Death on the Aisle (15 page)

“You didn't have to, Humpty.” Alberta's voice was low. “Oh, Humpty—dear—you didn't have to. Not ever.… What do you think I am?”

“You know what I think you are, darling,” Humpty said. “Oh—forget what I said about your feelings. It wasn't that you felt confused. You
thought
confused. You wouldn't take the simple way. You had to go on with it—‘working things out,' as you said.” He stopped, suddenly and then went on. “Well,” he said, and now his words had an inflection of almost hopeless finality. “We've worked it out, all right. Among us.”

The girl didn't say anything for a moment. Then she said, “Oh, Humpty!” Her voice seemed to be coming through tears.

This is awful, Pam thought to herself. I oughtn't to be doing this. There were other sounds—a slight movement, a low murmur. Pam could almost see them, holding each other desperately against danger. I hate myself for this, Pam thought. I'll always hate myself for this. And I'll never tell; if they are both murderers, I'll never tell.

Humphrey Kirk's voice was quieter when he spoke again. He said he was a fool.

“But I always knew, really,” he said. “I was—well, jealous. Stupidly jealous. But I always knew. You know that?”

The answer was very low, its burden more evident in tone than in words. She had known.

“Now,” Kirk said, in still another voice. He was, Pam thought, pushing back that unstable forelock of his. “Now—we've got to get things clear. You say you just dropped it.”

“I must have,” she said. “That's the only way. And somebody—must have found it. Or perhaps he found it after I went out. That would explain it.”

Damn, Pam thought. Found what? It was annoying to have the guilt of eavesdropping, and such illusive gain. Found what?

“But Humpty,” the girl said. “We can't just
explain
it—think up something it could have been. We have to
know!
We're not safe unless we
know!
We're tangled up in it.”

Humphrey Kirk sighed.

“If you'd only dropped it long ago, darling,” he said. “You could have gone to some other man. There are plenty of other men just as good as Bolton—as Bolton was. Or if, instead of that, you had quit seeing him the other way. As your aunt said.”

“Her aunt?” thought Pam North, who was no longer even pretending to herself not to listen avidly. “What's her aunt got to do with this? And what
is
it?”

Pam listened and tried to think it out at the same time. Alberta had lost something and somebody had found it. She had made Humphrey Kirk jealous, but probably needlessly jealous with, presumably, Dr. Bolton, and she “could have gone to another man,” which was an odd thing for Humphrey Kirk to tell her. Unless by “man” he meant “doctor,” Pam nodded to herself. Alberta could have gone to another doctor; therefore, she was seeing Bolton professionally. But Kirk would not have been jealous if she had been seeing Bolton
only
professionally. And Alberta's aunt, like Kirk himself, had been opposed to her dual relationship with Bolton.

“There wasn't any ‘other way,'” the girl said, “not for a long time.”

Again there was a moment during which neither spoke. When Kirk did speak, then, there was a note in his voice which made Pam feel that something had been settled between them.

“There's always F. Lawrence,” Kirk said. His tone was speculative. Alberta said, “Why?” and Kirk made dim, hesitant noises. Finally he said it wasn't clear.

“Except for the obvious hookup,” he said. “And I'll admit that's remote. But it would give the police a trail—something else to bay on. And that would give us time.”

“What good's time?” Alberta asked. There was, it seemed to Pam, an odd note in her voice. Apparently the note seemed odd, also, to Humphrey Kirk. He asked Alberta, in a voice suddenly sharpened, what she meant. Her answer was silence, and Pam wished she could see them; the girl was, she thought, looking at Humpty in a certain way. But what way is it? Pam thought. What is she saying with her eyes and the line of her mouth? Whatever she was saying, it was clear to Kirk.

“
Darling!
” Kirk said. There was urgency and a kind of command in his voice. “Don't think that! You
mustn't
think that!”

Damn! Pam thought to herself. What mustn't she think? Alberta mustn't think—Pam tried to fill out the sentence. “You mustn't think—
I did it
.” Could that be it? Or—“
I think you did it!
” Or—but it slipped through Pam's mind. Were they talking, really, about somebody else entirely; somebody else of whose innocence Alberta had doubt; somebody close to her who, to Alberta dreadfully, might have killed Carney Bolton?

