Hanged for a Sheep (24 page)

“But my own mother,” Craig insisted. He seemed to be seeking blame. “Think of it, Lieutenant! My own mother—and I gave her poison. How would you feel?”

“Unhappy, certainly,” Weigand said. “But not—guilty. If it is as you say, you had no way of knowing. If it's as you say.”

The repetition arrested Craig's attention, distracting him from his own unhappy thoughts. But he did not seem surprised.

“Naturally,” he said. “You don't believe me. I gave the poison. I wouldn't expect you to go back of that. I suppose—fingerprints?”

“Yes,” Weigand said. “Your prints are on the bottle, Mr. Craig. We knew you had given the salts—as you might have guessed we would.”

“Yes,” Craig said. “Of course they would be on it—I handled it. But I didn't fill it. Why should I?”

Weigand shrugged.

“Why try to kill your mother, you mean?” he asked. “Well—for her money, Mr. Craig. To get your share. Perhaps you were in a hurry for it.”

Craig did not seem horrified at the suggestion; he seemed to have been expecting it. He nodded.

“Of course,” he said. “It's all there—opportunity, motive—everything you need. And I didn't do it. I swear I didn't. Somebody—but what's the use? Everybody says that, I suppose.”

Weigand nodded slowly.

“That they were framed,” he amplified. “Right—they do, often. Is that your story?”

Craig's shoulders dropped, hopelessly.

“That's what happened,” he said. “That's what must have happened. But you won't believe it. Unless—” He broke off, and seemed to be thinking. Thought apparently brought a ray of hope.

“Listen,” he said. “Just my fingerprints. Doesn't that prove it? Wouldn't there have been mine—and somebody else's? If I'd known what was in the bottle, wouldn't I have rubbed my prints off? If there were any prints, wouldn't there have been a lot?”

Weigand looked down at Craig, curiously. The detective's fingers, reaching out to rest on the table top, began a slow, rhythmic patting of the surface. Finally he nodded.

“You have a point there, Craig,” he said. “I wondered if you'd think of it. You suggest that the real poisoner—the one who put the arsenic in the bottle—wiped off his own prints, and any others which might have been there, and left the bottle clean for your prints?”

“Yes,” Craig said. He sounded eager, now. “He did that—before he sent it to me. And then nobody touched it but me. That's what happened, Lieutenant.” He searched the lieutenant's face, and his own fell. “But you don't believe me,” he said. “I knew you wouldn't. I hoped the bottle would never be found. Then I could have lied and—fooled him. Because mother didn't remember!”

Weigand was interested. What didn't she remember?

She didn't, Craig explained, remember who had prepared the dose of salts that morning. To be sure of that, Craig had tried to help her remember—or pretended to—meanwhile denying by implication that he had prepared the dose himself. He was convinced that she now would never remember. But, meanwhile, the bottle had disappeared. Craig was terrified by this. Convinced that the bottle with his prints upon it would point straight to him as the poisoner, that his previous silence would count against him, that the police would never believe his story of a frame-up—he had searched desperately for the bottle for days. He had begun to hope that it had been thrown away, and that he was wrong in thinking the real murderer had taken it, to be used against him if it became necessary. And now—here it was.

“Who gave it to you?” he demanded. “The man who gave it to you planned to kill mother. And to make you believe I had done it. Who gave it to you?”

Weigand shook his head. It wasn't, he said, as simple as that. Assuming Craig was telling the truth, it wasn't that simple.

“We found the bottle,” he said. “Nobody gave it to us. But—I may as well tell you this—we think that Perkins had it for a while. Probably until shortly before he was killed.”

Craig seemed utterly astonished. His eyes opened and his hands again parted company and sought the security of the chair's arms.

“Perkins?” he repeated. “
Perkins?
But that can't be. It—it doesn't fit.”

“Why?” Weigand wanted to know.

Craig seemed to be fighting a point out in his mind. His fingers formed a bridge over nothing and he studied them, as if for guidance. Then he made a decision and looked at Weigand for a moment and seemed to stiffen.

