Murder Comes First (16 page)

Paul Logan looked at Dorian as if waiting for her to go on, but she merely shook her head and said that that was all. But the fact that, by implication, it was not all hung in the air. Paul Logan had got money too by his mother's death, and freedom too. Freedom, among other things, to marry Lynn Hickey—Lynn who had been, by the woman now dead, characterized as up to anything; Lynn who had herself characterized Sally Sandford as a woman who might be hardened by righteousness.

“I suppose,” Pam North said, “that somebody made sure Mrs. Sandford hadn't merely gone back to the country place? But of course, somebody did?”

That, of course, had been done. By Sandford himself, the Wednesday after Labor Day. And, a few days later, by Paul who, being at the Logan cottage, had walked over to the Sandfords' and found it locked and empty, cleaned up and closed up for the winter. Having said this, Logan looked from Pam to Dorian, waiting politely, letting show the faint impatience of one who feels a topic exhausted. Lynn Hickey looked at her watch, obviously, and then at Pamela. Her expression said “Well?”

I'm not being good at this, Pam thought; I'm not getting anything except things all along obvious—that Lynn and Paul Logan are in love and want to get married, that now they can, that they had pointed, not too subtly, to Sally Sandford. We are, Pam North, thought, precisely where we were when we came in. She picked up gloves and bag; she tried to attract the waitress.

The waitress, who before had seemed omnipresent, seemed to hang constantly over them, panting, now did not attract. She was around. She puffed up to a near-by table with a glass of water and looked full at Pam and did not see her and puffed off again. She panted back and Pam said, “Oh, waitress!” and the waitress did not hear. She puffed away, prodigiously harassed. Pam watched her go and sighed. She tried to attract a serenely floating hostess, but the hostess floated incased in impervious transparency. Pam said, “Oh
dear
.”

“Let me get it,” Paul said. “You two go on. If—”

Pam couldn't think of it. She had brought about the whole, apparently pointless, incident. She could at least pay for it. She saw the waitress again and waved anxiously. The waitress looked at her blankly and Pam realized it was another waitress. Perhaps if she stood up—

She started to and the waitress, who had been hiding—
must
have been hiding—swooped upon them. She swooped indignantly, as if finally, at too long last, unconscionable lingerers showed signs of movement. She had the bill ready and thrust it upon Logan, who promptly put it in one pocket and produced change from another. Even that hadn't worked, Pam thought, making the best of it. She couldn't get information; she couldn't even get to pay for the food. She stood up, and everybody else stood up. By agreement, they made suitable sounds of separation at the table; Lynn and Paul Logan were thanked for their patience; they, in turn, were sorry they had not helped.

Lynn and Paul went first, as behooved check payers. They paid and passed on, Dorian and Pam behind them—close behind them; closer, it appeared, than Paul Logan realized.

“—that damned typewriter,” Paul said to Lynn. “I don't see how we missed—”

Then Lynn went into a segment of a revolving door and Paul stopped. He took the next segment.

Little Miss Lucinda went down the stairs in the Grand Central Terminal with one hand lightly on the handrail. Marble stairs were so treacherous. People hurried past her and some of them seemed impatient, although she was taking up very little room. At the bottom of the stairs she discovered she had soiled the fingers of a glove and thought how unlike Cleveland everything was in New York. She went to the information kiosk and made enquiry—she had mislaid the memorandum, but that did not matter, since she did not forget anything once she had written it down. She was given a diminutive timetable.

Timetables were no trouble for Miss Lucinda, since they were designed to be read. On the trip east, indeed, she had read extensively in a much larger timetable, having exhausted other reading matter. She had, with interest, discovered on which trains baggage could not be checked, which did not run on Saturdays and Sundays and Holiday A, which were “Pullmans Only” and which were not. She found especially interesting the listings of equipment on various through trains—“diner Albany to New York,” “buffet lounge New York to Chicago,” “reduced fare tickets not honored on this train.” She was interested in these things, not for any practical reason, not even because she was especially fond of trains, but because the information had been written out and printed. For the same reason, she often read entirely through the extended directions which sometimes came with patent medicines, and, when there were translations, read the French version as well and did what she could with German. Miss Lucinda liked to read.

