Hanged for a Sheep (7 page)

“Suppose,” Weigand said, “that Anthony was worked up about something and that the murderer wasn't, or wasn't showing it. Anthony was walking up and down, perhaps. Excitedly. Then he leaned over toward the murderer, perhaps put his hands on the arms of the chair and stared down at him.”

“Or glared down,” Pam said. Weigand said, “Precisely.

“That would have been right for the angle,” he went on. “If we suppose Anthony threatening his murderer, or shouting at him. And the murderer, perhaps with the weapon concealed—in his pocket, perhaps, or in a bag—had fired up at him. The impact would have knocked Anthony over backward, probably, at that range.”

Pam nodded. She thought.

“The gun wasn't there, I gather,” she said. “Or you'd have mentioned it.”

“No,” Weigand said. “It wasn't there.” He broke off and after a moment began again.

“Were they down on him?” he said. “The family—Benjamin Craig and Major Buddie and the rest. All of them, as your aunt said. Or was she—well, merely talking?”

“They didn't like him,” Pam said, after thinking a moment. “Nobody really knew much about him, except that he was always hanging around places. Night clubs and places. And, of course, he was so much younger. And then there was Aunt Flora's money. Although I don't know if he gets any. Would have got any. Because I don't know how Aunt Flora felt about him, really.”

“Did you ever meet him?” Weigand said.

Pam nodded. Once or twice, she thought.

“And—?” Bill Weigand prompted.

“
I
didn't like him,” Pam said. “Oily, I thought. But, then, I like Aunt Flora.” She looked at Bill. “I really do,” she said.

“Right,” Weigand said. “I've an open mind. Has your aunt a great deal of money?”

Pam said she had always supposed so. Aunt Flora had always looked like a lot of money. “And then there's this house,” she pointed out. But whether these things meant merely plenty of money—“like thousands a year,” Pam explained—or lots of money, like millions, Pam didn't know.

“Only,” she said, “she's leaving me some. Won't that be nice?”

Weigand said it would be very nice. He relapsed into thought, and emerged from it to go to the hall and stand for a moment at the head of the stair-flight leading down. Then he called, “Mullins!”, his voice cutting through the amorphous sounds below. Pam heard Mullins's heavier, blunter voice answer.

“O.K., Loot,” Mullins said. And then he came largely up the stairs and, after a moment, stood beside Bill and looked down at her.

“Hullo, Mrs. North,” he said. “You got a nice one this time.”

“Hello, Aloysius,” Pam said, sweetly. “Didn't I, though?”

“Listen, Mrs. North,” Mullins said earnestly, looking suddenly rather warm. “Not so much Aloysius, huh? I didn't mean—” He looked around, a little anxiously and as if for support. “Jerry ain't here?” he said.

“Right,” Pam said. “Jerry ain't here, Mr. Mullins. And don't talk as if I—as if I went out after them.” But she smiled and Mullins looked relieved.

“O.K.,” he said. “It was just a figure of speech.”

Both Weigand and Pam looked at him with some surprise. He looked pleased. “A figure of speech,” he repeated, cheerfully. “You want some of 'em, Loot?”

“Right,” Weigand said. “Get your little book. And get Mrs. Buddie.” He stopped, puzzled.

“Mrs. Buddie?” he repeated. “Why isn't she Mrs. Anthony?”

“She changed,” Pam said. “Yesterday morning she decided to be Mrs. Buddie again. She always did.”

“Listen!” Mullins said. “Sounds like she knew, don't it? I mean—she was sort of getting ready to be a widow.” He looked at the others. “Sort of,” he said. “In advance, like.”

Weigand looked interested but Pam shook her head. She said she didn't think that meant anything.

“Because,” she said, “she was always going back to Buddie. After she was Mrs. Craig, and Mrs. McClelland and now after she was Mrs. Anthony. Because she'd sent him away, you know. Stephen Anthony, I mean.” Then she, in turn, broke off and her expression became thoughtful. “The funniest thing about it,” she said, “is that he wasn't supposed to be here at all. Let alone dead.”

Weigand nodded and Mullins looked a little puzzled.

“Right,” Weigand said. “I was thinking of that.” There was a momentary pause, apparently while he thought of that. Then he said, “Right. Mullins. Get Mrs. Buddie, will you?”

