Murder Is Suggested (20 page)

Jerry thought a moment. He said he supposed shooting a man, even on his instructions, would still be a criminal action, involving consequences if proved. The circumstances, if they in turn could be proved, would probably extenuate—to some extent.

“And,” Mrs. Oldham said, and now there was bitterness in her tone, “you want me to—to help turn my daughter—the poor, helpless child—over to—to that? Call the police in and say, ‘Here she is. Do what you want with her'?”

She was dramatic; it was all shrill, overdramatic, as implausible as a dream. It was all—

“Jerry,” Pam North said slowly, “it could be the way she says. Couldn't it? Is there any reason it couldn't be? Except—oh, it's bizarre. But—it's possible, isn't it? And—it fits together in a strange, awful way. And—”

She let herself run down. She looked at Jerry and, as she had earlier, Hope Oldham looked at him too, her blue eyes intent. It was as if they both waited a decision, looked to him for it. Which was, Jerry thought briefly, almost the most bizarre thing about this, admittedly, bizarre interlude.

In his mind he put it together, slowly—a need for money, a desire for power; one of two men turning on the other at the end—to hurry the money, perhaps to end the power. They knew only the surface, and that only by hearsay, of the relationship between Jameson Elwell and his protégé, Carl Hunter. Perhaps—There was an infinite range of the perhaps. Hunter, if the “Mr. H.” of Elwell's book, as there was no reason to think he was not, was skilled in hypnosis. Faith had turned, apparently very suddenly, from the highly “eligible” Arnold Ames to the notably less “eligible” Hunter. It was quite conceivable that Hunter, if he had wanted evidence favorable to himself—he might have thought the police closer to the truth than, as far as Jerry himself knew, they had been—might have persuaded Faith to wound him slightly. (Trusting optimistically to her marksmanship.) With hypnotic technics or, for that matter, without them. Women in love will sometimes go to considerable lengths. A girl inexperienced, as Faith seemed to be; suggestible, as her mother thought her—well, such a girl might be persuaded to go to quite considerable lengths.

“I suppose,” Jerry said, “it could be fitted together this way. I wonder if Bill—”

But there was, aside from Mrs. Oldham's stated objection, an obstacle to getting in touch with Bill Weigand, and asking him if he had thought of this bizarre theory and, if he hadn't, putting it to him. Bill was off somewhere, probably in search of Hunter. He could, of course, be reached, in time. But if Hunter had the girl, if he was in any way what Hope Oldham thought he was—

“She's all right as long as she's not married to him,” Pam said, and Jerry realized that, once again, Pam's thoughts paralleled his. Mrs. Oldham looked at him, her pale eyes very intent. It was almost as if she waited for words sure to come.

“If,” Jerry said, “Hunter really has this influence over Miss Oldham he could—take care of that, couldn't he? Simply by taking her to some place—it used to be Maryland, maybe it still is—where there isn't any need to wait to get married. Once they were married—if there was an accident driving home—” He did not finish.

Hope Oldham covered her face with her hands and her body began again to shake. Again Pam went to her. And this time, one of Hope Oldham's thin hands closed on Pam's wrist, closed trustingly. The movement was touching; Pam felt sudden tenderness, a sudden need to protect this tormented woman.

“We just sit here,” Hope Oldham said, almost in a whisper. “Just sit here.”

There was no reproach in the words, in the tone; there was a kind of resignation in both. But the reproach was, nonetheless, implicit. She had turned to them for help; they were not helping. To hold shaking shoulders, say “there, there” is not helping. Pam turned and looked up to Jerry, looked anxiously.

Anything, or almost anything, would be better than nothing. Get Bill and tell him; failing Bill, get Mullins. Jerry was at the telephone again, dialing again. “Homicide, Stein speaking.” Lucky it was Stein; Stein knew him, time was saved.

Mullins had just left, on instructions from Weigand, presumably to join Weigand. Stein had not himself taken the message. He did not, therefore, know what was up. He would find out. Could he get the captain on the radio? He could try; have the dispatcher try. Have him call Jerry? Right. Meanwhile—

“A girl's—” Jerry began, but Hope Oldham gave a little gasping cry. “Never mind,” Jerry said. “I don't think there's anything you can do. Yet, anyway. When we get hold of Bill—”

Stein said, “O.K., Mr. North.”

