Killing the Goose (8 page)

“If he can prove that, the kid's all right,” Bill said, from the doorway. He went on. “If she got the apple after he left, she was alive after he left. And he didn't go back. There wasn't time between his leaving and his clocking in where he worked. But he can't prove she got the apple after he left.”

“Well,” Pam said, “I think she did. Because otherwise the apple doesn't mean anything. And it does, because it's an oddity and oddities always do.” She paused, considering. “At least,” she said, “they always have before.”

“Which doesn't—” Jerry began.

“I know, Jerry,” Pam said. “That's all very well to say. Like there being no proof that when you put a kettle of water on a stove the water will boil, because maybe it has always been an accident and maybe this time the accident won't happen. But that doesn't mean anything.” Pam paused again. “That's
philosophy,
” she said, with a certain inflection. The inflection left philosophy with little to stand on.

“I wish, Pam,” Bill said, “that you'd quit worrying about the apple so much. If you want to worry, help us worry about Elliot.”

Pam said there was no use worrying about Elliot until they caught him. She said you couldn't worry about things you knew as little about as you did about John Elliot. At least, she couldn't. Whereas the apple—

“This girl who saw the boy leave,” she said. “This—what was her name?”

“Harper,” Mullins said. “Cleo.” His face assumed an expression of doubt. “That's what she said,” he insisted. “Cleo.”

“Cleo Harper,” Mrs. North said. “What did she have to eat?”

“My God, Pam,” Bill said. “What do you think we are?”

He looked at Dorian, but instead of smiling, she was looking thoughtfully at nothing. Then she looked at him and shook her head.

“Suppose,” she said, “she had a baked apple. Wouldn't that make a difference?”

Bill looked at her and then at Pam North. They had something there.

“Right,” he said. “It would. Or it might. We'll go into it, eventually. But meanwhile, I've—”

He did not finish because Detective Stein came in, looking as if he were in a hurry. He spoke as if he were in a hurry.

“The commissioner!” he said. “On the telephone, Lieutenant. The commissioner
himself!
”

Weigand also moved quickly. He guessed that the telephone on a table near the door was an extension of the one Stein had answered. He lifted the telephone from its cradle and said, “Lieutenant Weigand, sir.” The commissioner answered and, as he listened, Weigand motioned to Stein. He motioned toward the hall, where another telephone was and then pointed down toward the floor. Stein nodded, hung up the telephone in the hall, came back and opened the door which opened on stairs to the kitchen floor. He went down. He would stop Mrs. Pennock if she grew too curious.

“Yes, sir,” Weigand said. “That is, we did have.”

The police commissioner's voice was soft, almost tired.

“I don't get that, Lieutenant,” he said. “You did have a man named John Elliot? And now you haven't?”

This wasn't good. But Weigand told him. “I was careless,” Weigand told the police commissioner. That wasn't good either.

“Well,” the commissioner said, “you'll have to get him back, Lieutenant. But probably you'll have to let him go again when you do. Dan Beck called up just now.”

“Yes, sir?” Weigand said. “The commentator?”

The police commissioner said he was afraid Beck was more than that. His voice sounded very tired. He suggested that the lieutenant had better look Beck up, some time. However—

“Just now,” the commissioner said, “you'd better go and talk to him, Lieutenant. He says Elliot couldn't have done it. He says he can alibi Elliot completely. He wants to talk to somebody.” The commissioner sighed. “He wanted to talk to me,” he said. “I suggested you.”

“Yes, sir,” Weigand said.

“He's important,” the commissioner said. “I'm afraid he is quite important. So you'd better go up and listen to him. And then look him up.”

“Yes, sir,” Bill Weigand said.

“And,” the commissioner said, “come in tomorrow and tell me about it, Lieutenant. He's quite an interesting man.” The commissioner sighed again. “He's—” he said. “Good night, Lieutenant.”

Bill Weigand replaced the telephone and stood staring at it. If he knew the commissioner, he was supposed to read more in that than the words told. He would have to count the sighs and the pauses. He would have to look Dan Beck up very thoroughly. He would have to know why Dan Beck made the commissioner, who was uncommonly alert and had been a policeman all his life, so very tired. He would have to decide for himself how softly he would tread. The commissioner liked detective lieutenants to be perceptive.

