The Norths Meet Murder (27 page)

But Mr. North, from across the room, merely smiled back at her, and Mrs. North could see that he did not realize she was calling to him frantically.

21

S
UNDAY

9:25
P.M.
TO
11
P.M.

Mrs. North's lips ached with the smile, and her jaws ached with their pressure against food gone tasteless. And still, not knowing what else to do, she moved mechanically through the actions of a hostess; she caught Kumi's eye and indicated the empty plates; she rose, as in a nightmare, and poured coffee. She wanted to scream the name, and she wanted to run. She wanted to get Jerry by the hand and run to a quiet place where they could talk. She wanted Lieutenant Weigand to come, so that she could tell him what she knew and then get away until it was over. Desperately, she waited for the bell which would announce that Weigand had come, but the bell was silent. She set her mind hard and did not look at anybody who mattered, because her face might give her away; she looked stabbingly at the back of Mr. North's head, turned toward her as he talked, and the back of his head was impervious to her thrusting demands. Later, she knew that it would have been better if she screamed, better if she did almost anything but what she did.…

Empty cups were beside most of the guests, now, and there was that pause which comes in parties when one thing is ended and before the next begins. Anxiously, Mrs. North sought the words to break it; only in the party, in its warm segregation and unreality, was there safety. But before she could speak, she heard Mr. North speak.

“Why, yes,” Mr. North said, “if you want to. But there's nothing to see and it—”

He was speaking, she saw, to Loretta Klingman, who was nodding eagerly.

Her voice was quick and eager in the comparative silence.

“But I
want
to see it,” she said. “I
want
to. I love murderers—but I
love
them. If we can't, I'll
never
forgive you.”

She turned swiftly to face the others.

“Listen, everybody,” she said. “I want to see the place—oh.”

She had realized, Mrs. North saw, that the audience she was addressing with such enthusiasm included the widow of the central figure in this so exciting and delightful murder. Mrs. North felt everything grow still inside her, and heard a small voice which no one else could hear crying “No! no!” And yet everything outside was suddenly clear and sharp; across the room she could see the symptoms of withdrawal and distaste which always appeared in Mr. North when he was discomfited, and at a loss.

But Mrs. Brent was smiling, in a rather fixed fashion, and saying words.

“But of course,” Claire Brent was saying. “Why shouldn't you?” She picked a tiny glass of cognac from the mantel near her, and drank it quickly. “Why shouldn't we all,” she said. “Sightseers. On your left, ladies and gentlemen, is the bathtub in which—” Her voice, Mrs. North realized, was close to hysteria. But before anybody could stop her she was at the door. “Come on,” Claire Brent called, her voice high. “Come on, everybody!” She cupped one hand to her lips, and there was a high-pitched brittleness in her voice which Weigand would have recognized. Only Weigand wasn't there.

Mrs. Brent flung the door open, and the click of the released lock was loud in the room. There was a nervous uneasiness in the party, and a hesitancy. “In a moment somebody will scream,” Mrs. North thought. Then she heard her husband's voice, desperately—but only she could hear the desperation—calm and matter of fact.

“Why, yes,” he said. “Why not? There's nothing there, of course. Only empty rooms. But why not?”

There was a stir in the room; a kind of settling.

“We'll need candles,” Mr. North said, moving to the mantel and picking lighted candles from the girandoles. He looked at Mrs. North, and she could tell that he read in her face something more than the general uneasiness. He nodded, almost imperceptibly. “Candles, Pam,” he said. “We're going exploring.” Mrs. North took a candle in its silver stick from the table.

And so, the Norths and some of the others with candles, they went exploring. It was confusing, crowded in the narrow stair hall, and Mrs. North had a vague impression that some did not go; some shrugged and turned back to drinks; some stood for a moment undecided, and there was a movement of two or three toward the front room, which could only be for hats and coats. There went the party, Mrs. North thought, in an odd, and entirely unexpected, return to hostess-ship. The explorers went up and along the third-floor hall and up to the door of the fourth-floor apartment, which was closed. Mr. North, leading, pressed against it and it opened. It was dark in the apartment, except where light came faintly in through the street windows, and the candles illuminated it flickeringly. Dark and, Mrs. North realized with a flooding relief, matter-of-fact.

