Hanged for a Sheep (9 page)

“She's a fine girl,” Bruce interpolated. “I don't know why—” He broke off.

Judy had shaken her head and, before he asked, had said, “She isn't here, Bruce. And I'm afraid—.”

They were both, without further words, afraid of the same thing. Brack. Bruce had taken the girl by the shoulders. He had taken her, he thought, rather roughly by the shoulders. He was keyed up. And he had had a couple of drinks. He thought, now, that he had frightened Judy.

“Because,” he said, “she seemed to know where Clem had gone. With Brack, or to meet Brack. But she was afraid to tell me, probably because she thought I might follow and make trouble. For all I know, she was right.”

She had tried to persuade Bruce to leave, but he had refused to leave. She had insisted that Clem was all right, wherever she was. Finally she had said that she would go herself and try to find Clem, and that Bruce should wait. This he refused to do.

“I couldn't let her go, all over town, maybe, by herself in the middle of the night,” he said. “I said she could come with me, if she would tell me where to go. But she was afraid, still, I'd make trouble. Then I suggested her father.”

Judy had said at first, “No, not Dad. Clem would never forgive us.” But then, when Bruce insisted, she had agreed.

“She may have intended merely to quiet me,” Bruce admitted. “I suspected that at the time. So I told her we would both go get the major, and that if he would go with her, I'd wait.”

Judy had, after a little while, agreed to this, astonishing Bruce.

“I didn't think she would,” he admitted. “Because it was, after all, going behind Clem's back. But she seemed—well, to take it more seriously than she ever had before. To feel that we had to do something. And that made me more anxious than ever. And more worried. I thought—well, that she had found out something I didn't know about. Something that frightened her.”

Pam nodded, involuntarily, thinking of the talk she had overheard the night before between the sisters. Judy had found out that it wasn't merely a flirtation between Clem and—now it was evident—Ross Brack. And so she was frightened.

Brace caught the movement of Pam's head and broke off.

“There is something!” he said. “You nodded. You know what it is!”

“No,” Pam said. “I just nodded because I was listening. That was all. And for you to go on.”

Bruce looked at her and she looked back. He seemed only half satisfied, but he went on.

He, with Judy, had gone down to the floor below to waken Major Buddie. They had knocked on the door and, when the major did not answer and they heard nothing—“normally,” Bruce interjected, “he snores. Or so Judy says”—they opened the door and called. Then there was still no answer and they went in.

“And then,” Bruce said, “there was no major. He'd dressed, and gone out. But apparently not in uniform. His uniform was hanging on a chair.”

It was a dead end, for the moment. Bruce and Judy had gone back up the stairs, and he had told her good night at the door of her room. He had pretended to be licked, he said, and had let her think he was going home. And she had tried to reassure him—tried at the same time to reassure herself, he thought. And then he had started downstairs and come opposite the door of the back room occupied by Harry Perkins. The door was open and the light in the room was on.

Bruce was not clear what impulse had led him to look into the room, but he had looked into the room.

“Maybe,” he said, “I thought Clem had come back while we were downstairs and was waiting in Perkins's room until I left. I don't know what I thought I'd find.”

What he had found was, for the second time, an empty room. Harry Perkins was also elsewhere, with a bright, empty room behind him. It had meant nothing then; now it was—well, something to remember.

Bruce had gone on downstairs, and then it was, he thought, about 12:30. He was passing the drawing room door on the lower floor when he thought he saw a light in the room—a very faint light. He had looked in, but found the light was in the breakfast room. But even there it was faint and now, thinking back, Bruce believed it had come into the breakfast room from the adjoining pantry, through a partly opened door. He had not thought much about it then, and was not sure now there was much to think.

“The liquor's in there, you know,” he said. “I supposed, if I supposed anything, that it was Harry having a nightcap. He has them, you know. And now—well, I still think it was probably Harry having a nightcap.”