Unexpectedly, Aunt Flora had changed from red to black. But black did not, somehow, look like mourning on Aunt Flora. The yellow wig, the resolute complexion, defied grief. Aunt Flora continued to look like Aunt Flora. She occupied a chair and looked back at Sergeant Mullins, who looked at her with evident awe.

“Well,” she said, “have you found out who killed him?” She looked at Pam, who was rising as if to leave. “Did you tell them about the poison, dearie?” she enquired. “About poisoning your old aunt?”

“Really, Aunt Flora!” Pam said. “You make it sound so—yes, I told them you thought somebody had tried to poison you.”

“Thought?” Aunt Flora repeated. “Thought? Nonsense! I didn't think. Somebody gave me arsenic.” She turned to Lieutenant Weigand. “What do you think of that, young man?” she demanded. “Going to let them get away with it? Or what?”

“No,” Weigand said. His voice was quiet and he smiled, slightly. “We'll try not to, Mrs. Buddie.” He saw Pam moving, not hurriedly, toward the door and said, “Stay around, Pam.” Pam looked pleased.

“Suppose,” Weigand went on, “we go into that first. Right? Tell me about the poisoning, Mrs. Buddie.”

Aunt Flora told him, repeating what proved to be an accurate report by Pamela North. She had had breakfast and become afterward very ill. She had been very ill for hours.

“Sick at my stomach,” Aunt Flora said, explicitly. “Sick as a horse.”

The doctor had given her medicines and thought at first that it was no more than an acute digestive upset. “Old fool,” Aunt Flora observed, cheerfully. And she had got better, but no thanks to him. She had insisted on the analysis because she had never had an illness like it before.

“And I've had plenty, dearie,” she said, with new interest. “Always something. Mostly stomach. You never know when you're young what the stomach can do.” She looked at, Weigand, demanding attention. “Never!” she repeated. “If I didn't take care of myself every minute, I wouldn't answer.”

“But,” Weigand said, “this was different. And you were suspicious. Why?”

Aunt Flora was not clear about that. It developed that this illness was more violent than any in the past. “Not that there's anything
mild
about my stomach,” she added, quickly. Then she looked at Mullins. “Scared me, this did,” she reported. “It would have scared you, dearie.”

Mullins looked uneasy and nodded.

“Right,” Weigand said. “It's pretty late now, of course. You should have come to us as soon as you got the report, Mrs. Buddie. Attempted murder is—well, better than murder.” He smiled. “For everybody,” he added. “However, that's spilled milk.”

“Arsenic,” Pam improved. “Spilled arsenic. Under the dam.”

“The bridge,” Weigand told her. “Please, Pam.”

“Of course,” Pam said. “
Over
the dam, I get them confused.”

“Be still, dearie,” Aunt Flora said, equably. “You talk like your, mother.”

Weigand came in hurriedly.

“For example,” he said, “you probably don't remember what you had for breakfast that day. What day was it, by the way? Exactly?”

“Two weeks ago Monday,” Aunt Flora said. “And I had the usual.”

“Which was?” Weigand prompted.

“Well,” Aunt Flora said, “first the citrate salts, of course. Then prunes. I have to eat prunes every day. And take the salts.”

“Right,” Weigand said, again hurriedly. “And afterward?”

Afterward, Aunt Flora said, had come the usual breakfast food—hot because it was winter. And some pancakes with a little bacon. And an egg—“no, I always allow myself two eggs on Monday.”

“Why?” said Pam, involuntarily.

“Because it's Monday,” Aunt Flora told her. “Starts the week, dearie. You need it for Mondays.”

There was a slight pause, during which everybody looked a little puzzled. Weigand aroused himself.

“Right,” he said. “And toast, I suppose?” Pam listened for irony, but heard none. Neither did Aunt Flora, who nodded.

“Obviously,” she said. “And coffee, of course. Oh—and a little honey to go with the toast, of course.”

“Of course,” Bill Weigand said. “It—it gives the poisoner—well, opportunity. Plenty to choose from.”

“Listen, young man,” Aunt Flora said, her yellow wig bobbing a little. “Call that breakfast?”

“Yes,” said Bill Weigand.

Aunt Flora looked at him.

“Nourishment,” she said. “That's what you need, young man. Pickers!”

