Murder Is Suggested (25 page)

“If you think you're going—” Rebecca Wuerth, indignant owner of Enchanted Lady of Purrland, daughter of Dbl.Ch. Kute Kit Monarch of Purrland and Lady Four Paws Beautiful, began, her voice a knife in the air. But then a comfortable woman in a blue dress came up behind her and made soothing sounds in a soft voice. “All the same,” Rebecca Wuerth said. “If he thinks he's heard the last—”

She did not finish. She went away; Pam felt that she was more or less led away. The tall, spare man in the butcher's apron had said nothing; had not seemed to hear. Now he motioned, and two men carried caged cats from the judging table.

“Class forty-four,” a public-address system said. “Blue male novice.”

The two men who had carried caged cats away returned with new caged cats—four caged cats.

The tall man took a cat from a cage. The cat dangled. Then the cat wrapped himself around the judge's hands. The tall man shook slightly, and put the cat on the table. The cat was very handsome, long-haired, amber eyes. He permitted the tall man to run hands over him, hold his tail extended; lift him and gaze into his eyes. The judge put the cat back in his cage and lifted another blue from the next cage. The group which had watched the earlier judging drifted away; a new group drifted in.

The tall man was very deft with cats. Still, Pam thought, judging cats must be rather a risky business—cats are edged tools.

“Don't they ever bite him?” Pam asked. “Or scratch, for that matter?”

“Now and then, I suppose,” Madeline Somers said. “But he's very good with them. The chief risk is cat hair on clothes. Hence the apron.”

“All the same,” Pam said, “it seems like an odd—occupation. For a man, especially.”

“Occupation?” Miss Somers repeated, as if the word surprised her. It seemed also to amuse her. She chuckled. “He would love that,” she said. “You mean you've never heard of John Blanchard?”

Pam North had never heard of John Blanchard. Not then.

2

Pam didn't, she told Jerry, know that the sampling had helped much. “Like,” she said, “a smorgasbord. Confusing. And not taking something because there may be something even better on down.”

“And,” Jerry said, “ending up with cold turkey. I know.”

“More likely with everything,” Pam said. “Burmese are nice. And the long-hairs—”

“No,” Jerry said. “Brushing, chiefly. If not, hair balls in the cat and knots on him. Were all the Siamese pointed?”

They had been. On the other hand, there was the chance of Madeline Somers's shop. Now and then, apparently, it contained an unpointed Siamese.

“Although probably,” Pam said, “with black stripes.”

They had, at that moment, entered the Queens-Midtown tunnel. The tunnel roared around them.

“Stripes?” Jerry enquired, loudly.

“Belly stripes,” Pam said. “Although I don't know that we care, do we? Do you know a Mr. John Blanchard? It seems everybody ought to. He judges cats.”

“When we get out of this,” Jerry said. Jerry yelled.

They got out of it. In time, they got to Queens Boulevard.

“There was a Blanchard wrote a book about cats,” Jerry said. “That's about all I know. Very good book, they say. Compared it to Van Vechten, some did.”

“Nonsense,” Pam said firmly. “How ridiculous. A tall, thin man, in his late fifties? Gray hair? I suppose you'd have to call him distinguished-looking?”

“All I know about him,” Jerry said, “is that he wrote a book about cats. Nothing about his dimensions. If it's the same man. And, why, Pam?”

Pam didn't know. It had seemed an odd thing for a man to be doing. Naturally, she had wondered, mildly, about the man. It was unimportant. “We turn left at the next corner,” she said.

A canvas sign which crossed the boulevard told them they turned left at the next corner. They turned left; they found a parking area; they climbed concrete steps into the concrete oval of the stadium, came out into bright sunlight; were shown places on a ribbed bench. Far below, on tattered turf, young men in white ran and leaped. “Game, Mr. Mears,” a loudspeaker told them. “He leads, five games to four, first set.”

The young men in white met, and mopped, behind the umpire's chair. They went back on court, the courts reversed. Now the player nearest the Norths was a rangy man, his close-cropped blond hair shining in the sun.

“Mears,” Jerry said. “The one Laney's cross with.”

Mears raised a hand which held two tennis balls.

“New balls,” Jerry said. “And, he's obviously got a break through. And—”

“Shhh,” Pam said.

Mears's long body seemed to lash like a whip, with a whip's snap at the end. The ball fled.

