Murder Comes First (12 page)

Pamela North nodded, her face thoughtful. Then an idea crossed her mind and crossed, at the same instant, her expressive face.

“No,” Bill Weigand said, “he's not here now.” Pam's expression faded. “You can't have everything,” Bill told her.

It looked, Pam North said, as if this evening she couldn't have anything. But then the waiter served her scaloppine.

6

Tuesday, 1:05
A.M.
to 10:20
A.M.

Gerald North realized precisely what it was he wanted to suggest to the author of
Old Folks at Home
—in addition, of course, to the invention of a new title. The thing that had all along bothered him, Gerald North realized, was that, near the beginning of the ninth chapter, the time transitions, previously handled with so much dexterity, began to lose definition so that—so that—It was entirely clear in my mind when I started, Gerald North told himself. The time transitions from the ninth chapter on but Pam sees the woods even when most of us can't see the—no—no! The book I'm thinking about is Aunt Lucinda's Gribland's something or other and—he had it! The old folks aren't at home, Gerald North thought and realized that if he could only remember the phrase tomorrow the whole uneasy secret of the trouble with the tenth chapter would be—

“Jerry!” Pam North said, from the next bed. “Are you awake?”

“Of course,” Jerry said. “I was just lying here—” He paused. “I am now,” he told her.

Pam turned on her light.

“He's FBI,” Pam said.

Jerry scrambled through his mind. What was it he had just hit on? He clutched at the fabric of a retreating dream, and came back with meaningless words. “The old folks aren't at home,” he said, half aloud, more than half doubtfully. What was that supposed to mean?

“Of course,” Pam said, “if you'd
rather
talk in your sleep.”

“I'm awake now,” Jerry told her. “Who's FBI?” He remembered. “Oh,” he said. “The man Bill saw at the restaurant. Of course, dear.”

“Mr. Sandford too,” Pam said. “Don't you see? It makes everything hang together. The man at the restaurant and Mr. Sandford are working on something.” She paused. “Atom spies, I suppose,” she said. “Even if they are dull. Anyway, that's why the other man was with him last night—no, it's Tuesday now, isn't it?—Sunday night. Not following him, but both working on the same thing. Mr. Sandford was going to join him, but they don't want the police in so he waited across the street, and then in the end had to go on about whatever it was they were doing. Mr. Sandford wasn't
being
followed. The reverse, if anything.”

“Well—” Jerry said. “He seemed surprised. Sandford, I mean. At the suggestion somebody was following him.”

“Of course,” Pam said. “He would
seem
that, naturally. What do they call it? Cover. He wouldn't simply come out and admit it. But afterward he began to wonder whether I had recognized the man, or could describe him so that somebody else would—Bill say—which would have interfered with whatever they were doing. So he asked me to lunch to find out and—”

“Listen,” Jerry said. He sat up in bed and turned on his own light. He looked across at Pam, a pleasant amount of whom was visible.

“Jerry,” Pam said. “This is the important thing.” She hesitated. “Right now, anyway,” she said. “Keep your mind on it. Listen what?”

“Why would your being able to recognize Sandford's sidekick interfere with what he and Sandford are doing?” Jerry asked her, carefully. “After all, they're not after us.”

“Nobody could know that without knowing what they
are
doing,” Pam explained, making it easy. “I could think of a hundred reasons.”

Probably, Jerry thought, she could at that. And—quite possibly one of them would be the right reason.

“All right,” he said. “You can do that tomorrow. Why were you followed?”

“For the same reason,” Pam said. “Just to make sure I wasn't on to anything—didn't go and tell somebody something. Like Bill, say, what Sandford really is, instead of a biochemist. When I tried to throw him off he wondered, of course, but I suppose when I just went to Saks he decided I was all right—” She paused.

“So you didn't really need the new disguises?” Jerry said.

“Well,” Pam said, “I couldn't know I didn't. And tonight, this man Bill knows—probably the same one who followed me; the medium man—was waiting to report to Mr. Sandford. And—” But then Pamela North stopped suddenly.

“Jerry!” she said. “Suppose the man who followed me was on the other side? One of the atomic ones. He saw I was with Mr. Sandford, and wondered if I was an FBI woman and followed me to find out.” She leaned toward Jerry. “Jerry!” she said. “Have I really got into something again?”

