Hanged for a Sheep (10 page)

Stein went back through the door.

“That was supposed to be Harry Perkins,” Weigand explained. “Seems Mr. Perkins isn't in. And—”

But now Stein was back. He was not alone this time.

“Here's Brack, Lieutenant,” Stein said. He said it with distaste. “Go on, Brack,” he added.

Weigand stayed in his chair. It wasn't necessarily true that the standing man had the advantage; often the reverse was true. Brack came in and stood and looked down at Weigand and then, curiously, at Pam. He didn't look at Mullins, who looked hard at him.

Pam had expected a dark, evil weasel of a man. Brack wasn't. He was tall and square and looked like anybody until you saw his eyes. His eyes looked as if they had been shaped and polished and set in his head. Also he was a little better dressed than seemed either necessary or desirable. He looked down at Weigand out of the hard eyes.

“How are you, Lieutenant?” he said. “Want me for something?”

“Hello, Brack,” Weigand said. “Why did you think I had you brought in?”

“Was I brought in?” Brack said. His voice had no inflection. It revealed nothing. “I thought I was invited. And accepted the invitation.”

“Did you, Brack?” Weigand said. It was not a question. “Do you want to be thanked?” That was not a question, either.

The hard Brack eyes shifted a little and swept over Pam. They almost held an expression of curiosity, but it was restrained.

“Well?” Brack said.

“Right,” Weigand said. “Where were you last night, Brack? When your friend Anthony was knocked off?”

Brack did not seem surprised, but he said he was. He said he didn't know Anthony had been knocked off. And he didn't know when.

“Where were you, Brack?” Weigand repeated.

“With a lady,” Brack said. There was a movement of his lips which created part of a smile—the harder part. “What does it prove, Weigand?”

“With Miss Buddie?” Weigand asked.

“It could be,” Brack said. “Or it couldn't. I'd have to know the score.”

“Murder,” Weigand said. “That's the score, Brack. Where were you?”

“Out and around,” Brack said. “With this person and that. With this lady and that. I'll let you know if it gets important.”

“Well,” Weigand said. He spoke almost pleasantly. “I guess we'll have to take you down again, Brack. The boys will like that.”

Brack did not seem impressed. He said he doubted if the boys would have much chance to like it.

“However,” he said, “I didn't cool the rat.”

Weigand said he was glad to hear it. The rat was Anthony? Brack nodded.

“A small timer,” he said. “A small time rat. I wouldn't bother.”

“No?” Weigand said. “Were you out with Miss Buddie, Brack?”

“I—” Brack began. But then there was a sound of sudden movement in the hall, and a heavy voice said something angrily. And then Major Buddie was in the room, moving very fast for a short, stocky man, and throwing off the hands of a detective with a violence unexpected in a man in his fifties. And Major Buddie knew where he was going.

He told Brack what Brack was as he went toward Brack, and the last few feet he covered in a jump. His fist found Brack's face before Mullins, coming up violently from behind the small table and sending it cracking to the floor, could reach him. There was a lot of weight in the little man, and a lot of violence. Brack was half a foot taller, and a good many pounds heavier and a good many years younger. But he staggered.

He staggered and then he was cold and deadly as he came back. His hand reached the major once and the major went back off his feet and brought up against a chair. Then the major came back and his hand was reaching for a pocket and he was telling Brack what he was in a voice Pam had never heard before from anybody. And then, caught in midair, Major Buddie stopped. Weigand had him from behind; his longer arms pinned the major's to his sides.

And at the same time, Mullins had Brack. But Mullins had him with a small, heavy blackjack and was lowering him into a chair. Brack wasn't out, but he looked dazed for a moment. The hard eyes filmed. Then they cleared and he stared at Mullins. Then he said a few words to Mullins, and the voice was still without inflection.

“Yeah?” Mullins said. “Try it, mug. Any time.”

Major Buddie quit struggling. He made no objection when Weigand took from his pocket the automatic he had been reaching for. Weigand let him go.

“All right,” the major said to Weigand. He stared across at Brack.

“I'd like to kill you, Brack,” he said. “You lousy, small-time crook!”

