Murder within Murder (6 page)

“The trouble with you, Weigand,” O'Malley said at 2:35 that morning, just after the Norths had called and just as he was going home to bed—“the trouble with you, Weigand, is that you let the Norths ball things up. Here you've got a nice simple suicide and you let the Norths ball you up. Snafu!”

The word
snafu
had come late into Inspector O'Malley's life. He liked it, although sometimes Weigand wondered whether he exactly understood it. It had come to mean anything unduly complicated; anything out of the classic tradition of police work. “Round 'em up and make 'em talk's what I always say,” O'Malley always did say. Bill Weigand could only think that in O'Malley's more active days crime had had a pleasing simplicity which now it lacked. He sighed again and dropped the container which had held coffee—perhaps—into a waste-basket. He drummed lightly with the fingers of his right hand on the desk top.

One hundred and thirty-three men and women, boys and girls, to be interviewed, to see whether they knew anything; had seen anything. Say a dozen of them had given false addresses; in New York it was safe, he thought, that twelve out of a hundred and thirty-three would give false names and addresses for reasons of their own—reasons absurd and serious, obvious and obscure and having, the chances went a hundred to one, no connection whatever with the demise of Miss Amelia Gipson, fifty-two years old, lately of Ward College, more lately of North Books, Inc., having a niece who did not care for her and a friend who was frightened, and no need to take a forty-dollar-a-week job for which she had no special training and probably no consuming interest.

One hundred and thirty-three of all ages and both sexes, a dozen of whom would be troublesome to find and must, even more than the rest, be found. Because it was never certain that their desire for anonymity had not grown out of the murder of Miss Amelia Gipson. Such a search for privacy, if excessive, was not criminal. Still—it was odd; still it needed explanation. The solution of crime almost inevitably involved the clearing of a half-dozen irrelevant mysteries, few of which any longer interested Bill Weigand. Particularly at 7:30 in the morning, after a night of work; particularly when Dorian was out of town and had taken her smile, so curiously refreshing, with her and would not be back for another six full days, plus an entirely uncalled for six hours.

The hundred and thirty-three could be left to the precincts, as could the majority of the attendants on duty when Miss Gipson had been taken ill. That was something; all Weigand and his own people would have to do would be to collate the information, if any was gathered. It would be pleasant if one of the hundred and thirty-three had seen Miss Gipson in the grip of a powerful man with a black beard, one leg and other arresting peculiarities and had seen this spectacular creature pouring poison forcefully into her mouth. Bill Weigand was afraid that so simple a pleasure would be denied him. He thought the attendant, already questioned, who had seen Miss Gipson pass through the catalogue-room into the outer hall and return a little later, and who had deduced that she had gone down the hall to drink from one of the wall fountains, had told them as much as anybody would be apt to about the actual injection of the poison.

But someone, among those who had gathered around Miss Gipson when she suddenly made a terrible sound, which was half scream and half retching, and collapsed sideways over the arm of the chair, might have seen something of significance. One of them might have seen a man—or, if perfume meant anything, a woman—handling Miss Gipson's purse; might even have seen someone take something out of it. That would be very helpful. Unfortunately, only three of those persons had lingered long enough to be interrogated by the patrolman who first reached the scene. Weigand read over the terse reports of their interrogation:

“Roger Burnside, student, of 201A, Grand Concourse, the Bronx, said he was sitting across from deceased and had his attention attracted by a strange sound emanating from her. Describes sound as a low scream. Looked up to see her staring at him. He thinks she tried to speak and could not. He thinks she was writing something. Says she then collapsed across arm of chair in which she was sitting and began to vomit. Went to her assistance but was preceded by several other persons, none of whom he can describe, and found his assistance unnecessary. Remained on the chance it might be.”

“Florence Pettley, housewife: Was looking up recipes in a cookbook when heard strange, dreadful sound behind her and turned around to find elderly woman apparently very ill. Asked to describe illness, said: ‘She seemed to be sick at her stomach.' Went to her and found her moaning and apparently unable to speak; very sick at the stomach. Held deceased's head and tried to talk to her, but doubts if deceased heard or understood.”