“Wow!” Pam North said, in appreciation. The dark-haired man on the far side of the net shook his head, waggled his racket in doleful appreciation. “Fifteen—love,” the umpire said, through the public-address system.

Doug Mears served again. This time the ball came back, drifting high. Mears smashed. “Thirty—love,” the public-address system said.

The crowd was very silent. Somewhere, off to the side, a typewriter clicked. The dark-haired man went back to position, waited to receive. He moved lithely as he waited, shifting weight, like a cat tensing for a spring.

Mears served again. The ball was a white streak into court, breaking wide. The dark-haired man lunged and missed.

“Foot fault,” a voice said, and was loud in the silence. “Foot fault,” the loudspeaker repeated.

Everybody looked at the base-line judge. Mears looked at him in apparent astonishment, disbelief. He looked at him for seconds which seemed minutes. The linesman did not seem to look at him.

Mears shook his head, in resignation, yet with anger.

“Third one this set,” a man next Pam said to her, in a hushed voice. “Upsets the kid.”

Mears served again. The ball, this time, hit the net cord, bounced high. “Let,” the net judge called. “Out,” a linesman called, and made a sweeping gesture of the left hand. “Double fault,” the umpire's amplified voice told a crowd of some eight thousand. “Thirty—fifteen.”

Mears served again, but the whip of his body seemed less certain. He went in behind service. The ball from the dark-haired man's racket streaked past him, deep down the line. The silence was palpable. It was unbroken. Mears turned and looked at the base linesman—the same linesman. The linesman did not look at him.

“Thirty—all,” the umpire said, and Jerry said, “Looked out from here.”

“Looked out to Mears, too,” said the man on the other side of Pam, across her. “But John knows his job.”

Pam had looked at the linesman quickly, without really looking. She looked again.

He wore slacks and a dark jacket. He was sitting, now on the hardness of a folding wooden chair. He was lean and elegant still; his hair was thick and gray.

“Jerry!” Pam North said, and Jerry, this time, said “Shhh!”

Mears's swinging racket pinged on the ball, and the ball flew. There was a faint sigh from the crowd, even before the linesman called. “Fault,” the loudspeaker said, imperturbable, and Mears served again. He seemed to serve harder than before. The ball streaked down the center of the court, landed on, or near, the center line. “Fault,” the center linesman of the far court said, and the loudspeaker said, “Double fault, thirty—forty.”

Mears went back to position, shaking his blond head from side to side. He looked, suddenly, tired. He served, and the ball tore into the far court. “Let,” the net judge said. “First service,” the loudspeaker said. Mears served again, and this time the ball, angled toward the side line, went far beyond it. “Fault.” Mears, walking back, moved slowly. The whip of his body coiled again, snapped again.

“Foot fault,” the man in slacks and dark jacket, the man with thick gray hair, said, clearly in the silence. There was, this time, a pause. It was as if the loudspeaker hesitated. “Double fault,” the loudspeaker said. “Game, Mr. Wilson. The games are five all, first set.”

And Doug Mears banged his racket on the ground—banged it down twice on the battered turf. He started toward the linesman, and seemed to be talking, although his words were not audible. A kind of moan from the audience drowned the words.

Mears took two long strides, and the linesman did not look at him. Mears stopped, then, and his shoulders sagged. He went back to receive. He went very slowly, as if each step were an effort.

“Bad break for the kid,” the man next Pam said. “Sometimes a thing like that'll—” He did not finish. The dark-haired man had served. The ball bounced crookedly. Mears, obviously off balance, swung awkwardly. The ball hit the net. “Some days it's not worth while getting up,” the man next Pam said. “What a bounce!”

Crossing to receive in the backhand court, the blond young man looked fixedly at the linesman in dark jacket, dark slacks. The man did not appear to look at him.

Mears made the next point on a dipping return of service. But on the point which followed a similar return was lobbed over his head and, from thirty—fifteen, Mears volleyed once into the net and once far beyond the base line.

“Game, Mr. Wilson. He leads, six games to five, first set.”

As the players changed courts, Doug Mears stopped at the umpire's high chair, spoke up to the umpire; spoke with apparent vehemence, once gestured toward the base linesman. The umpire listened. The umpire shook his head.

