Killing the Goose (34 page)
Authors: Frances and Richard Lockridge
She was not afraid, except for Jerry. She forgot to be afraid. But it took her a moment to find the tumbler switch inside the door of Jerry's office. And then she screamed, because Jerry North was on his hands and knees on the floor and was shaking his head in a puzzled fashion. She ran to him, but by then he was getting up and she stopped. There was a bruise on his forehead and in the center of it a thin line of blood where the skin was broken.
“Jerry!” she said. “
Darling!
Oh darling! Are youâ”
She stopped, because, although his face was puzzled and not quite all together, Jerry was grinning at her.
“No, Pam,” he said, “I'm not all right, as you see. But I'm all right. I just bumped my head.”
“Somebody hit you!” Pam said. Her voice was high and tense.
Jerry started to shake his head and then stopped shaking it and put a hand to it. He saw blood on his hand and began to dab at the blood with a handkerchief.
“I fell into the desk,” he said. “Nobody hit me. But somebody pushed me. From behind, hard. Just as I was reaching for the light switch. Itâit caught me off balance. And so I fell into the desk. Itâit dazed me for a minute. But I'm all right.”
“Darling!” Pam said. “And I got you into it. You didn't want to come. I made you.”
Jerry said it was all right.
“Come on,” Pam said. “We'll go right home. We'll get a doctor. We'llâ”
But Jerry, a little unsteadily, was opening a drawer in his desk. He brought out a handful of typewritten sheets.
“Miss Gipson's notes,” he said. “On the four cases she'd finished. My copies. So they weren'tâ”
He stopped, because Pam did not seem to be listening to him.
“Jerry!” Pam said. “There's perfume in here. There was in Miss Gipson's office, too, but I was too excited to realize it. The same perfume.”
Jerry tested the air. He nodded.
“Not mine,” Pam said. “Not what I'm wearing now, as it wasn't before. That Fleur de Something or Other. The same as was in her apartment. The murderer's perfume.”
Jerry did not say, this time, that she was jumping. He said he thought they ought to get out of there. They went out, leaving the lights burning behind them. It was Pam who rang the elevator bell, and kept on ringing it until the building guard brought the elevator up and glowered at them. This time he spoke, but not until they were at the ground floor.
“People could use the stairs,” he said then. “Coming down, anyway. Other people do.”
“Who does?” Pam said, quickly.
“Whoever just went out, of course,” he said. “Who did you think?”
“But who was it?” Pam said.
He shook his head at that.
“I just heard them,” he said. “I didn't see nobody. Just steps woke me up, but they were gone before I looked.”
*
Pamela North attempted to smell out a murderer in
Payoff for the Banker
. She was widely misunderstood.
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About the Authors
Frances and Richard Lockridge were some of the most popular names in mystery during the forties and fifties. Having written numerous novels and stories, the husband-and-wife team was most famous for their Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries. What started in 1936 as a series of stories written for the
New Yorker
turned into twenty-six novels, including adaptions for Broadway, film, television, and radio. The Lockridges continued writing together until Frances's death in 1963, after which Richard discontinued the Mr. and Mrs. North series and wrote other works until his own death in 1982.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1958 by Frances and Richard Lockridge
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3119-6
This edition published in 2016 by
MysteriousPress.com
/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
THE MR. AND MRS. NORTH MYSTERIES
FROM
MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
AND OPEN ROAD MEDIA