“John Gallahady, unemployed, was reading old copies of
The New Yorker
at table on other side of central aisle: Heard retching sound from elderly woman who looked like a teacher in a fresh-water college and saw her begin to throw up. Went to see what he could do to help and decided there was nothing, but remained on chance there might be. Started to leave when he himself became nauseated but was stopped by arrival of police, who asked him to remain, since he had been a witness. Remembers plump housewife—presumably a reference to Mrs. Pettley—fussing about but did not particularly notice anyone else.”

Those were the ones they had. There were then only one hundred and thirty to go. The others probably would be even less helpful. Then, just as he was about to toss the three reports into a basket, he paused. About one of the interviews there had been something that lingered, faintly disturbing, in his memory. He looked at them again.

The last person—John Gallahady—had been a good guesser. Ward College would not like being called “fresh-water.” But it was a small college and not famous. Mr. Gallahady was acute. It might be interesting to know what made him so acute. Weigand rummaged among the papers on his desk and found the typed, alphabetized, list of persons who had signed out for books. He ran a pencil down the
G
's. No Gallahady. No—

“Damn,” Weigand said. “Of course!”

There were only eleven now to be discovered among those who had used false names. One was found. For Gallahady, read Galahad. Caxton, setting up the type for Sir Thomas Malory's “Noble and Joyous Book entytled Le Morte d'Arthur” had once reversed that reading, for Galahad had set Gallahady. Weigand groped to ascertain how he knew this. Then, dimly, he remembered that he had been reading the Noble Tale in a reprint edition on a rainy day in the country during the summer; reading it lacking all other reading. And had seen a footnote and remembered it.

So John Gallahady was Sir Galahad, going to the succor of a distressed gentlewoman, was he? Very fanciful, the unemployed gentleman who had been reading
The New Yorker
in the library and had not quite got away before the police came. A little pedantic in his allusions. Weigand thought it would be interesting to talk to Mr. Gallahady and wished he could. The chances did not seem good; false name probably meant also false address—an address in the West Fifties. Bill Weigand looked at the address, which somehow seemed authentic. A good many unemployed gentlemen lived in those blocks, in small, dusty rooms. There was a chance that Gallahady, having little time to think, had given an authentic address—addresses were harder to think of than names, sometimes, particularly if you did not very well know the city.

Weigand got the West Forty-eighth Street police station on the telephone. The precinct would be glad to send a man around. If they found Gallahady they would bring him in.

“Irish, sounds like,” O'Callahan, on the desk, told Bill Weigand. “Irish, is he?”

“He could be,” Bill said. He smiled slightly to himself. “I've sometimes thought he must have been,” Weigand said. “An extremist, it always seemed to me.”

“Huh?” O'Callahan said.

Weigand told him to skip it. Weigand said he had been talking to himself. He replaced the telephone, looked at it and heard it ring. He took it up and said, “Homicide. Weigand speaking.”

“Hello, Loot,” Mullins said. “Look, Loot. I'm up here at the girl's room. The girl who cleaned up Miss Gipson's room.”

“The room of the girl who cleaned up Miss Gipson's room,” Bill Weigand said. “The pen of my aunt.”

“What?” Mullins said. “I don't get it, Loot.”

“I know where you are,” Bill said. “I told you to go there. What does she say?”

“Nothing,” Mullins said. “She ain't here.”

“Why?” Weigand said. “I thought she wasn't due at the hotel until ten. She's probably out to breakfast.”

“I got here at seven,” Mullins said. “She wasn't here then. She wasn't here last night, from the looks of things. The bed, you know, Loot.”

Weigand said he knew.

“And,” Mullins said, “her clothes ain't here, either. Anyway, not enough clothes. Of course, maybe she didn't have many clothes.”

“Listen,” Bill said. “You mean she's skipped?”

Wasn't that, Mullins said, what he was telling the Loot? It looked like she had skipped.

“Or of course,” Mullins added, in a conversational tone, “somebody could have bumped her off. Naturally.”

“Right,” Weigand said. He looked at his desk, and was displeased by it. Outside it looked like a pleasant morning.