“All right,” he said. “I don't know why I should protect him. Wesley. Wesley sent me the bottle. So it must have been Wesley. For the money.” The idea seemed to grow upon him, as he expressed it. “That's it!” Craig said. His voice was stronger, more confident. “He wanted to kill mother and get his share of the money. He wanted me convicted, and then he would have got his share of the part
I
inherited. Two birds with one stone. That's it, Lieutenant. And then I suppose Anthony found out about it and he killed Anthony, and Perkins knew something and he got Perkins, too. And now,
now he'll have another try at mother!
”

Craig sounded excited, almost triumphant.

“That's it!”
He repeated. “After this is all over, he'll try again. And now—now he'll have to get me, too, because I know. You'll have to stop him, Lieutenant!”

Weigand looked down at the round, excited man, whose fingers now were lacing and unlacing convulsively. Weigand looked across at Mullins, who was nodding slowly in agreement.

“We'll be careful,” Weigand promised. “There'll be no more murders. You say he sent you the bottle?”

Craig did say so. Often, he said, Dr. Wesley Buddie sent him sample bottles of remedies, some for his own use and some to be passed on to Mrs. Buddie. The little green bottle of Folwell's Fruit Salts had been sent so, along with a sample of a new brand of nose drops. The salts were, the accompanying note said, for their mother. When he went to his mother's room that morning to visit her, as he did every morning, Ben had taken the bottle with him and prepared a dose from it. He had said nothing about the change, wanting to see whether his mother would notice the difference, or find the new compound more efficacious than that she had been taking. She had apparently noticed no difference. Naturally, since she had shortly developed symptoms of poisoning, there had never been any question of the efficacy. Craig had left the bottle on the bed table; later, when he began to suspect that he had been used as an instrument of attempted murder, he had tried to find it and failed. It had disappeared.

“That's how it was,” Craig insisted. “Of course, he'll deny it.”

“Naturally,” Weigand agreed. “You say it came by mail?”

The bottle had come by mail, in a corrugated mailing box. Craig had, after the lapse of time—he had thrown the wrappings away when he opened the package—some difficulty in remembering the details, Weigand thought. He believed the package was addressed on the typewriter; he was certain that it had Dr. Buddie's return address typed in the corner. The note—folded and tucked into the package—had also been typed. It was, however, initialed—“W.B.” Craig had seen no reason to doubt that the initials had actually been written by his half-brother, although he admitted he had not examined them closely. They might, he agreed, have been forged—he had only glanced at the note, observed the initials, thrown the paper away with the box wrappings. Personally, he insisted, he had no doubt then, or now, that Dr. Buddie had actually sent the medicine. He agreed that his evidence might not be conclusive in court, if it came to proving that the note had not been forged.

“I've only a moral certainty,” he admitted.

“Why didn't you bring this story to us at once?” Weigand wanted to know. Craig looked sorrowful and embarrassed; he agreed that he should have done so. But he had not wanted to accuse his half-brother, particularly since he had no evidence, not even the bottle. He had been afraid that his story would not be believed and that he would himself be arrested.

“After all,” he said. “I did administer the poison. You would have had only my word; even now you have only my word, and an argument. Even now, I can't be sure you believe me.”

“It's a reasonable explanation,” Weigand said. “I don't know that I blame you for holding off. It has made things harder for us, of course. But I see your point.”

“Then you believe me?” Craig asked. There was hope in his voice again.

Weigand lifted his shoulders.

“Part of it is theory,” he reminded Craig. “You don't ‘believe' in theory. But you've made a very interesting case, Mr. Craig. Very interesting.”

“Then,” Craig said, and hesitated. “Is there anything else? Or are you through with me?”

“For now, at any rate,” Weigand said. “You can go, Mr. Craig.”

Weigand and Mullins watched Craig go. Mullins turned and looked at Weigand, enquiringly.

“
Do
you believe him, Loot?” Mullins wanted to know. “It sounds O.K.”

Weigand smiled.

“I don't think he tried to poison his mother,” Weigand said. “I never did think so. I think he was framed, as he says.”

14

T
HURSDAY

11:35
A.M. TO
12:08
P.M.

