The Norths Meet Murder (7 page)

Mrs. Buano agreed that she wouldn't. Not with the October renting season past, although one could never tell. But it might, certainly, have been several weeks, in the ordinary course of things; even a month or two. With the ventilator and everything, and the doors closed.

“He may have counted on that,” Weigand said. “He may have thought, if it was long enough, we couldn't identify. Right? We would have, though.”

Turning from that, he confirmed that Mrs. Buano had admitted no one to the apartment Monday afternoon; as a matter of fact, she was away for a couple of hours in the middle of it. She had heard nothing of the Western Union boy, but that, she added, meant nothing. She might have been away; she might have been in the rear of her own ground floor, where she would have heard nothing in the hall in front. There were, she was certain, no keys to the front door loose in the world. She had a set, and her maid; each tenant had two each. She had the two keys which would have been issued to tenants of the top floor. The Nelsons, on the third floor, might, to be sure, have given their keys to somebody, but she thought it unlikely. They were very particular people. Either of the Norths, and particularly Mrs. North, might easily lose a key, but if either did he would report the loss and she would change the lock. Only a few months before, indeed, Mrs. North had lost a key, and Mrs. Buano had had the lock changed. But since then no keys had been missing; the key lost by Mrs. North the spring before would be useless in the lock now on the door.

That seemed, Weigand agreed, to be that. He thanked Mrs. Buano, hoping he would not have to bother her soon again. She bowed; Weigand bowed. On the sidewalk again, Mullins said that, to him, it was still screwy. He was morose about it.

Weigand thought that, while they were there, they might as well talk to the Norths—to Mrs. North, anyway, assuming Mr. North would be at his office.

Mrs. North was home, and clicked them in. She leaned over the banister and beckoned eagerly. She was excited.

“I was just trying to get you,” she said. “I know who did it!”

“What?” said Weigand.

“The murder,” Mrs. North said. “I know who did it! He left his name!”

“Well,” said Weigand, and then, because no word he could think of seemed adequate, “well …” Then there seemed to be only one next remark.

“Who was it?” Weigand said. “That is, I mean—who was it?”

Mrs. North said that, if he would come in, she would tell him all about it. He went in. Mullins went in behind him.

“Screwy,” Mullins murmured, darkly, just loudly enough for Weigand to hear. “I told you it was screwy.”

“Well,” said Weigand, when they were sitting in the living-room. “You'll tell me about it, right? Who left his name? Where?”

Mrs. North said she wanted to begin at the beginning. The beginning, she said, was the Mortons, who were coming to dinner that evening. “And flowers,” Mrs. North said. “There's a man over in the doorway who sells them for almost nothing. And—”

“Listen,” said Weigand. “He left his name? Right?”

Mrs. North said she was coming to that.

“It's a big clue,” she said, “but it goes in order or it doesn't mean anything. It was when I was going out to buy the flowers because the Mortons are coming to dinner tonight. Right?”

“Right,” said Weigand.

Mrs. North had gone downstairs, on her way to get flowers, she said. It was about—“What time is it now?” Mrs. North said. It was a quarter of two, near enough. Then it would have been about an hour ago. Between 12:30 and 1. She looked in the mailbox to see if there was any mail for them, and there wasn't. “But there was a letter in the wrong box,” she said.

“The wrong box?” Weigand asked.

“The fourth-floor box,” Mrs. North said, “and I thought I'd wait and see if it was for us.” So she had waited, knowing the postman was due about 1:30. “Timothy,” she said. “That's the postman's name. Timothy Barnes.” He was the regular carrier and the Norths both knew him. “Because he brings so many books,” Mrs. North explained, “and they won't go in, so he has to ring.”

Weigand felt that he was galloping, but he was getting used to it. Once you got the hang, you could keep up quite easily, playing leapfrog with words. He nodded.

“So Mr. Barnes said he would look to see if it was for us,” Mrs. North explained. “He thought it might have been the substitute carrier on the 11 o'clock delivery.” She was being very clear and careful, now, Weigand could see. Mullins made an occasional low, bewildered sound, and tried to take notes. Every now and then he would look at his notes and make a discouraged sound.

