Murder Comes First Read online

  The car slowed abruptly; swung left off the highway.

  “Maybe he’ll figure an out,” the second man in the rear said, after he had regained his balance.

  11

  Tuesday, 7:35 P.M. to 8:15 P.M.

  It wasn’t, Barton Sandford said, at all unusual to leave electric power on in a summer cottage, even when the telephone was discontinued for the winter. Now and then, in late fall, even on mild days in the winter, they wanted to get out of town and come to the cottage and then needed electricity, but could do without a telephone. And they usually left a few things in the deep freeze, to have them handy. They’d got a big deep freezer that summer to—

  And then he stopped; then his eyes widened and his face set; then, in an odd voice, he said, “My God!”

  The five of them crowded the kitchen; Miss Lucinda, her eyes closed, sat by the fire. “So silly of me to make that mistake,” Miss Lucinda said to herself. “Cripland indeed.”

  There was a shining padlock on the deep freezer. Sandford and Logan, Lynn and Pam and Dorian stopped in front of it; looked at it. It seemed to Pam very cold here in the kitchen, away from the fire.

  “All right,” Sandford said. He selected a key from a chain of keys and opened the lock. He reached out. “There’s no use—”

  He lifted the top of the big freezer, and for a moment seemed unable to look down into it. Then he did look. And then, in a suddenly flat voice, he said that he’d be damned.

  “My God,” he said, “you really had me going there for a minute.” He turned to Pam North. “Look yourself,” he said. “You and that aunt of yours!”

  It was obvious that there was no point in looking; everything in Barton Sandford’s attitude told them that. But, during the few seconds after the idea had, it seemed, come to all of them at once—come when Pam talked of electricity, Aunt Lucinda became so suddenly cold—a vision had grown so uglily clear in Pam North’s mind that even the fact could not quite destroy it. The fact was that the freezer was empty; completely empty. It was a bitterly, needlessly, cold and empty shell. In it were not even the things one might expect to find in a freezer. Barton Sandford let the lid drop.

  “I tell you,” he said to all of them, “we’re crazy. She’s gone. She’s been here and left the typewriter, but now she’s gone again.”

  At first his voice had seemed to hold relief; as he continued, it grew more puzzled.

  “Damn it,” he said, “I’m afraid—”

  “Goodness me,” Miss Lucinda said, from the kitchen door. “I thought you understood. Not there now, of course. The closet—where I was.” She hesitated. “That,” she said, and now she swayed a little, and held to the door jamb for support—“that’s why it was so cold in there, I’m afraid.”

  It was Sandford who reached the closet door first this time, not Paul Logan. It was he who pushed aside the hanging, concealing clothes.

  The body of a young woman, unclothed, knees doubled up to chin, was at the end of the closet, fitted between its walls. It was, indeed, very cold in the closet, and the coldness was more—far more—than that of death.

  Wordlessly, Barton Sandford turned. At first there seemed to be no expression in his eyes; then his pleasant face contorted; then, with his hands out, clutching, he moved toward Paul Logan. And the slight, handsome young man drew back; drew back warily.

  “No,” he said. “You’re crazy, Bart. I didn’t—”

  “Paul!” Lynn Hickey said. “Paul! He’s—”

  “Stand still, Mr. Sandford,” Dorian Weigand said. “Don’t do anything.”

  Her voice was quiet in the room—quiet and decisive. And she had in her hand what must, surely, have been one of the smallest automatic pistols ever made. But it looked big enough.

  “Why!” Pam North said. “Why! Dorian Weigand!”

  “Bill’s idea,” Dorian said. “Stand still, Mr. Sandford. That isn’t the way.” Mr. Sandford stood still. “Since I got kidnaped,” Dorian said. “Of course, not always.” She did not take her eyes from Sandford. “Only when I’m with you, dear,” she said to Pamela North.

  “Well,” Pam said. “Of all things.” She looked into the closet. “Of all dreadful things,” she said, in a different voice. “All horrible things.”