So she had no trouble whatever with the simple tables of the Harlem Division of the New York Central Railroad; at eleven forty-five she discovered that a Pawling local left at one forty-six. She bought herself several things to read on the trip and then had lunch in the Commodore Grill, finding it unexpectedly full of men, all of whom were drinking. Emboldened by example, Miss Lucinda had a sherry while she waited for her luncheon to be served, and read the
Atlantic Monthly
. She finished luncheon in too ample time, went to the newsreel theater and then went looking for her train.

The gates were not yet open when she reached them, and then she debated whether, after all, it would not be the right thing to telephone Thelma, or at any rate Penny—better Penny, on the whole—and explain what she was doing. Because, Miss Lucinda thought, while my note was perfectly clear, they might not quite understand and might worry. She became almost sure she ought to do this, and had even turned away to look for a telephone booth, when she realized clearly what would happen. She would get Thelma, even if she got Penny first, and Thelma would say “Lucinda!” in that certain tone. And then, Miss Lucinda knew, she would give the whole thing up, since there was no use pretending she had an answer to “Lucinda!” said in the certain tone. And she did not want to give the whole thing up; because now, in addition to feeling that she was being guided, she had begun to feel that she was having a very exciting time. It might, she realized, be partly the sherry, but it was nevertheless exciting.

Why, Miss Lucinda thought to herself, it's almost like something one reads about.

And, in addition, she was really doing it for Thelma, against whom such ridiculous charges were being, or almost being, made. There was always that; it was really her duty not to let herself be stopped. It was really—

Then the gates were opened and Miss Lucinda, with fifteen or twenty other early comers, went through them, and down a long ramp and then along a platform walled on either side by unlighted railroad coaches. They must, Miss Lucinda thought, have walked half a dozen blocks before they finally came to the lighted coaches—four of them—of the Pawling local. They were very old coaches and had the gritting feeling of very old coaches. There were plenty of uncomfortable seats. Miss Lucinda got one and found her ticket and held it in her hand ready—she hated to have to scramble through her bag at the last moment, the way so many women did—and resumed her reading of the
Atlantic Monthly
.

Looking at her, no one could have dreamed the kind of trip upon which Miss Lucinda had embarked or what she expected to find at the end of it.

There was no need, when Pam and Dorian stood on the sidewalk in front of Schrafft's, expelled in turn by the revolving door, for Pam to ask Dorian whether she had heard what Paul Logan had said. So Pam said, “Well, what do you think of that? He
does
know something about the typewriter. So Sally
is
in it.”

“She always was, I think,” Dorian said, and said then, “There they are.”

Paul Logan and Lynn were walking toward Fifth Avenue. They were obviously talking intently. It appeared that, of the two, Lynn was talking the more. Without consultation, Pam and Dorian turned also toward Fifth Avenue.

“Maybe,” Pam said, “they'll do something about something. Which side of the street do you want?”

Dorian blinked the lids over greenish eyes.

“We stick out,” Pam said. “If we're going to tail, we ought to separate. At least on other sides of the street. Or would that be more conspicuous?”

It would, if they were seen at all, be much more conspicuous, Dorian thought. The two of them advancing along opposite sidewalks in pursuit of prey would, if noticed by Paul and Lynn, hardly fail to arouse their interest. Pam and Dorian, therefore, stayed together.

“If they split up, we will,” Pam told Dorian, who agreed, but said, “What will they do something about?”

“The typewriter,” Pam said. “Sally. Because they've remembered something, only—” She broke off completely, and looked puzzled.

“Right,” Dorian Weigand said. “I can't see we're getting anywhere. Who do you suspect?”

“Everybody,” Pam said, hopelessly. “Except the aunts, of course. Mrs. Sandford most, I guess. But that girl knows something, and so does he. About the typewriter, probably. And Mrs. Logan did too, and perhaps that was why—they're turning uptown.”