Then Bruce had gone out. And thereafter, for several hours, he had gone to bars and cafes where he had thought he might find Clem and Brack, and had found nothing except, he admitted with a wry smile, an eventual hangover. Today he had come back, still wanting to see Clem, and had run into the murder. And then, taking a chance he knew which was Pam North's room, and wanting to see her before the police, he had slipped in and played with the cats while he waited. And now?

“Now,” Pam told him firmly, “you talk to Bill Weigand. And tell him all of it.”

“Brack?” Bruce said. He was serious. “If it's important,” he said, “we'll have to tell him; if things lead to it, he'll find out anyway. But it may be entirely irrelevant, and then there's no point in his knowing. Suppose I leave out Brack—I just wanted to see Clem because I am going away, and Judy and I thought she might be with her father downstairs—and now we suppose she and her father had gone out somewhere. How's that?”

“Passable,” Pam said. “Bill won't believe it, but it makes a story. Actually, you know, he'll want to know where all these people were—the major, and Harry and even Clem. Because that must be pretty close to the time.”

That was evident, Bruce McClelland told her. He told her that he'd met a couple of policemen himself, in the course of getting around.

“Sic 'em, Toughy,” Pam said, agreeably. Toughy looked at her with interest. “Making fun of your mother, the man is,” Pam told Toughy. “Come on.” This last was evidently to Bruce. He came on. The cats found the dish Pam had set on the floor when she entered, and began to push each other away from it. They were so preoccupied that they let Bruce and Pam go out the door unchallenged. Bruce and Pam went down a flight to the library and looked in. Weigand was talking to somebody half hidden in the big chair by the fire, and Mullins was sitting at a small table, on a small chair, making notes. Weigand heard them and looked up. He smiled amiably.

His voice was almost hearty and he said, uncharacteristically, “Well, well!”

“Come in,” he said. “We've been waiting for you, Mr. McClelland. And Mrs. North.”

“Hello, Lieutenant,” Bruce McClelland said. He saw who was in the chair. “Hello, Judy,” he said. His voice was expressionless.

“Damn,” said Pam. “I guess we're a little late, Bruce.”

“Right,” Weigand said. “Always glad to see you, however. And now, Mr. McClelland, Miss Buddie tells me you and she had a little talk last night. I gather from what she says that you were a little worried about Miss Clementine Buddie. Because of Ross Brack.” He paused. “Which,” he added, “is understandable. I would be myself. Or would have been if I'd known.”

“He was coming to tell you, Bill,” Pam said. “Be yourself.”

“Right,” Weigand said. “I'll be myself. Let's hear it.”

Bruce McClelland told him about things. Since he seemed to know already. But he had not, it developed, known either that Harry Perkins's room was empty or that there was a light in the pantry off the breakfast room. He said that the points were interesting, and advised Mullins to make notes of them. Mullins said “O.K., Loot.” Then Bill Weigand let Judy and Bruce McClelland go but, with an eyebrow, intimated that Pam should remain. She remained.

“And so,” Weigand said, after a moment, “the lies begin. Like old times.”

“If you mean Bruce,” Pam said, “I don't think so.”

Weigand shrugged.

“Bruce,” he said, “or the others. Or Bruce
and
the others. The major was safely tucked in all night, says the major. He was up and out, says young McClelland. But they don't all lie well. Your cousin Judy didn't lie at all well and had to admit it. She is your cousin, as I figure it?”

“Removed,” Pam told him. “Or something. I always get confused. About her sister, you mean?”

At least about her sister, Weigand agreed. At first, Clem Buddie had been in her room all night and nobody had interrupted either of them. And there had been no conversation for Pam to overhear in the drawing room. Then there had been a conversation in the drawing room—finally there had been the story of Ross Brack, and of Bruce McClelland's visit and, reluctantly under shrewd questioning, an account of the whole night which matched McClelland's.

“Perfectly,” Weigand admitted. “So it's true or carefully cooked. You can take your choice.”

“True,” Pam said. “Do I get a prize?”

Bill Weigand didn't know. Perhaps she did. He would tell her later if she did.

“I've sent for Brack,” he said. He paused. “You may as well know,” he said. “Brack and Anthony were—well, partners in a fashion. At least, we think so. They were together a good deal, and Brack is careful about his company. Keeps it in the firm.”