Sergeant Mullins waited for Bill Weigand to continue, but Weigand did not continue. He had returned to a chair, and the fingers of his right hand beat a gentle tattoo on the chair arm. Mullins waited and as the minutes passed he became restless.

“Now what, Loot?” he enquired, and was startled at the sound of his own voice. Weigand returned from a distance and looked at him, at first without seeming to see him. Then Weigand saw Mullins, without favor.

“Now,” he said, “we think. Or I think.”

Mullins looked doubtful.

“No more questions?” he said. “We don't ask anybody about things?”

“Who?” Weigand said. “About what?”

Mullins thought it over.

“I dunno, Loot,” he said, at length. “You think we know everything?”

Weigand drummed on the chair arm for a moment before he answered. Then he nodded.

“We ought to,” he said. “We know a lot. And can guess a lot. And where are we?”

Mullins thought it over.

“I think Craig,” he said. “He says he's framed. Guys that say they're framed—” The sentence ended because it did not need to continue.

“Nevertheless,” Weigand said, “people have been framed. For what it is worth—I think Craig was framed. Don't you? On the merits, regardless of precedent.”

“You mean paying no attention to guys being lying when they say they're framed?” Mullins enquired. “Just the way the story sounds?” He waited and Weigand answered “yes,” without saying it.

“Yen,” Mullins said, “his story sounds all right. So it's the doc.”

“What's the doc?” Pam North said from the door. She was holding Ruffy. Jerry was behind her and he was wearing a fur piece around his neck. The fur piece was Toughy, with bright eyes that looked like buttons and a tail which twisted up in a question mark.

“The guy who did it,” Mullins said. “Only he got Craig to do it for him. What do you think, Mrs. North?”

“The cats got tired up there,” Pam said. “All by themselves so much, and nothing new to smell. Did he?” This last was to Weigand. Weigand looked at her and then at Jerry. To the latter he said, “Close the door, will you?” Jerry closed the door.

“Council?” Mrs. North said. She seemed pleased. “Is this when we count the votes? Did he? I want to know before I vote.”

“Did your cousin Wesley put arsenic into the bottle so your cousin Ben would put it into your Aunt Flora?” Weigand amplified. “That's what Ben says. Or he says that's what he thinks.”

Jerry leaned over and Toughy dropped off on a table. He found a small vase, built like a baseball on a stem and filled with short-stemmed tulips. He batted the nearest tulip and then decided to eat the leaves. He made a crunching sound.

“Give,” Jerry said. “Sit down, Pam.”

Weigand gave. He gave in summary, but here and there he left in a detail. The Norths listened, Pam scratching Ruffy's ears. Ruffy began to purr and, apparently out of sheer good will, Toughy joined her. The room vibrated slightly and Mullins looked interested.

“They're awful little to make so much noise, ain't they?” he enquired, pleased. “Makes me think of the old ‘L'—if you was on the other side of town, that is.”

“Please,” Pam said. “But it is funny. They do it inside, somehow. And sometimes when you can't hear it, you can feel it. They just sit still and vibrate.”

“Meanwhile,” Jerry said, “we sit still and vibrate. Don't we, Bill? Do you know?”

Weigand did not answer directly.

“He does,” Pam informed them all. She looked at Weigand without favor. “It seems to me,” she said, “that you just call us in to
tell
us, like Watson.”

“Sherlock,” Weigand said.

“I was thinking of us,” Pam told him. “
We're
like Watson. You're self-centered, Bill. Only you don't seem terribly sure, somehow.”

Weigand looked at her and smiled faintly.

“Elementary, my dear Watson,” he said. “I'm not very sure. And I can't prove it.”

Pamela North lifted Ruffy to the table with her brother, who decided he would rather bat her than the tulip. Ruffy ignored him and began to smell the tulips, one by one. They seemed to please her.

“Well,” Pam said. “Where are we? Or don't we know? As to motives and things, and alibis.”

“There aren't any alibis,” Weigand told her. “No real alibis. That makes a nice start. No clocks, no where-was-who-when. Which ought to make it simpler.” He stared abstractedly at the cats. “And which doesn't,” he added. They waited. He continued abstracted.