Brack answered unexpectedly.

“You've got it wrong, Major,” he said. “I didn't see her. I was stalling the copper here. Thought maybe it would be useful if I had seen her.” He stared at the major. “What the hell,” he said. “She's jail bait anyway, the little bitch. I'll stay bought, Major.” The last was still without inflection. But there seemed to be irony in it.

The major looked puzzled, and the anger faded a little from his choleric face.

“She went to meet you,” he said. “I saw her.”

“Could be,” Brack said. “But I wasn't there. What the hell? You paid off. You didn't see us together, did you?”

The major shook his head.

“No,” he admitted. “I—”

“Right,” Weigand said. “Take him out, Mullins. And have the boys hold on to him.” He looked across at Brack. “Assault, Brack,” he said. “We saw you jump the major.”

Brack said one word. It made Pam jump.

“Without provocation,” she said. “We all saw it.”

Brack stood up.

“It won't stick,” he said. “You know that, copper.”

Weigand said he didn't know. Maybe it would stick.

“If we need it,” he said, easily. “We'll just keep it in mind for a while. And keep you around. Maybe we'll want to ask you some more questions, after we talk to the major here.”

He nodded to Mullins. Mullins took Brack out. He did not touch him. He merely stayed very close to him, with one hand in a pocket. Brack went without looking back.

7

W
EDNESDAY

10:55
A.M. TO
12:45
P.M.

Weigand told the major to sit down. Weigand sat too. He still held the major's automatic, and now he turned it in his hands, abstractedly.

“Well, Major?” he said, after a moment.

The major looked at him. The major was not so confident as usual; he looked, on the whole, embarrassed.

“Made a damn fool of myself, eh?” he said, after a moment. “Spilled the beans.”

“Yes,” Weigand said. “Although it's understandable, I suppose—under the circumstances. How long have you known about Brack and your daughter, Major?”

The major moved his thick body in what might have been a shrug. He stared commandingly at the lieutenant, who did not wilt.

“This is all damned nonsense,” the major said. He said it a little hopefully. The expression on Lieutenant Weigand's face apparently did not sustain the hope. “Nothing to do with all this,” the major said, decisively. Weigand nodded.

“That's quite possible,” he said. “It is also something about which the police will have to make up their own minds. If it doesn't mean anything, in the end, we'll forget it. But it's something that's come up. So—”

The last syllable was final, demanding.

“All right,” said Major Buddie. “Months—three or four months. But the girl don't know it.”

So, Weigand said, he had gathered. So—?

“Tried to stop it,” Major Buddie said. “Naturally. Can't have Clem going around with a fellow like Brack, can I?”

“Right,” Weigand said. “I wouldn't. In your place.”

But he hadn't, the major explained, gone directly to Clem herself. He didn't know whether Weigand would understand. “Know these young people, do you?” he demanded. “Who does?” Weigand answered him. The major approved. The point was, he said, that anything he said to Clem would make her more difficult than ever. Stupid old parent interfering. “That sort of thing.” So he went, instead, to Brack.

“After I'd tried other things,” he admitted. “Tried to interest her in some young officers at the post. Fine young fellows, as the young ones go. In uniform, too.”

That should, the major's tone implied, have decided it. But Clem was incomprehensibly immune to fine young fellows, even in uniform. The major had tried sending her away—South. She had come back. And when these things failed, he had gone to Brack.

“Nasty customer,” he said. “Didn't want to listen; couldn't talk to him, y'know. So it came to money.”

Brack had listened when it came to money. The major had—and in his own mind Weigand echoed it—a shrewd suspicion that the affair was of no real importance to Brack. Brack could, the major intimated, take Clem Buddie or leave her alone. In spite of everything, this thought clearly infuriated the major.

“Damned guttersnipe,” the major commented. Weigand nodded. Brack was all of that.

So, with Brack only casually concerned, the money tipped the scale. Brack promised to avoid the girl.

“Just a flirtation, anyway,” the major interjected, and his voice seemed to seek reassurance. “Nothing in it—really. Eh?”

“Possibly,” Weigand said. The major looked at him.