It took time to get things out of Aunt Flora, but, with breakfast out of the way, Bill Weigand persevered. Ben Craig had been in to see her that morning, before breakfast. The girls had looked in while she was eating, sitting on the bed and nibbling toast. The major had come in, too, before she had finished and taken the girls away when he left. Harry was down to tell her they needed new fuses and to get the money to buy them. Harry? Harry Perkins, obviously. And who, while they were on the subject, was Harry Perkins.

“Harry?” Aunt Flora repeated, as if the question were absurd. “Harry's just—an old man. Don't try to make a mystery about Harry.”

Weigand was patient. They were not trying to make mysteries. On the contrary. Who was Harry?

“An old friend of my husband,” Aunt Flora said. It did not clarify.

“Which, Aunt Flora?” Pam said. “Which husband.”

“My husband, dearie,” Aunt Flora said. “I only had one
husband
. What you'd call a husband. The major, dearie.”

She consented, although obviously thinking it of small import, to explain. Many years before—half a century before—Harry Perkins and Alden Buddie had been young men together and devoted friends. Harry Perkins then had been in business, successfully. But something happened—something vague and misty with years and not, it was clear, any too well understood by Aunt Flora even at that distant time. And Harry, suddenly pathetic and beaten, had gone desperately west and found Major Buddie there—a very young major, since things were moving rapidly in the army in the west in those days, and a confident one; a man of assured future, who saw no reason not to take his battered friend in charge, and as a responsibility. And Buddie had money even then, although not as much as inheritances made it before he died a few years later. And Harry—well, Harry was, in some obscure manner, part of Aunt Flora's inheritance from her young husband. Perhaps he was somehow a remembrance.

“A keepsake,” Pam said, suddenly. Aunt Flora looked surprised and then nodded her head and torso, so that the yellow wig slipped a little.

“That's it, dearie,” she said. “A keepsake. I've—well, kept him ever since. I suppose it's strange, but I never thought about it. It just seemed natural to keep him.”

So that was Harry, explained. Adequately? Bill Weigand wondered and shrugged without moving his shoulders. They would wait and see. They would see, among other things, Harry himself; in the course of routine procedure they would see everyone. And as to last night?

Aunt Flora was not helpful; She had not expected Stephen Anthony to come to the house. She had not seen him when he did come, or heard anything of the shot which ended his life. She had gone to her room early.

“Everybody was upset,” she reported, mildly. “Gabbling around. So I went to bed.”

She had read a while, and then gone to sleep. She hadn't bothered to notice the time. She had noticed nothing until the sirens awakened her. Then she had come down.

“Come to think of it,” she remarked, “I still haven't had breakfast. You have breakfast, dearie?”

“No,” Pam said. “No, I guess I didn't. I don't know—.”

“Nonsense,” Aunt Flora said. “Keep up your strength, dearie. Feed all of you, if you like.”

Weigand shook his head, first for himself and then for Mullins, who had begun to look receptive. But then he nodded at Pam.

“Good idea,” he said. “Coffee, anyway.”

Pam said, “Well—” and then, when Weigand nodded again, more emphatically, followed Aunt Flora out. The two detectives looked after them.

“Quite a dame,” Mullins said. He paused. “Quite a dame,” he repeated. He looked at Weigand. “Wears a wig, don't she?” he added.

“Right, Sherlock,” Weigand said. “Let's talk to the major.”

“Yeah,” Mullins said. “Put him through it.”

He got the major. The major came in at the march and offered a stiff hand to Weigand. Weigand shook it and said; “Sit down, won't you?” The major looked rebellious for a moment, but sat down.

“Damn foolishness,” he said. It was not entirely clear what was foolishness. But apparently the murder and everything that went with it. “I can't hang around here all day,” he added. “Not like you civilians.” He looked at Weigand. “No offense, Lieutenant,” he said. “Can't help it, probably.”

Weigand took him over the course. About the attempt to poison his mother—no definite opinion, expressed at considerable length in crisp, emphatic sentences. Inclined to think, the major was, that it was a lot of nonsense. Doubted if anybody
had
tried to poison the old lady. A bit flighty, mother was. However—not for him to say. She'd been sick all right, and the doctor had taken specimens. He knew nothing of the report. Nasty shock, having her come out with it like that at dinner, eh? First he'd heard of it. He didn't know who had been in his mother's room before or during her breakfast, except that the girls had. Yes, he had dropped in. Seemed to remember that Ben had been there or just left. Anthony had come after the breakfast things had been removed, he thought.