Mrs. North said the carrier had looked at it and it was, so he let her take it out.

“And was that the clue?” Weigand said. Mrs. North looked at him, as if he should have known better. She said certainly not, it was an announcement from Saks of a private sale. The clue was under it.

“Under it?” Weigand said.

“In the bottom of the box,” Mrs. North said. “After I got the letter out of the wrong box there was still something in the bottom.”

“Of the fourth-floor box?” Weigand said. “Where the murder was?”

Mullins made an even lower and more discouraged sound; now, the sound said, the Loot was getting that way. Weigand himself felt oddly elated and triumphant.

It was the fourth-floor box, Mrs. North agreed. And after she had taken the letter out there was still a little slip. She had known at once it was a clue. She had persuaded Mr. Barnes to leave the box open while she went up and got a pair of manicure tweezers and she had fished it out with them.

“Not touching it,” Mrs. North said. “Fingerprints, you know.”

Weigand said he knew.

“And it had his name on it,” Mrs. North said.

“Whose?” said Weigand. “I mean—can I see it?”

That, of course, was what she was explaining for, Mrs. North said. It was a clue, so naturally it was for him. Nobody had touched it except with the tweezers. “Right?”

“Exactly right,” Weigand agreed. Mrs. North said she would go and get it, and she went and got it, bringing it out in the tweezers. They laid it down on the coffee-table and looked at it. It was a slip of rather stiff paper, an inch and a half long, and about half an inch wide. There was a name lettered in ink on one side of it. The name was: “Edwards.” The size and shape suggested something to Weigand and he almost had it before Mrs. North spoke.

“You see what it is, don't you?” she said. “It came out of the little slot by the bell.”

That was it, Weigand realized. Each bell in the vestibule downstairs had a slot by it, into which a slip bearing the name of the tenant could be inserted. This slip would fit the slot; it had been cut for the slot. It had, he realized, almost certainly been in the slot. But it might—

“Did anybody named Edwards ever live here?” he asked.

That, Mrs. North told him, was the point. Nobody had; not, at any rate, since they had been there, and that was a long time. It couldn't have been there all that time.

“Don't you see?” she said. “It's the murderer's name! He put it there so the other man could ring.”

It could, Weigand realized, be that way. He checked it over, aloud, while Mrs. North nodded.

“The murderer,” Weigand said, “came about—what did we say?—3:20 or 3:25. He had this slip ready, and put it opposite the bell of the fourth-floor apartment. Right?” Mrs. North nodded. “Then he rang your bell and pretended to be Western Union when you let him in. So—Then he went upstairs and into the apartment. Right?” Mrs. North nodded again.

“Then,” said Weigand, “he must have already made an appointment with the man he was going to kill; made it for, say 3:30 or a little later, and given the man this address and false name.” Mrs. North looked dubious. Why, she said, false? And if false, why did the other man come? Weigand thought false, because nobody would use his own name. It didn't stand to reason.

“He, the murderer, talked to his man by telephone, probably,” Weigand explained. “Perhaps around noon Monday. He said he was Edwards, which means that the victim knew somebody named Edwards who might call him up and arrange an appointment. Right, so far?”

Mrs. North still was a little dubious, but she nodded, and Weigand went on.

“The murderer—” he began.

“Call him X,” Mrs. North said. “People always do.”

“Right,” Weigand said. “Call the murderer X. So X telephoned the victim, Brent.”

“Brent?” said Mrs. North.

Weigand said he had assumed she had seen the papers, but she shook her head. “Only the mornings,” she said; “he was still just nobody in the mornings.”

He was, Weigand explained, Brent in the afternoons and told her, in a few words, something about Brent. But they would let that rest for the moment, and where were they? They were, Mrs. North said, with the murderer being called X, and X calling up the victim, Brent. Weigand said, “Right.