He was abstracted as he turned back to the others and when they waited expectantly he shook his head and his eyes warned Dorian.

“I've got to see a man,” he said.

He let it lie there.

“Oh,” Pam said. “Like that?”

“Just like that,” Weigand told her. “So suppose all of you go home.” He smiled. “Or calling,” he added. This last was permissive. Since, he suspected, they would anyway. Or Pam would, and the others with her.

“Take Mullins if you go calling,” he said.

The Hotel André rose high above Park Avenue and when you went as high as you could in the Hotel André you found Dan Beck. An elevator reserved for those fortunates who deserved suites in The Wing rose reverently with Bill Weigand, who was permitted to call on one of those so elected. The elevator left Weigand standing to his shoetops in carpet and descended with discretion. It was as if the elevator had backed out of the presence. A wide door faced the lieutenant; a single, perfect door. Weigand pressed a white button near it and chimes played within. He had an instant's feeling that they should play “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”

But the woman in black who answered the door was motherly. Weigand did not know what he had expected, but it was not this. She was not tall and she was comfortably round; she had white hair which looked as if it deserved a bonnet. Her face was round and pink and a little wrinkled; she had blue eyes and was guileless. It was an odd place to find her; here and not comfortably rocking on a front porch, behind the green lawn and—yes, certainly—rambler roses. If Weigand, or another, came armed, he should be disarmed at this gently guarded threshold.

“Mr. Beck?” Bill said, and was surprised at the gentleness in his voice.

“Yes,” she said. “Please. Is it Lieutenant Weigand?”

Bill admitted it was.

“Mr. Beck is expecting you,” she said. “Please.”

The “Please” meant to enter. Bill Weigand entered. The foyer was as large as a waiting room. Apparently, as the woman—“the lady,” Weigand corrected himself—murmurously brushed him toward a chair, it was a waiting room.

“If you will wait a moment,” she said, smiling at him. She did not smile anxiously. She smiled hopefully. It would, her attitude conveyed, be pleasant if Mr. Weigand, visiting simple people from a world of great affairs, would consent to feel momentarily at home. Bill Weigand smiled back at her and sat.

“I'll tell Mr. Beck that you are here, sir,” she said.

The sir was anomalous. She should, Weigand thought, have called him “William.” At the least. Or possibly “son.”

She went through a door at the right. There was a pause. Then a man appeared through the door at the left. He was not Beck; he was evidently a butler.

He was about the age of the woman. He was taller. Very pink scalp showed through the very white, not very thick, hair which marked the upper limit of a pink and comfortable face. His voice was respectful without unction. It said that if Lieutenant Weigand would come this way, Mr. Beck would see him. He trusted that Lieutenant Weigand had not been kept waiting unduly.

“I was attending Mr. Beck when you rang, sir,” the butler said. “That was why Mary admitted you. Mary is the housekeeper, sir.”

It was, apparently, merely friendly explanation. Or perhaps dignified apology at a tiny irregularity in procedure.

“My wife, sir,” the butler presently added, “the housekeeper for Mr. Beck.”

That, Bill decided, made it perfect. A charming and devoted couple, devotedly in attendance on the adored master. Weigand said, for no particular reason, “certainly,” and got up. He followed the butler through the door on the left. It opened on a hall, wide and deeply carpeted. It ended in a wide room. Almost all the side of the room which you faced on entering was of windows and beyond the windows lay the city, misty in falling snow, dim in its shrouded lights. At the doorway the butler paused and made a small sound of being present—something which might have been a cough, if it had not been a murmur.

“Mr. Beck, sir,” the butler said, with this preliminary accomplished. “Lieutenant Weigand to see you, sir.”

The man standing in front of the windows, looking out, was short and square. He turned. He had a large, handsome face. He was short, Weigand noticed, in the noticing way of a man trained to remember, because his legs were short. His torso was substantial and imposing. Seated, as at a speaker's table, Mr. Dan Beck would loom as magnificently as any. Unseated he was, it was evident, a little at a disadvantage.