“You don't think so, eh?” the major demanded.

“If you will have it,” Weigand said, “no. But I don't know. I'm only telling you what I think. It wouldn't—well, necessarily make any difference to Brack's attitude. He wouldn't feel—obligated. Not particularly.”

“He's a swine,” the major said. “A——swine.” Then the major noticed that Pam was still there. He got very red.

“Sorry, Pam,” he said. “Not responsible, eh?”

“But he is,” Pam reassured him. “He's worse than anything you can say about him. It's—it's what he
is
I mind.”

Weigand broke in. He said there was no use, now, trying to make up their minds precisely what sort of object Brack was. There were other matters. For example—

“How much money?” Weigand said.

The major hesitated.

“A lot,” he said. “For me.”

“How much?” Weigand was insistent.

“All right,” the major said. “Five thousand. We had—we had a damn auction. Better have shot him and had done with it. Might have known he wouldn't stay bought. Nothing to do with men like that but shoot them. Eh?”

Weigand said he could see the temptation.' But he could not, obviously, approve the major's suggested cure. And, in any case, what reason had the major to believe that Brack had not stayed bought?

“How long ago did you give him the money?” Weigand added.

“Three days or so,” the major said. “Wait a minute. Last Saturday night.”

“And he's been seeing your daughter since?”

“Well,” the major said, “where else did she go?”

That, Weigand said, brought them to the next point. Suppose, in view of new events, the major revised his story about the night before. The major looked a little surprised.

“You weren't in your room around midnight, or a little after,” Weigand told him. “We know that. Neither was your daughter Clementine. Presumably that's what you meant when you wondered where else she would go than to Brack. Now—let's start with that.”

The major tried the quelling stare on Weigand again. Weigand smiled faintly and shook his head.

“Let's have the story, Major,” he said.

The major gave the story. It began, so far as he was concerned, with his going up stairs to his room after visiting Pamela and the cats. He had not, as he had insisted earlier, gone at once to bed. “Wasn't sleepy,” he said. “Damn coffee at dinner.” He had read for a time, but he had been worrying about Clem. He had been suspicious when she had been delayed the night before by a reported meeting with some girl. Judy's effort to explain had not, it appeared, fooled her father. His voice softened when he spoke of Judy. “Good girl, she is,” he reported. “Tries to help everybody.”

It was a little after 11 o'clock when he heard someone going downstairs past his door. It could only be one of the girls, or Perkins. It hadn't sounded like Perkins. On an impulse, prompted evidently by his uneasiness about his younger daughter, he had gone to a window of his bedroom—a window facing the street. Because the house was set back from the sidewalk, he could easily see anyone who left the house as the person leaving reached, the walk. And he had seen Clem.

She came down the steps leading from the house, hesitated a moment on the sidewalk, and turned west toward Fifth Avenue. The major, watching, decided instantly that she was going to see Brack—that the five thousand had been thrown away, serving no purpose. It was clear, even through his clipped description, that many emotions had taken hold on the major—fear for his daughter's safety and her future, rage at Brack for leading her on, the normal fury of a self-confident man who finds himself cheated. He had decided to go after Clem and find her with Brack and—

“You had this with you?” Weigand inquired, shifting the automatic in his hands. The major looked at him.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“Right,” Weigand said. “I thought you had. And I gather you didn't find them?”

The major hadn't. He had been in uniform and realized he must change. Changing took time, finding his coat and hat in the hall closet downstairs took other moments. Getting to the corner of Fifth Avenue, he had found no sign of Clem.

But he knew the place Brack frequented—an odd, dark place, half old-fashioned saloon, half night-club, altogether sinister, beyond Eighth Avenue in one of the Forties. On the chance, he had gone there and, after a drink at the bar, he had asked for Brack, not seeing him. There was a stairway in the rear of the barroom, leading up to what were evidently other rooms of the “club,” and he had started for them. But “a couple of thugs” had barred his way, unobtrusively but finally. The major, saving his temper for Brack, had pretended to be looking for the men's room. After that he had waited around for perhaps a quarter of an hour and left.