Jerry was now very much awake. But he did not know the answer to that question, except the prayerful answer that he hoped not.

“I've been lying here thinking,” Pam told him. “Worrying. And you were sleeping so soundly, as if there weren't an atom in the world. Also, if we're going to be awake, oughtn't we to close the windows?”

Gerald North got up and closed the windows. He got back into bed shivering. Somehow, he thought, things are always a lot worse when you are shivering. You feel defenseless.

“If it was the other ones,” Pam said, “we don't know what to expect, do we? Anything—they might come here. They might—OH!”

There had been a fairly large noise from the living room. Mr. North tried to pretend there hadn't, but there had.

“Just something settling,” he told Pam. “Things settle at night.”

“Things?” Pam said.

“Buildings,” Jerry told her. “Contraction and expansion or something.”

“People break in at night,” Pam said. “They—”

“All right,” Jerry said, and got out of bed. It was still cold. Perhaps there was something to wearing pajamas after all, even if they bunched. Or leaving a dressing gown—

“Jerry,” Pam said. “You're not going out there?!”

“Just something settling,” Jerry said. “Sure. B-r-r!”

“Then I'll go too,” Pam said. “Because if anything happened to you—”

“Stay right there,” Jerry told her. “It's cold.” But Pam was out of bed. In spite of himself, Jerry discovered there was consolation in this support. He told Pam to stay behind him, and opened the door of the bedroom. He opened it craftily. Three cats spoke as one—as one cat whose voice was changing.

“Sh-h-h!” Pam said. “Be—”

All three cats came happily into the bedroom.

“Oww-AH!” Gin said, exultantly.

“Who's there?” Jerry commanded the darkness beyond to inform him. The darkness was silent. Jerry touched a switch and the hall's darkness vanished; at the same time he stepped back inside the bedroom door, through which he had intrepidly ventured. He repeated his demand for identification, and got the same answer. Damn it, he thought, I wish I was wearing
something
. He advanced along the corridor, and at its end reached cautiously into the living room and flicked another switch tumbler. Nothing happened; whoever had left the living room last had turned off lamps at lamps, not, as was stipulated, at wall switch. Jerry advanced into dimness with what he hoped was confidence. He kicked a coffee table sharply, said “Ow!” indignantly, and found light.

The room was empty. There was nothing to explain the sound. “Set—” Jerry began, and then saw the martini mixer on the floor by the chest on which it should have stood. He pointed it out to Pam, who said, “Cats.”

“Something settling indeed,” she said. “I knew it wasn't that, anyway. I could tell it was something alive.”

They returned to the bedroom, putting out lights behind them. When they entered, the cats went under beds. Gin and Sherry went under Jerry's bed; Martini went, aloof, under Pam's.

“Here Gin, here Sherry, here Teeney,” Pam said. “Nice babies. Here Teeney.”

Martini made a low, interested sound; it was rather as if she were laughing softly.

“Oh dear,” Pam said. “Now she's going to
play
.”

Jerry got down on the floor and crawled part way under his bed. He got Sherry by one foot and pulled and Sherry yelled. Gin watched with pleased interest and then went under the other bed to join Martini. By way of extenuating intrusion, Gin began to wash her mother's face.

Jerry put Sherry into the corridor, and closed the door on her, whereupon she howled. He went under Pam's bed and Pam, shivering, went into it. Pam said, “B-r-r, the sheets got cold do you want me to help you?”

Jerry reached in and both cats moved out of reach. He crawled further, and bumped bare shoulders on springs. He spoke soothingly to cats, who considered him with pleased expressions. He said, “Damn you both,” and they appeared to smile. He said, “Nice Gin, nice Ginny, nice Ginger-cat,” and Gin began to purr loudly.

“You look very funny sticking out that way,” Pam told him. “You'll have—”

But then Gin, who could never resist blandishment for long, approached Jerry's wriggling fingers and—and he had her! He backed out, and deposited her in the corridor. He returned and crawled back under Pam's bed. Martini let him touch her smooth coat with the tips of his fingers. He inched toward her and she departed beyond reach, crouched, swished her tail. Her round eyes were large and, evidently, amused.