The voice of Mr. Beck betrayed no recognition of disadvantage. As he heard it, Bill realized that, in its presence, no disadvantage could exist. It was an amazing voice; it was a voice you could hardly believe in. It was, Bill Weigand knew, the most beautiful voice he had ever heard or was apt to hear. It was low without harshness; it left an odd vibration in the air. As soon as it was silenced you wanted it to begin again. There was a sensuous pleasure in hearing it. For the sake of hearing it, Weigand thought, you would be tempted to believe anything it said. It would be hard to believe that anything borne on so beautiful a voice could be anything but beautiful and true.

“Good evening, Lieutenant,” Dan Beck said. “I am sorry to have had to bother you.”

There was, of course, that—nothing anyone would commonly have to say would be worthy so majestic an utterance. It would risk sounding a nursery rhyme set to organ music.

“I am sorry to have had to bother you,” Dan Beck repeated. “May I make amends by offering you a drink?”

Weigand expected to decline, which was normal procedure. He was surprised to hear himself assenting. His assent was a tribute to atmosphere. Of unlimited riches indicated by a smooth gesture of Beck's right hand, Weigand chose scotch. The butler bent over the table. He returned with scotch generously in a glass, with ice in a silver bucket, with soda in a small bottle. When Weigand nodded, he dropped ice on the scotch and poured soda bubbling over it.

“Thank you, William,” Dan Beck said, almost tenderly. “And my milk, please.”

He smiled after William as the butler turned away. It was a friendly smile. He transferred it to Bill Weigand.

“But,” he said, “we mustn't keep you standing, Lieutenant. Unless you care to look at my view for a moment. It is—a very fine view.”

His voice held deprecation of the inadequate adjective.

“It is,” Weigand said. “Very fine.”

He carried his glass across to the windows. Beck stood beside him and the two looked out for a moment without words.

“It is a beautiful city,” Beck said. “In all weathers, in all lights. A miraculous city.”

Weigand nodded. He found, oddly, that he did not relish the necessity of using his own voice. In the inevitable comparison to Beck's, it must inevitably be inappropriate. He took the low chair Beck indicated.

“Miraculous,” Beck said, taking a last look. “But distracting. William, will you pull the curtains when you've brought my milk?”

William brought the milk. Dan Beck regarded it, in its slender goblet, while William drew heavy curtains across the windows. His pleasant nod dismissed William and William withdrew, with dignity.

“To this I am doomed, I'm afraid,” Beck said, indicating the milk. He did not explain. He sipped milk and Weigand sipped scotch, waiting. It had now become time for explanation. Beck began it simply.

“I spoke to the commissioner,” Dan Beck said. “A very able, intelligent man. Don't you think, Lieutenant.”

“Very,” Weigand agreed. He waited. Beck outwaited him. “You have something to tell us about a man named Elliot?” Weigand said. “Right?”

“John,” Beck said. “John Elliot. I didn't want you to waste time on him, Lieutenant. He could not have killed Miss Lawrence.”

“No?” Weigand said. “I thought he could. He ran away.”

Beck said he knew about that. It was very foolish.

“He is excitable,” Beck said, his voice hanging softly in the room. “He is a very young man, Lieutenant.”

“Is he?” Weigand said.

“For his years,” Dan Beck amplified. “For his years, Lieutenant. He is sensitive—perhaps immature, in a sense. And he was very disturbed, which was natural. You will admit that?”

“Right,” Weigand said. “He was disturbed. He slugged a policeman and got away. He was evidently disturbed.” Weigand found himself smiling slightly at Dan Beck as he spoke.

Beck made small, disapproving sounds. They deprecated John Elliot's youthful, but understandable, exuberance; his evident bad judgment in striking a policeman.

“Impulsive,” Beck said. “Impulsive—and foolish. I don't defend him, Lieutenant. He should have been more trusting. He should have realized he was in no danger, so long as he was innocent. And he is innocent, Lieutenant. I assure you.”

“I hope so,” Weigand said. “Why is he innocent?”

“Because he wasn't there,” Beck said. “Rather—because she was alive after he was there. There is no argument about that, Lieutenant.”