Mears won the first point of the twelfth game on a service ace. But he double-faulted the second, dumped a volley—a volley that looked, from the stands, easy—into the net and then, once more, double-faulted. At fifteen—forty, Wilson—Ted Wilson, it turned out to be—put up a long lob off a strong service and Mears smashed.

He smashed with a kind of fury, angling the ball. It landed inches beyond the side line, bounced hard and true—bounced spitefully toward the base linesman. The linesman moved, moved quickly. He caught the ball and for a moment held it in his hand, looking at it as if it were a strange object, an inimical object. Then he tossed it toward a ballboy and stood up, and looked the length of the court at Doug Mears. He looked for some seconds, and sat down again.

“Game and first set, Mr. Wilson,” the loudspeaker said, in a silence which was curiously sodden. Then, and only then, the audience applauded, but not as if its heart was in applause.

“If I can say something now without shush,” Pam said. “Judge not that ye be not judged. In other words, that's Mr. Blanchard. First cats and then feet. First a woman in fringe, and then poor Mr. Mears.”

“Thirty—love,” the loudspeaker said.

“Poor Mr. Mears,” Pam said again, watching Ted Wilson's third service go for an ace—for an ace at which Mears lunged with no apparent enthusiasm.

“I've heard about the cats,” the man on Pam's right said. He had, apparently, joined them. At tennis matches, spectators are comrades under the skin. “Always think of old Johnny as a tennis man, myself. Used to be—”

“Oh,” Jerry said. “
That
Blanchard.”

Pam looked from one to the other.

“Thirty years ago,” Jerry said, “he was one of the good ones.”

“Almost,” the other man said.

“All right, almost. Quarter finals at Wimbledon, wasn't it?”

“Semis,” the other man said. “But he was senior champion three years straight not so long ago. Now he's an umpire, mostly. Filling in on lines today, but he's usually in the chair. Calls them as he sees them, Johnny does. The kid let it get him. Too bad, because he figured to take—”

“Game, Mr. Wilson. He leads, one game to love, second set.”

“—which would have put him in line for a pro bid,” the informant on Pam's right said. “Now—but it could be he'll snap out of it.”

Mears did not. He was broken through in the second game, and Wilson coasted to six-three. Each time he served from the base line Blanchard watched, as linesman and foot-fault judge; Doug Mears glared at the older man. And from that side, he served badly, seemed uncertain—looked after each service again at Blanchard, and seemed to wait.

“He's let it get him,” the authority on Pam's right said. “He's sure enough let it get him.”

Mears played better in the third set, but not enough better. It went to Wilson at seven-five. The match went with it.

“Mr. Wilson is good,” Pam said, as they went down the concrete steps.

“Not that good,” Jerry told her. “As our friend said, Mears let it get him.”

“What, exactly, is a foot fault?”

“God only knows,” Jerry said.

“And Mr. Blanchard,” Pam said. “He knows.” They went into the garden bar and found a table. And waited. And continued to wait. When she came, the waitress was sorry, and would bring gins and tonics.

They waited, without impatience. At Forest Hills in tournament time only the players hurry. They hurry enough for everybody. It was pleasant in the garden bar, at an umbrella-shaded table among other tables scattered on grass—tables now filling during the intermission between stadium matches. Half a dozen men sat at a long table, and gestured tennis as they drank; along a path between the tables and the field courts, brisk young people in white walked back and forth and one could guess whether they were participants in the nationals or merely passive members of the West Side Tennis Club. It was Pam's theory, advanced while they waited, that people carrying only two tennis rackets were probably not in the tournament. At least not at this stage.

“It takes,” she said, “three rackets and a serious expression. Here he is again.”

Jerry looked where she looked.

“I begin to feel I'm being followed,” Pam said.

John Blanchard, authority on cats and, it now appeared, tennis, was not alone. With him was a slender and sprightly girl in white shorts and blouse and sweater—a very pretty girl, who seemed to sparkle as she walked beside the much taller, much older man; a girl with deep red hair. They turned from the path and passed quite close to the Norths on their way to a table. “—ought to apologize,” the girl said, smiling up to the man. Blanchard shook his head at her and shrugged slightly, square shoulders moving under dark jacket. As they passed the long table of men who talked tennis with their hands, one of them—who had, as far as one could guess, been demonstrating the proper forehand—broke it off to salute Blanchard and to say “Hiya, Johnny?” At that there was a low chorus of “hiyas” and one “You can lose your head thataway, Johnny,” at which there was general laughter.