Paul Logan and Lynn Hickey, still talking, were the ones turning uptown. They crossed the street and went north on Fifth. Pam and Dorian increased their saunter to something nearer a trot, reached the intersection, dodged turning taxicabs and went after them. They quickly got too close, and sauntered again. Then, midway of the block, Paul and Lynn stopped in front of Forsyte's.

“We're too close,” Pam said, “we'll have to look in windows.”

They veered toward windows, bumping their way among south-bound pedestrians. The window they reached was dedicated to the wares of the Forsyte Men's Shop.

“The trouble with tailing,” Pam said, “is that you never get the right window. Or being tailed, for that matter. Can you see them, without looking?”

Dorian could. Paul and Lynn were standing in front of the Forsyte entrance, still talking. Dorian thought he was suggesting something of which the girl was doubtful, since she looked doubtful and shook her head.

“She's nodding now,” Dorian reported to Pam, who was looking with rather ostentatious innocence at a tweed suit—again nothing Jerry would approve. Pam, whose theory had been that two looks are four times as suspicious as one, abandoned the tweed suit.

Lynn Hickey made a small flicking motion with her right hand and went suddenly into Forsyte's. Paul stood for a moment. Then he walked unhesitatingly to Pam and Dorian.

“Can't I drop you some place?” he enquired.

“Drop us?” Pam said, feeling as if he already had. “Oh—thanks no, Mr. Logan. You go right ahead about whatever you're—I mean, we're just window-shopping.”

Paul looked at the window; he said, “Oh.” He said, “All right then,” turned away quickly and, seemingly in the same movement, was engulfed by a taxicab which had just discharged. The cab started south and was, almost at once, stopped in traffic.

Pam tugged Dorian's sleeve and they bumped among south- and north-bound pedestrians to the curb. A cab swerved to them. Pam led the way. She said what she had always wanted to say.

“Follow that cab!” Pamela North commanded.

The driver, who had already knocked down the meter flag, leaned toward them. He said, “Huh, lady?”

“That cab,” Pam said. “Follow it.” She pointed. The cab in question began to move off.

“You a cop?” the driver said. “A lady cop? Or something?”

“No but—” Pam said.

“Then it's no, lady,” the cab driver said. “Not me. I'm a married man, see? I got three children, see? I—”

“It hasn't anything to do with your children,” Pam told him.

That was, the driver told her, what she said.

“A man's got to decide about his own children,” he told her. “If you were a cop, now. As it is, not me, lady.”

“This is the most ridiculous thing—” Pam said, but Dorian patted her arm gently.

“The other cab's gone now,” Dorian said. “It made a right turn.”

“See, lady,” the driver said. “Listen to your friend. Take you any other place, lady?”

But that Pamela North wouldn't have. If this were the last cab in New York, it would take her no place. She and Dorian got out. Getting out, Pam looked at the meter, which showed fifteen cents. “The drop's on the clock, lady,” the driver told her.

Pamela North did not hesitate. She gave the driver a quarter, and waved off change. It was not until several minutes later that she realized she had paid fifteen cents for sitting in one place, and ten cents, presumably, for discovering that a cab driver had three children.

“I had no idea it was so difficult to trail people,” Pam told Dorian. “What should we do now?”

Suddenly both of them stopped walking and faced each other and began to laugh. When they had laughed, Pamela said they might as well go and see how the aunts were coming. Thinking of the aunts, Pam was serious again.

“The poor helpless things,” Pam said, and she and Dorian began to walk toward the Welby in the Murray Hill district.

The train ran beautifully for almost half an hour; it was not comfortable, it bumped a good deal, but it went rapidly and with determination. Miss Lucinda read all of a short story in the
Atlantic
and liked it very much. It was a gentle story. When she was reading, Miss Lucinda could forget almost anything, and now she could even forget her errand.

But after this fine start, the train lost impetus. It stopped at White Plains, went on reluctantly for a very short distance and stopped again. This time it stopped at what was, Miss Lucinda discovered by looking at signs, North White Plains. Having got this far, the train seemed entirely to lose interest. Looking up the corridor from the middle of the second, non-smoking, coach, Miss Lucinda discovered that it also lost its locomotive. But the sign had said Pawling.