It was, Pam decided, entirely unsatisfactory. She added up. Humpty Kirk and the girl with reddish brown hair were in love, and it was not an easy and comfortable love; it was love shot with jealousy and doubt. She had lost something and somebody had found it and “it” was connected with the murder of Bolton. Kirk wanted time for something and Alberta felt that time was of no use to them. Alberta had been a patient of Bolton; Alberta had an aunt who had disapproved of Bolton. Alberta was thinking something she mustn't think and—

“Well,” a low, musical voice said behind Pam North. “Are you waiting for something—Mrs. North?”

Mrs. North jumped and said, “Oh!” She looked, she was convinced, as guilty as she felt—as guilty as she was. Mary Fowler looked at her quietly and seemed a little amused. But the amusement was not friendly.

“Oh,” Mrs. North said again. “I was just exploring.”

I wish, she thought, that that sounded more convincing. If she's been there for any time at all she knows I'm not exploring; I'm just standing still. And now I'll have to walk on with her and pretend to be looking at things, and we'll simply fall over those two and everybody will know I was listening. Oh, damn!

Mary Fowler's words, when she spoke, then, seemed to take Pam North's statement as full and satisfying information. Miss Fowler said, “Of course.” But Pam would have preferred, she decided, another tone.

“It must be interesting to you,” Miss Fowler said. “Back-stage and everything. It always interests people who aren't professionals. It's—I'll never forget how exciting it was for me, a long time ago, when I was only a girl and stage-struck.”

She smiled at Mrs. North.

“Only,” she said, “one almost needs a guide the first time, don't you think? If you had asked me—or anyone—we'd have been glad—”

It was hard to tell what Mary Fowler was thinking; whether the note in her voice was irony. Or more than irony. But she must, Pam decided, pretend that she was believed.

“I know,” Pam said. “It was foolish of me. Only everybody was busy.”

She spoke without lowering her voice, so that nobody who might now, in turn, be overhearing would think she had anything to hide. She felt Mary Fowler's unexpectedly strong fingers on her arm.

“We'll go on around, my dear,” Miss Fowler said. “Be careful you don't stumble over something.”

Pam tried not to look at Miss Fowler suspiciously. Stumble over something? Was that irony?

They went on around the corner blunted by the windows and—
and there was nobody there!
Or, more exactly, there were several people there, Alberta James among them. And Humphrey Kirk was not among them. There was a short bench just under the farthest window and it was about right as to distance and direction, Pam thought, to have been the refuge of the girl and Humpty Kirk when they were talking. But now nobody was in it. Alberta was standing farther on, with John Hubbard and another man whom Mrs. North had not seen before, and they were talking.

“Oh,” Miss Fowler said from beside Mrs. North. “I thought Humpty was here. Have any of you seen him?”

“He was here,” Alberta James said. “Five minutes or so ago. I don't know where he is now.”

She spoke casually, as if it didn't matter at all to her where Humpty Kirk had got to. She didn't look guilty of anything, Pam North decided. But, of course, she was an actress. And Mary Fowler didn't look as if she had any secret knowledge which concerned Alberta and Humpty and, unfavorably, Pamela North. But Miss Fowler had, Pam remembered, once been an actress herself. Pam looked at Miss Fowler's rather heavy face, marred by the startling eyes, and wondered about that. She must, Pam thought, have played very special parts.

Pam decided to be somewhere else. She smiled vaguely and said something about the deep anxiety which might, by now, be presumed to be consuming Mr. North; she asked directions and was given them. Hubbard gallantly guided her through apertures to another door and told her to watch the stairs. Through the door and down the stairs she was back in the auditorium.

They were still on the same scene. Just as Mrs. North found a seat, Alberta James came on stage and spoke the lines of Sally Bingham. Humphrey Kirk was coiled in a seat in the third row with the air of one who has never left it. Jerry North was slumped in the same seat he had previously occupied and still, Pam decided, looking at him across half the auditorium and in a very bad light, thinking of business. Then Weigand and Mullins came down the right-center aisle from somewhere in the darkness to the rear and Weigand spoke.

