get along in, you,” a voice said, and the door closed. Mullins came back, but there was a heavy-set man of medium height in front of him.

“Why, hello, Mr. Smith,” Pam said. She looked at him with a pleased smile. “I've been wondering about you,” she said.

*
The Norths first met Lieutenant Heimrich in
Murder Out of Turn,
J. B. Lippincott Co., 1941.

6

T
UESDAY
, 12:20
A.M. TO
3:55
A.M.

Nickerson Smith stood in the doorway and looked at them. He looked with the hopefully polite, and blank, expression of a man who has walked in too late on a story.

“Wondering about me?” he said, repeating Mrs. North's remark. “Why?”

“Where you were,” Pam told him. “Everybody was here but you.”

Smith shook his head and looked at Lieutenant Weigand. Weigand's expression told him nothing in particular.

“I'm afraid,” he said, and waited for somebody to pick it up. Bill Weigand, after a moment, picked it up.

“Where have you been, Mr. Smith?” Bill asked. “And, for that matter, why are you here?”

“Driving out,” Smith said. He looked puzzled. “To see my nephew, naturally. Want to have a talk with him.”

“About the money,” Bill said, with no inflection of enquiry.

“Yes,” Smith said.

“How did you know he would be here?” Bill wanted to know.

Smith shrugged. He said it seemed the most likely place. He looked at Weigand shrewdly.

“What's going on?” he asked.

“Murder,” Pam North said, for Bill.

All of them looked at Nickerson Smith. He looked sad.

“I know,” he said. “Of course.” Then he looked puzzled. “But all these State troopers,” he said. “They're all over the place.”

“A new murder,” Pam said. “That is—” She stopped speaking and looked at Bill. She looked at Jerry, who shook his head at her. But Bill Weigand nodded.

“Right,” he said. “A new murder. Grace Spencer.” He said it flatly.

Nickerson Smith looked shocked.

“Grace—” he said. “Why, that's the nurse!”

“Right,” Bill told him.

“But,” Smith said, and paused. “I don't understand,” he said.

“Try,” Mrs. North advised him. “Grace Spencer. Somebody killed her. Because she remembered something—something odd. Something she couldn't be allowed to tell. Where were you, Mr. Smith?”

Smith looked puzzled again. He shook his head.

“I don't know,” he said. “When was she killed? If it wasn't too long ago, I was driving here.”

Pam looked at Bill Weigand, and he nodded.

“About an hour,” she said. “Less, perhaps.”

Jerry shook his head.

“More,” he said. “A little more.”

“On the road, then,” Smith said. He looked without anger, almost with amusement, at Mrs. North. “Do I need an alibi?” he asked.

“Heavens,” Mrs. North said. “You ought to know that, if anybody. People who kill people need alibis. You ought to know.”

“I do,” Smith said. “On that basis, I don't.” He looked at Mrs. North. “I'm not sure I get the basis,” he added.

“Look,” Mrs. North said, “it's guilty people who need alibis, isn't it? So that they will be some place else when they weren't? If you killed Miss Spencer, of course you need an alibi. Like a gas station.”

“Listen, Pam,” Jerry said. He ran the fingers of his right hand through his hair. “Why a gas station?”

“To stop at, of course,” Pam told him. “While the lights were off.”

Nickerson Smith looked at Weigand; and Dorian suddenly, quite unexpectedly, laughed from the deep chair in which she was sitting. It was a subdued laugh, and brief.

“You all look so funny,” Dorian said, when everybody looked at her. “Pam's perfectly clear.”

“Of course,” Pam said. “It's simple. You got ten gallons and he remembers you because you asked what time it was.”

Jerry shook his head, looking again at Pam.

“What time was it?” he said.

“About twenty minutes after eleven,” Pam said, without hesitating. She looked at her watch. “You were right,” she said. “It's twelve thirty now. More than an hour.”

“So you mean,” Smith said, speaking very slowly and carefully, “where was I at about eleven twenty, and did I stop at a gas station so I can prove it?”

“Of course,” Pam North said. “What would I mean?”

Smith shook his head.

“I was on the road somewhere,” he said. “On my way here. About at Hawthorne Circle, probably.”

“Why?” Pam said. “Did you look at your watch?”

Smith looked confused again, but only for a moment.

“Oh,” he said, “at the Circle. No—it would just be about right.”

He looked at Weigand then and his eyes challenged Weigand.

“Lieutenant,” he said, “what is all this? This—lady—seems to suspect me. Am I supposed to take that as the official attitude?”

Weigand smiled a little, but it was not an informative smile.

“This lady suspects everyone,” he said. “So do I. So does Lieutenant Heimrich here. This is Nickerson Smith, Heimrich. Dan Gordon's uncle. Brother of the doctor's first wife. And—one of the executors of his sister's will. Dr. Gordon was the other.”

“And,” Nickerson Smith said, “Gordon managed to throw away about three fourths of the money. Leaving me to hold the bag.”

Heimrich made deprecating consonants with his tongue and teeth. They could mean anything.

“And,” Smith said, “I was in my office when Andrew was killed.”

Heimrich looked at Weigand, who nodded.

“That's right,” Weigand said. “He was.”

“Oh, so you talked to the girl,” Smith said, enlightened.

“Right,” Bill said. “We talked to your secretary. You were in your office.”

“Then?” Smith said.

Then, Bill said, as far as he was concerned Smith could talk with his nephew. But it was up to Heimrich; they were in Heimrich territory.

“Why not, Mr. Smith?” Heimrich said, pleasantly. “He's in his room. Tell the man at the door I said you could talk to him. You know where his room is, of course.”

Nickerson Smith shook his head. Oddly enough, he said, he had been at the house only once before, and then had stayed on the first floor. Heimrich looked surprised. He said he understood Smith was a relative; it was clear from his tone that relatives knew one another's houses. Smith smiled faintly.

“We didn't see much of one another,” he said. “After my sister died, and particularly after Andrew remarried, I saw them only occasionally. In town. I'm afraid that, even with Dan, I wasn't a—a good relative.” He thought a moment. “Apparently it would have been better if I had been,” he said. “All around. I left too much to Andrew.”