  “All right,” Barton Sandford said. “I won’t—it’s all right, now.” His voice was steady, hard. “You killed her,” he told Paul Logan. “By God, I didn’t believe it. When—when I was saying it, I didn’t believe it.”

  “I didn’t kill her,” Paul Logan said. “You ought to know that. Because the only possible reason—a made-up reason—would be that I—I killed mother.”

  “You must have done that too,” Sandford said, and spoke slowly. “Tried to lay it on Sally. Killed Sally first—so you could. Used her key to—to—the freezer—” He paused and shook his head. “Such a damned hideous thing,” he said.

  “Yes,” Pamela North said. “It is hideous. Why, Mr. Sandford?”

  He looked at her. Momentarily he appeared puzzled.

  “Ask him,” he said, and gestured toward Paul Logan.

  “Not me,” Logan said.

  “Oh surely,” Pam said. “One of you can think. Someone—your wife, Mr. Sandford—is killed oh—almost six weeks ago. And—and frozen. Because—I’m sure you can think of the reason, Mr. Sandford.”

  Dorian still held the little automatic. But she looked at Pam North, and her expression was more puzzled than Sandford’s had been.

  “Please,” Pam North said, “just keep it pointed, Dorian. So—so if anybody tries—”

  “What the hell?” Sandford said. “I’ve said I won’t hurt the little—won’t hurt Logan.”

  “You see,” Pam said, “six weeks is a long time. But with—with the body frozen, there wouldn’t be any change, would there? Or—not much, anyway. So that, if Mrs. Sandford had been found a few hours from now, after she—after the body wasn’t frozen any more—anyone might think she’d just died, mightn’t they? That she had been alive when Mrs. Logan was killed; perhaps even been alive a few hours ago, when Aunt Lucy was hit—that she’d killed Aunt Lucy, because the poor little thing would have been dead then, and then herself. If—if there’d been a few hours. If Dorian and I hadn’t come—what would you say, Mr. Sandford—barging in?”

  “My God, Logan!” Barton Sandford said. “Was that the—?”

  “No,” Pam North said. “Oh no, Mr. Sandford. Not Mr. Logan, of course. You—Mr. Sandford. You can give the other up, now, because—Dorian!”

  But the warning was late, too late. By then, moving with sudden violence, Sandford had the little automatic. He held it, backing clear so that he could point it as he chose.

  “We’ve had enough of this,” Sandford said. “More than enough. We’ll call it off, now.”

  “Damn,” said Dorian Weigand.

  “It’s no use, Mr. Sandford,” Pam said. “You’ll never get away.”

  “Get away?” Barton Sandford said. “I’m not going to get away. I’m going to turn Logan in. Because you see, Mrs. North, you’re all wrong about it. Maybe part of your story’s right, but the man’s wrong. I—”

  But he stopped, because Pam was shaking her head slowly, with finality.

  “I tell you it’s no use,” she said. “I’ve known—oh, for hours. Because of the telephone, you know.”

  He looked at her. He said he didn’t get it. His eyes flickered to the telephone on the table between the beds.

  “Not that one,” Pam said. “Ours. The one you called me on yesterday, to invite me to lunch. You see, Mr. Sandford, you shouldn’t have known the number, should you? Because it’s not listed. But you did know it and it was written down in Aunt Thelma’s room at the hotel. She’d written, ‘Pamela,’ and then the number. You got it when you went to put the poison in her suitcase, of course.”

  “Somebody—” Sandford began, but again Pam shook her head.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “Of course, if you could prove it—prove that Jerry gave
it to you, or Bill Weigand or—any of the people who know it. But—you can’t, can you Mr. Sandford? Because nobody will lie for you, now, will they?” She looked toward the closet. “Maybe you killed the only person who would lie for you,” she said.

  “Sally!” Sandford said, and there was no simulation, now, of the surprise in his tone. “Not that one. She’d see me in—”

  And then he stopped.

  “You know—” he began.

  Paul Logan jumped him, then. He jumped recklessly, straight at the man who towered over him. Barton Sandford did not use the little gun to stop him. He used his fist, hard, catching the slight, leaping boy in the throat. Logan staggered back.