“Of course,” Pam told Jerry from above, “she's just waiting for you to come around to that side, you know.”

“So she can go out this one,” Jerry said. “I know.” He considered. “Lean out on that side and pounce,” he said. “I'll block.”

Pam leaned perilously out on the far side of the bed and pounced.

“Missed her,” Jerry said. “More to your right.”

Pam pounced again. Her fingers grazed Martini, who retreated from them delicately. Pam emerged further from her bed, hanging over it. She hung over so far that she could look under it and see Jerry. She greeted him cordially, and grabbed at Martini. She missed. But Martini retreated nearer Jerry. Pam grabbed again, momentarily lost her balance, and appeared to be about to stand on her head. She caught herself.

Martini moved. She moved toward Jerry, evaded his clutch, and went under the other bed.

“Of all the—” Jerry said, and came out himself. He started under his own bed, and Martini went out on the other side. She went to the door and sat down. She spoke sharply about people who kept cats, against their will, penned in bedrooms when all they wanted was to join other cats in living rooms. Jerry backed out, went around, and opened the door for her. She spoke briefly, rather impatient at the delay, and went out. Jerry closed the door.

“She has such fun with us,” Pam said. “Where were we?”

“Somebody had just dropped an atom in the living room,” Jerry told her. He shivered. He was told he would catch cold, and agreed. Getting back between the cold sheets of a bed long open would, he told Pam, be a grave risk.

“We mustn't take chances,” Pam told him. “We don't want you catching cold.…”

An alarm clock wakened them, which it almost never did, and for a moment Mr. North was puzzled and resentful. Then he said, “Oh God, Philadelphia” and got up. Apparently he had somehow forgotten to reopen the window and thought he detected a slight headache. There was, he was relieved to notice, no signs of a cold.

“Not today!” Pam said.

Glumly, Jerry said, “Today. And I've got to stop by the office first.” Authors and book and author luncheons, and the bringing of such together, did not wait on murder or even on the FBI. He told Pam to stay in bed; that he would pick up a bite somewhere. He spoke of “somewhere” in a tone indicating doubt of its existence, and was told not to be silly. He told Pam he oughtn't to let her, was relieved that she was unimpressed, and went to the guest bathroom, his in the absence of guests. While he was shaving, he heard the cats speak delightedly from the kitchen, which indicated Pam's presence there; the scent of coffee reached him as he tied his tie. “I stand upon a something something and tie my tie once more,” he informed the mirror, thinking rather ineffectively of Conrad Aiken. “There are horses neighing on far off hills.” There would also be authors neighing in Philadelphia, a less consoling thought. He went out to breakfast.

It was, Pam told him, funny how they had scared themselves last night, and the cocktail mixer, landing on carpet, was not even broken. He had, Pam told him, looked very amusing half under the bed fishing for Martini.

“About Sandford and the FBI,” Jerry said, as he finished his coffee. “You might have something there.”

Pam said it had been clearer the night before, but that she still thought she had something.

“Look,” Jerry said, “I'll probably be late. I want to drop in at some of the book shops and introduce Ferguson. It's supposed to help.” He paused. “Though God knows why meeting Ferguson—” he added, and paused again. “Will you—” he said, and then stopped entirely. Would she stay out of it; leave it alone? Would she let matters take their course, even if that meant the police took the aunts? Would she avoid involvement in what might, just possibly, be as dangerous as they had both, during the night, momentarily feared? He looked at his slim wife, who stood so well the grim impact of morning.

“Of course I'll take care of myself,” Pam told him. “Don't I always?”

There was no time to argue that, since it would have required much time. Jerry got his briefcase, said he hoped she would and went. Pam poured herself another cup of coffee, and thought about what to do next.

The more she thought about it, the more probable it seemed that Barton Sandford was really an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, posing as a biochemist. Or perhaps really a biochemist at heart, on loan to the government. Martini jumped to the table and Pam poured a little cream into a saucer; Sherry came up to investigate and Martini growled at her. Sherry jumped down, landing within inches of Gin, who promptly hissed. It's peaceful here, Pam thought. If it weren't for the aunts I wouldn't—