“What's this, Kirk, about Miss Grady being missing?” he said. “Have you heard anything from her?”

Weigand's voice was sharp and demanding, Mrs. North noticed. And there was, she thought, a note of anxiety in it. He was, she decided, worried about Ellen Grady's absence.

And that's fine, Mrs. North told herself. Now he wouldn't want to hear about Alberta and Kirk, even if I were going to tell. Which I wasn't. But now I don't have to feel guilty about not telling.

“Although,” Pam added to herself, “I'm going to feel guilty whatever I do.”

X

T
UESDAY—9:20 P.M. TO 10:45 P.M.

Kirk stood up and walked back to meet Weigand. He shook his head as he walked back.

“Not a word, Lieutenant,” he said. “La Grady seems to think she doesn't have to come to evening rehearsals. D'you want her?”

“Damn it all,” Weigand said. “I want everybody. I can't have people wandering off and not coming back.” He walked on down, Kirk falling in a step behind him, and addressed the cast.

“I want all of you to understand that,” he said. “Just because we let you go on here as if nothing had happened doesn't mean that nothing has—or that any of you can wander off without talking to us first. Do you all understand that?”

He was, Pam thought, being very stern for Bill Weigand. He watched several in the cast nod; heard F. Lawrence Tilford say, with due attention to each syllable: “I am sure we all understand perfectly, Lieutenant.”

“After all,” John Hubbard added suddenly, “
we're
all here, Lieutenant. Ellen's the only one who wandered off.”

“Right,” Weigand said. “But I want you to understand, all of you. We want you here for questions, when we get ready to ask them. And if you go, we want to know where, so we can—look after you.” He looked at them slowly. “I suppose,” he said, “that one of you is a murderer. We'll look after that one, in time. The rest of you are, I suppose, innocent. But several of you haven't, I think, told everything you should tell. Some have had a chance and haven't come clean; some haven't had a chance. And remember this—any one of you may, perhaps without realizing it, know some fact which is dangerous to the murderer—
something the murderer would kill to keep us from knowing!
” He paused, rather dramatically. Pam looked at him in some astonishment and then looked quickly at Jerry. Jerry looked amused, and nodded his head as if in approval. Now why was Bill—

Oh, of course, Pam thought suddenly. Because they're all theatrical. He's—he's making it dramatic for them. Then she nodded, too, and caught Jerry's eye across the space which separated them and smiled with him.

“Is the situation perfectly clear?” Weigand went on, still to the cast and to the others of the company. “Nobody is to leave the theatre without permission. We are to know, as nearly as possible, where everybody is at a given moment and what everybody is doing.” He paused, looking from one to another. This time there were no comments, only here and there a nod of acceptance. “And,” Weigand said, “if I were you I would stay in groups of at least three. That's all.”

He turned, and as he turned spoke Mullins' name. Mullins came down the aisle saying, “O.K., Loot.” They met near Pam North who had dropped into a seat.

“I want you to find Miss Grady, Sergeant,” Weigand said. “Find her and bring her here. They say she isn't at her apartment, but start there anyway. Perhaps her telephone is out of order; perhaps she's just decided not to answer it. If she's there, bring her here. If she isn't, find her.”

“O.K., Loot,” Mullins said. “You think maybe—”

“I think I don't want them wandering,” Weigand said. “Also I want to talk to Miss Grady. Right?”

“O.K., Loot,” Mullins repeated. He started back up the aisle, and Pam North spoke suddenly.

“Mr. Mullins,” she said. “I want to go with you.”

Mullins stopped and looked at her, and Weigand turned and looked at her. Both looks were inquiring.

“Because,” Pam said, “there ought to be a woman along. In case—in case she isn't dressed or something.”

It sounded very lame, Mrs. North realized. It sounded very lame to her, and it evidently sounded very lame to both Bill Weigand and Mullins. But it was the best the spurred moment provided, and she nodded at both of them earnestly.

“Of course there ought to be a woman,” she said. “And anyway, Bill—I won't get in Mullins' way.”