Perhaps it was merely that there was, after all, nothing to see; perhaps it was that there were so many there to see it, that the basic artificiality of this mass search for the bizarre and exciting trampled excitement into powder. At any rate, once there, the party found very little to do about it.

There were a few gasps, which sounded a little theatrical, and several candles were poked into the bathroom, which was merely an empty, and immaculate, bathroom. A few wandered into the front living-room, and a few more looked out of the rear windows and down the fire-escape toward the dark yard. And nowhere was there anything to see. Interest and excitement seeped out, and there was the scuffling uncertainty of people who realized, all at once, that they are engaged in an escapade which has gone silly on them.

“Well,” Mr. North said, in the flickering darkness. “This is it. I told you there would be nothing.”

He moved toward the door.

“Everybody had enough?” he said. “If so, we may as well go down before we set something on fire.”

He went out and started down, and the others followed him. Seeing his calm, and feeling the calm of the others, Mrs. North regained her own. She even spoke, assuring those nearest her that that was all there was; that she would hold the light until they were out and close the door behind them. Her previous excitement seemed, all at once, absurd. After all, she had only to wait for Lieutenant Weigand and tell him what she knew, and then the rest could be carried out quietly and in order, probably tomorrow. Now she ought to go down and save the party, if it could be saved.

“Although it was a fool thing to give,” Mrs. North told herself, with her new-found clarity.

The rest filed out in front of her, and the stairs were confused in the half-light with people going down. She had her hand on the door to leave and close it after her, and her finger pressed the button which would set the snap-lock and end any chance for more thrill-seeking. But then something brushed against her feet, and moved softly on, and in the light from her candle and a few feet away toward the front of the apartment, two shining spots appeared.

“Pete!” said Mrs. North, to the two shining eyes of the cat which had passed her and turned to look back. “Come here, Pete!”

There was a soft, pleased cat sound from the darkness, and the eyes disappeared. There was the faint thud of a departing cat on bare boards, and the faint scratch of cat claws going away.

“Miaow,” said Pete, interestedly, pleased by the new game.

“Pete!” said Mrs. North, sharply. The sound of retreat stopped and the eyes reappeared. Pete gave the small, excited cry of a cat which enjoys being chased, and departed toward the front of the house. Mrs. North commented to herself on the ways of cats, and followed, leaving the door ajar behind her. As she moved, the thud of retreat became a scamper, punctuated by tiny, excited cries. Pete disappeared into the large living-room, where there was plenty of space to run. Mrs. North, leaving another door ajar behind her, went after him. Inside the living-room door, she set her candlestick on the floor and watched for eyes. They were in the corner and she advanced cautiously. She could almost reach him when they vanished, and a black blur departed for another corner. Pete was having a lovely time.

But Mrs. North, also, knew a trick. Instead of following, she stooped down and became deeply interested in a spot of bare floor. Gently she scratched on the floor with her nails, and then she squatted and examined the floor even more intently. The eyes reflecting the candlelight moved a little. Mrs. North continued to scratch gently on the floor. A soft black blur came curiously forward, passed out of arm's-reach, hesitated and came on; suddenly was gathered up, struggling angrily for a moment, purring as fingers found the right place behind a furry ear. Pete held gently to Mrs. North's shoulder and looked over it as she started back toward the hall.

And then, from very close, Mrs. North heard the firm snap of a closing door. It was a little sound, but it snapped against her nerves and drew them taut. Feeling the difference in her body, Pete wriggled for a moment and, unconsciously, she let him drop to the floor. He did not run, but crouched against her ankles, and growled softly. Mrs. North found that terror made her cold and curiously ready. The candle a few feet away, on the floor—she must get the candle.