“X called Brent,” he said, “and described himself as Edwards. Brent knew somebody named Edwards, and had some reason for wanting to see him but he didn't know where Edwards lived—” Weigand studied a moment over that. “Or,” he said, “X, posing as Edwards, said he had moved and gave this address. It's close enough to October 1 to make that' plausible—you expect everyone to move then. X told Brent to come around at 3:30 and Brent did. Sure enough, when Brent got in the vestibule, there was Edwards' name by a bell, and he rang the bell and X let him in. And X killed him.”

“But would it ring?” Mrs. North said. “The fourth floor bell, I mean, with the electricity off up there?”

The bells, Weigand told her, would be on the general house circuit, unconnected with the apartment circuits.

Mrs. North nodded, still a little hesitatingly.

“Why couldn't it really have been Edwards?” she said. “Somebody really named Edwards?”

That, Weigand pointed out, was perfectly clear. If the murderer were really named Edwards, he'd take mighty good care not to leave his name around. Edwards, he said, was one name they could rule out—it might be Smith or Jones or Finklestein, but it wouldn't be Edwards. Mrs. North said she saw what he meant.

“But why leave any name?” she said. “Why leave anything, any slip? Why put the slip in the mailbox, as the murderer must have done, instead of just throwing it away?”

It was Weigahd's turn to nod, puzzled. He had, he agreed, got that to worry about. At the moment he couldn't think of the reason. He picked up the slip and looked at it, still using the tweezers, and shook his head over it. Then he slipped it into an envelope.

“It's a clue, all right. It was quick of you to notice it, Mrs. North. It may tell us things. Now, a couple of other points. Did you know a man named Stanley Brent?”

Mrs. North shook her head, decisively. But there was something about the decisiveness—

“Ever hear anything about him?” he asked, more sharply.

“Somebody—” Mrs. North began, and stopped. “No,” she said, “that was somebody else. No, I never heard of Mr. Brent.”

There was, Weigand thought, a change in her manner. He slipped that change in manner into a mental envelope, to be considered later.

“And Edwards,” he said. “Do you know anybody named Edwards?”

“Three,” said Mrs. North. “It's a common name. Only, one of them's the laundryman.”

Still, Weigand said, he might as well take down the names of the three Edwardses Mrs. North knew, including the laundryman. The laundryman was, it turned out, William Edwards. Then there was a Dr. Richard Edwards, who was Mrs. North's dentist. And Mr. Clinton Edwards, who was a broker or something.

“We knew him best,” Mrs. North said. “We've been there to dinner.”

Weigand nodded, absently.

“Monday night, as it happens,” Mrs. North said. “That's a coincidence, isn't it?”

Weigand nodded, although it seemed a rather mild coincidence. He was wishing the name had been one less common than Edwards; it would be helpful, he thought, if men's names differed as infallibly as their fingerprints. There would be columns of Edwardses in me telephone book; columns not in the telephone book. Mrs. North knew three—out of thousands. Still—He would, he supposed, have to check up on them. Meanwhile—Meanwhile, there was, next, Mrs. Brent to question, if she could see him. It wasn't pleasant, but it had to be got through. And there would be Brent's desk at home to be looked over, if he had a desk at home. He would have, Weigand thought. Life was full of duties.

Leaving, Weigand met Mr. North, who was coming, on the stairs. Mr. North looked faintly surprised for a moment, then nodded and inquired how things went.

“I wish I knew,” Weigand said, going on downstairs.

6

W
EDNESDAY

2
P.M.
TO
5:15
P.M.

Emerging from the house, Lieutenant Weigand looked to Mrs. North, who was watching through a front window, precisely as if he were in the custody of Mullins. Looking down on and after Weigand, as the two walked up the street, Mrs. North realized that it was going to be difficult to think of him as a detective. “For everybody,” she said to herself, thinking it probably helped him. He looked, seen from this angle, very slight, although he was tall enough, and rather surprisingly young. His hat was canted forward anxiously, somehow, and he walked lightly, like a much younger man. Mrs. North tried to think who he looked like, “because everybody, almost, looks like somebody,” she told herself, and for a moment could not place any resemblance. Then she decided he was like, more than anyone else, an associate professor at Columbia they had met a few weeks before and who had turned out to be, for a professor at any rate, amazingly gay and frolicsome.