Nevertheless, the police would have to be told. Mrs. Oldham could not protect her daughter from two things at once—from Hunter, from the police. She would have to be brought to see that.

“He can make her say anything,” Mrs. Oldham said, still in a low voice, now almost as if talking to herself. “Make her do anything. I know he can—
know
he can. Make her say dreadful things—make up things. We just sit here. We—”

“There,” Pam North said, ineffectually. “There. It will work out all right. You're making it worse than—” Than it was? Of course. Hold to that assurance, steady on that. Mrs. Oldham was—what did they say? “Beside herself.” Things like this—

“It is comparatively easy for an experienced operator to get a good subject to throw what he believes to be acid toward the face of a person protected by ‘invisible' glass. However—”

The sentence popped into Pam's mind. She tried to eject it. Elwell had said “however.” On the other hand—was the pattern of events in which Mrs. Oldham so apparently believed any stranger, any more difficult to accept than that a man or woman, on instruction, should try to maim, to blind, another, presumably without hatred, without hysteria?

“Nothing he couldn't make her say,” Mrs. Oldham said, still as if talking to herself. “Nothing—nothing too wild, too cruel. Nothing—”

“There,” Pam said. “There, there, Mrs. Oldham. We'll find her. Nothing will—”

I go on saying meaningless things, Pam thought; go on making meaningless sounds. “There.” What does “there” mean? Why say “there, there” when you are trying to soothe, to comfort? Why not—

Pam North stood up very suddenly.

“Over,” Pam said. “Not down.
Over
.”

They both looked at her. Jerry ran fingers through his hair, a little convulsively.

“She said, ‘I'll come over,'” Pam said. “Wasn't that it, Mrs. Oldham. ‘Come
over'?”

“Yes,” Hope Oldham said. “Come over.”

“Not down,” Pam said. “Don't you see? Doesn't either of you see? If she had been coming here, she'd have said, ‘I'll come down.' Because she lives uptown and we here. And if she'd been going to—oh, say the university—she'd have said ‘up.' We all do if we live in Manhattan. But—‘over.'” She waited.

“I don't know,” Jerry said. “East side. West side. Possibly. But—” The “but” was doubtful.

“Or,” Pam said, “
to the house next door.
That's what we used to say. Our house was in a row of houses and the girl next door would say ‘come on over' and I'd say—Don't you
see?”

“Well—” Jerry said. “It might be. But—Mrs. Oldham, when she went to the professor's house from your house, didn't she go through the laboratory? And you saw her going out the front door and—”

“Probably,” Pam said, “Bill took the key. I'd think he would have. And—Mrs. Oldham, did she have a key to the front door? Of the professor's house?”

“Yes,” Hope Oldham said. “And this dreadful man—that would be the place he'd want her to come. It's—it's all arranged there.”

She stood up abruptly.

“If Bill took one key,” Jerry said, slowly, to Pam, “I imagine he'd take the other. If Faith had both.” He paused. “Of course—” he said.

“Hunter would have a key,” Pam said. “There were records and things, and if the professor wasn't there and—and nobody was there—”

“
That's it
,” Hope Oldham said. “That's where he's taken her. That—”

She started, abruptly, toward the door.

The Norths consulted, without words. They started after her. Pam paused for a moment; picked up the black purse Mrs. Oldham had left on a table. “You're forgetting,” Pam said, and held the purse out to the frail woman. “Or would you rather I carried it?” Pam said, not knowing precisely why she made the offer.

Hope Oldham reached for her purse, the movement automatic, and opened the door before Jerry could reach it and hurried—almost ran—along the corridor toward the elevator. They went after her.

Bill Weigand drove down the sloping block, past the two houses which stood shoulder to shoulder. There were lights visible in neither, which proved nothing. Lights might blaze in rooms at the rear of both, for all one could tell from the street. Bill had to drive almost to the end of the block before he found a place to park the Buick. And, with it parked, he sat in it and waited. He had a wait of about ten minutes. Then a police car, unmarked—at least to public eyes—came down the street. It passed the Buick, moving slowly, looking for a lodging. It reached the end of the block and turned right, and Bill continued to wait.