Then, beyond the candle, there was a dark shadow, and a foot came out, sharply, toward the little light. The candle went over and went out, and in a moment there was the penetrating scent of an extinguished wick, smoldering. The shadow came on into the half light of the front room, and boards creaked under weight. The light from the street shone faintly on the face Mrs. North, desperately, had known she would see. She made a little, gasping cry.

“So,” said the voice, “I thought you did. You should learn not to show what you think, Mrs. North. You should have learned. When you could.”

The voice was calm, unexcited, almost expressionless. That made it more terrible. There was not even anger in the voice; in the words there was only a change of tense. “Should learn”—“should have learned.” It was a horrible difference to Mrs. North, backing slowly from the voice, with the black cat growling softly at her feet.

“But you can't—you can't!” she said, and her voice was low, too, and almost steady. “Everybody will know, this time—they're all around you.”

“No,” said the voice. “It is all very confused down there. Nobody knows where anybody is. And I've left, you see. I took my hat and coat after you came up here and left. There were several who saw me leave. And this will not be noisy. You can't scream, you see.”

But she could scream; blindingly it came over Mrs. North that she could scream, and the people would run; that she should have screamed—that she had forgotten—

She backed away and a scream formed in her throat. Then there was sudden movement, and a hand was hardly, bruisingly over her mouth. Another hand was at her throat. She could scream—her hands went up, frantically, to the other hands—she could scream—

“Jerry!!” she screamed. “Jerry!”

But the scream died against the palm of the pressing hand, choked in the constricted throat.

“No,” said the voice. “You can't scream. People die quite quietly. I know that, you see. I know—”

But they did not, Mrs. North knew. Now there was a beating sound in her ears; a rising, roaring sound, drowning the voice—drowning—they would hear it and come—they would—

Lieutenant Weigand walked along briskly, with the air of a man who knows where he is going. It would be simple, now; now that he had his hunch. A good deal was still obscure; he would have to recast some things, and look further. He would have to prove some things, too, but that would be easy, now that they knew what to look for. They could fill in after the arrest. He planned the arrest—a tap on a shoulder, a request for a moment's time, the formal words. It would be well, however, to have Mullins on hand in case of trouble. It was lucky he had told Mullins to wait for him outside so they could go in together. They could get it over with and hardly disturb Mrs. North's party.

Weigand smiled as he thought of the party, now so unnecessary. He wondered what he would have got out of it by questioning them all together, and what questions, half an hour before, he would have thought to ask. Weigand rounded the corner and neared the Buano house, looking in the light from the street lamps for Mullins. There was no Mullins, and Weigand made a remark or two to himself. Then he looked at his watch and withdrew the remarks. He had said about ten-thirty, and it was less than that by several minutes. He could go in, or he could wait. There was, he decided, no hurry. He lighted a cigarette and leaned against a railing across from the Buano house. Looking up, he could see lights in the windows of the North apartment; looking higher he was startled to see faint light in the top-floor apartment.

“What the—” he said. Then he guessed that some of them must have gone up to look at the scene of the crime. He smiled, amusedly. Well, they would do no harm—nor get much satisfaction; and down the street he saw a dark figure. The figure passed under a light, and he saw it was Mullins.

Weigand whistled softly and Mullins came across.

“O.K., Loot?” Mullins said.

“Right,” said Weigand, enjoying it, and drawing deeply on his cigarette. “Right. It's broke.”

Mullins said “Yeh?” in a delighted tone. Weigand drew again on his cigarette and tossed it away, almost reluctantly. They might as well finish it.

“Come along,” he said.

Mr. North stood at the door of the apartment and greeted the detectives. He looked sharply at Weigand's face for a moment, and then he smiled slowly. Weigand realized that his face told the story.

“So?” Mr. North said. “So—you've got it?”

There was curiosity in his voice, and Weigand was pleased by it.

“I think so,” he said. “Yes, I think so. I'm going to make a pinch, anyway. If—?” He paused. Perhaps the Norths would prefer that it finish somewhere else, and now that made no difference to him. “Is your wife around?” he said. “She ought to be in on it.”