“What is the firm?” Pam wanted to know. “What business?”

Weigand shrugged again.

“Anything that's dirty,” he said. “Wine, women and song—dope, women and dives. Also policy. Probably a little fencing, not with foils. All the rackets that come handy—intimidation, union racketeering, what they call ‘protective associations.' He gets around.”

“My!” said Pam. “Why not arrest him for something?”

They did, Weigand told her. Every few months. And he got away. Legally or quasi-legally. Meanwhile they collected evidence, a bit here and a bit there. A time would come, he assured her. But it hadn't yet.

“And Clem's mixed up with him?” Pam said. It wasn't funny.

Weigand nodded.

“Apparently,” he said. “We're checking. They're seen together.” He paused. “Don't think of him as a thug, Pam,” he warned her. “He's very smooth—very smooth and very vicious. Young McClelland's right to worry about her. It would make, at the least, what we used to call a scandal.”

“Would?” Pam repeated. “
Isn't
it a scandal?”

Weigand said that it was a funny thing, but it wasn't. It was one of those things which, really, only a few people knew. “Everybody” would know about it, and it would be a scandal, only if somebody forced the issue; brought it from the backs to the fronts of “everybody's” minds. Or if there were some drastic turn which compelled general acceptance of the implications of the facts. If, for example, Bruce McClelland did get excited and try to take it out on Brack—and probably get half killed for his pains. Something that would bring it into the newspapers. Then it would make trouble for everybody.

“For the major, particularly,” Weigand pointed out. “A major's daughter, and Caesar's wife. Or for the major's brother, Dr. Buddie, even. For your aunt, although probably she would take even that in her stride. Say there were letters, and say it could be, somehow, thrown into court. That would do it. Letters from your cousin to Brack, for example. That some of the newspapers, if the letters became privileged through court action, would print.” He paused. “If they could,” he added. “Or as much as they could. Depending on the letters.”

Pam said, “Oh!”

“McClelland knows something,” Weigand told her. “It isn't that Clem has had a drink or two with Brack somewhere. Did you think it was?”

Pam shook her head slowly.

“I suppose not,” she said. “Oh—the poor little fool!”

“Right,” Weigand said. “Now—suppose Anthony had some way, or thought he had, of forcing the issue. Breaking the story, as McClelland would say. And suppose—well, suppose he saw an opportunity for a little blackmail. And suppose he discovered, as a good many blackmailers have, that it isn't a healthy occupation. For example—I shouldn't care to blackmail the major, should you?”

Pam said, “Oh!” again. Then she said, “Oh, Bill!”

“Right,” Bill Weigand said. “I'm sorry, Pam. But the major was up and about. Clem herself was up and about, and Judy and young McClelland, who seems to be in love with Clem. And Harry Perkins, your aunt's keepsake. Who might be devoted to the family, or at least to her, and might let his devotion carry him a good distance. A good many people were up and about, Pam. Perhaps more than we know about. And some of them are lying. Right?”

Pam sighed. She said, unhappily, “Right, Bill.”

So, Bill Weigand told her, they were going to talk to Harry Perkins. And he had sent out for Brack.

“Who'll come,” Weigand assured her. “He's very affable—when we haven't got anything on him and he knows it.”

“And,” Pam said, “Cousin Alden again. Now that you know.”

“Right,” Weigand said. “And—all right, Stein. Bring him in.”

But Detective Stein, who had appeared at the door and waited to be seen, came in alone. He shook his head.

“Can't find him,” he said. “Not in his room. He's not in the house, as far as we can find out. Looks like he took a powder.”

Weigand looked tired. But his voice did not change.

“Find him,” he said. “He shouldn't have got away, you know. That's what you're for, Stein—you and the rest.”

Stein said he was sorry.

“But we don't know he's been around this morning,” he pointed out. “Nobody's seen him since early last night. We can't keep him in if he isn't in to start with, Lieutenant.”

“All right,” Weigand said. “Just round him up, Stein. We'll go into all this later, if we need to. Now I want him here.”