Sergeant Mullins, in due course, walked up the block and opened the Buick door and got in. He said, gloomily, that somebody ought to do something about the parking problem. “There ought,” Mullins said, “to be a law.”

“There is,” Bill said. “Now—”

He talked briefly. Mullins said “Yeah,” twice and “Uh-huh” twice and, “But listen, Loot,” once only. Bill finished and Mullins said, “Uh-huh,” thoughtfully and then, “It leaves quite a lot out.”

“Right,” Bill said. “Ever know a time a lot wasn't, sergeant? That half of it gets thrown away?”

“There's that,” Mullins agreed. They got out of the car and crossed the street and walked up it to the two Elwell houses. They went down two steps to the entryway of the Oldham house and rang the doorbell. They rang it several times, and waited some minutes, and Mullins said, “Too bad we haven't got a search warrant.”

“Very,” Bill said, and Mullins took a leather container of keys out of his pocket and tried one of three. “Right on the nose,” Mullins said. “Comes from living right.” He turned the key and they went into the Oldham house.

It was quiet. They listened, not disturbing the quiet.

“Have another try at the bell,” Bill told Mullins, and Mullins reached back through the open door and pushed. The bell rang loud in the house. It rang several times.

“We could yell,” Mullins said, and closed the door behind them.

“We could,” Bill said. “We won't. If there's anybody here, they heard the bell. If they wanted visitors—” He left it unfinished.

There was nobody in the two large rooms on the ground floor; nobody in the kitchen, nobody—dead or alive—in the single bathroom. They went up a flight. The front room—Mrs. Oldham's living room—was empty. So was the bedroom off it—a bedroom with a single window on the street; a narrow room. There was nobody in the bathroom off the corridor which led to the rear of the house; nobody in the two rooms there, the larger obviously Faith's, the smaller apparently a guest room. There were only two closets, one for each of the larger rooms. Mrs. Oldham had a good many dresses in hers; Faith had fewer. Hope Oldham's dresses, Bill thought, were “younger” dresses than her daughter's. There was nobody, dead or alive, in either closet.

“There's the basement,” Mullins said. He spoke in a very low voice.

“Go and look,” Bill said, and Mullins went downstairs, very quietly, and looked and came back after a few minutes and shook his head.

They climbed the last flight, and Mullins took the key case out. But Bill Weigand patted air with his hand and then put an ear to the heavy door. After a moment, he stepped aside and motioned Mullins, and Mullins put an ear to the door. He stepped back in turn and they moved several steps down the flight.

“Can't get the words,” Mullins whispered. “Can you?”

Bill shook his head. They went back to the door. Mullins eased a key into the lock, nodded, and turned gently—very gently, very slowly. There was a tiny metallic sound. They waited. Nothing happened.

Tenderly, by fractions of the inch, Mullins pushed the door open. A crack was enough for the moment.

The voice inside the laboratory of the late Professor Jameson Elwell went softly on.

12

The cab stopped and they went, single-file, Hope Oldham first, between parked cars. Mrs. Oldham was, as she crossed the sidewalk, groping in her big bag. She did not pause, did not wait for Pam and Jerry North. She bent down a little, putting a key in the lock, turning the key. She pushed the door open and they went into the Elwell house and then Hope Oldham called her daughter's name.

And there was no answer. She called again, and no sound but her voice broke the silence in the house. Jerry found a switch; a muted light came on in a ceiling fixture.

“We're—” Hope said, and turned and looked at the Norths, her eyes seeming to pick up the light. “We're too late,” she said.

But Jerry shook his head at that.

“If they're here,” he said, “if he brought her here as—for the reasons you think—to hypnotize her—to—”

He stopped.

“To what,” he said. “What exactly?”

She looked at him, and seemed amazed.

“Why,” she said. “Get her to say—make her
think
—that she killed the professor. Get her to confess. I thought—didn't I say that?”

“No,” Jerry said. “But—if he's trying that, he'll probably try in this laboratory. Where, as you say, it's all arranged. Set up. And—the lab's soundproofed.”