“Hold it,” Weigand told Mullins. “I'm coming up.”

Florence Adams, who had been a maid at the Holborn Annex, had lived in a rooming house a few blocks from Columbia University—lived in a small room which looked unlived in. There was a worn black coat hanging in the tiny, low closet which opened off the room; on the cheap dresser there were traces of powder and in the wastebasket there were several wads of used cleansing tissue. Weigand sniffed at the cleansing tissue, which smelled of cold cream; he sniffed the coat, which smelled of dust. There was nothing in the room which smelled of the Fleur de Something or Other which had been so quietly insistent in Miss Gipson's room. And there was nothing in the room to tell him anything about Florence Adams, or to tell him where she had gone.

There was, Mullins agreed, nothing to suggest that she had met with ill fortune, including the very ill fortune of being bumped off.

“Only,” Mullins said, “people are. We ought to know that, Loot. Particularly when they lend keys to murderers to have copies made. It ain't healthy.” Mullins paused. “Or, of course,” he said, “she could be the one we're looking for. There's always that, too.”

There was, Weigand agreed. Certainly she was one of the ones they were looking for now. His eyes kept searching the room, looking for secrets in it. He knelt and looked under the bed, and saw only dust. He turned back the covers. The sheets had been used for a week, he guessed; perhaps for two weeks. Near the bed there was a shelf which might have contained books and which now contained nothing. As far as he could see, the room—possibly with a change of sheets—was ready for the next tenant who passed that way.

It was odd, he thought suddenly, how easy it was to overlook the obvious. Yesterday's newspaper was not only dead; apparently it was invisible. Or had been invisible. Now it was visible enough, lying on the seat of the straight chair by the dusty window. He picked it up. It was
The Daily News
of that morning, turned open at the second page. There was a very short story there—a paragraph inserted for the record. The top line of the head read: “Poisoned in Library.” The bank amplified: “Middle-aged Woman dies in Reading Room.” The story added little to the headline, except the possibility that the woman may have been an Amelia Gipson, living at the Holborn Annex and that her death apparently was suicide.

A police slip at Headquarters had given them that much to make an edition with—to make it on the outside chance that it might not be suicide, because poison in the public library had the charm of novelty. The story had been written, evidently, before an astute detective, making a routine check of a suspicious death, had come upon the last line which Miss Gipson had written and decided it might be a case for Homicide. Later editions of
The News
had had more. The story had flowered, not only in
The News
but in
The Mirror
. It had made the split page in
The Herald Tribune
and had got a two-column head, below the fold, of course, in
The Times
. It would be doing a great deal better in the afternoons, Weigand thought.

Florence Adams had not waited its flowering. She had seen enough in the edition of
The News
on street sale by midnight to satisfy her curiosity. You could read that much easily; Weigand hoped he read it rightly. Because if he did, Florence Adams knew something—had done something—which led her into flight. It was always helpful when people began to run. It was revealing. And they were almost always caught.

Bill Weigand found a telephone and talked to the Holborn Annex. Florence Adams was not there; she was not due there for better than an hour.

“By the way,” the desk clerk said, “one of your men is here, Lieutenant. Detective O'Connor? He's been talking to one of the other maids—the one on the early trick. Do you want to talk to him?”

Weigand thought he did. He listened to O'Connor, said, “Right,” and hung up.

“O'Connor says the other girl—a woman of about sixty, by the way—says Florence never used any perfume that she could smell,” Weigand told Mullins. “And he got a description of Florence for us.”

Twenty minutes later the description was on the teletype. It went into police stations throughout New York and New Jersey; it went into Connecticut and across into Pennsylvania; it stuttered out of machines in Massachusetts.

“Wanted for questioning,” it said. “Florence Adams; about 24, black hair, sallow complexion; about 115 pounds; five feet three; may have been wearing brown wool two piece dress, beige stockings, black shoes. Sometimes wears glasses with white metal rims. Believed myopic. No coloring on fingernails. Identifiable New York City accent. This woman is wanted for questioning in connection Gipson murder. Please hold.”