  “—too damn much,” Sandford told Pam North, and had her by the wrist, bending her arm behind her, pressing the little automatic against her body.

  Pam said, “Ow-w!” and twisted, kicking. But the pain in her arm increased and she was quiet, white-faced. She said, “Won’t do you any good,” and Sandford pulled her, by the twisted arm, close against him. Paul Logan, whiter than Pam, gasping for breath, moved to come in again, but Sandford moved the little gun to cover him—to cover him and Dorian. It stopped them. Sandford began to back out of the room, jerking Pam with him.

  “Even if you do kill me,” Pam said, but the words faltered. (Jerry! Why aren’t you here, Jerry? I’m—I’m afraid!)

  Pam was told, abruptly, harshly, to shut up. The voice hardly sounded like Sandford’s. It told her she talked too damn much.

  In the living room, he turned them about, with her in front, and pushed her ahead, moving rapidly across the room. She didn’t know what the others did; couldn’t think of what they might do.

  Jerry would be there, she told herself. Jerry and Bill and—and Mullins. He would open the door to push her through it and a voice would say—what would the voice say? It—this couldn’t be it!

  He reached around her and opened the door, and nobody stood in it. He pushed her through, and slammed the door behind them. He would make for one of the cars—the one he had hired; the Logan car, blocking the entrance. But he did not.

  He held her differently, now. He held her wrist and pulled her behind him. He was running, not toward the cars; running in the darkness down beside the house, beyond it, following a trail with his feet in the darkness. She stumbled and almost fell, and he yanked her up and kept going.

  She half ran, half fell, after him. She stepped sidewise on a stone and her ankle twisted, but he yanked her up again before she struck the ground. They seemed to be going down hill, as a road had gone once, long ago—a road now only faint openness among trees, a just distinguishable lessening of roughness under foot.

  “Stop!” Pam tried to say. “You can’t—” But there was no breath for words; the sounds she made were hardly words. She was told, again, to shut up; he wrenched again at the arm he held, and pain shot into her shoulder. She’d fall, finally—she’d fall—he would have to drag her—she did fall, but again he held her from the ground.

  “Stand up!” he said, and called her names. “Stand up, you—”

  She could not tell how far they had come, how far he had dragged her through the night along the faintness of the trail; she could see almost nothing, even as her eyes grew accustomed to darkness—only the big man in front of her; only that, the way they were going, there was a difference in the darkness. That was because—oh yes, the road had been cleared through trees; the greater darkness on either side was the darkness of the trees. They fled down a dark corridor in darkness. It would go on and on and—

  He stopped, pulled her again against him. At their right was—something. Then he had got a match from somewhere—no, a cigarette lighter—and the tiny light reflected from metal. A car, backed off at right angles to the trail—hidden there—

  “Your car,” she said. “The one your wife was supposed—”

  “I told you to shut up,” he said, and slapped her across the mouth with an open hand. “Shut up.”

  He dragged her around the car; low bushes tore at their clothing, fought to keep them from the car. A whiplike branch, pushed back by him and then released, stung across her face. Then they were beyond the right hand door of the car, and he was opening it, forcing her in. He pushed her under the wheel.

  “Get it started,” he told her. “Cut sharp right as you come out. Use the low lights.”

  She hesitated. He thrust the little gun against her side, bored it into her side. He said, “Get going.”

  She switched on the lights, threw the beam down as he directed; started the motor.

  “Cut it sharp,” he said. “Take it slow.”

  “There’s—there’s no road,” she said, and was told there was road enough. The lights showed there was—just enough. “Stay on it,” he told her. “Be damned sure.” He dug the little gun harder into her side.

  She let the clutch in, cutting hard to the right; letting the clutch slip as the car moved slowly out of the bushes, turned slowly onto the tracks which had to do for road. She stayed in low, let the car creep along the tracks. It was better not to die here—better to keep alive a little—

  Then the pressure of the gun against her was suddenly relaxed and the man beside her made an odd sound—a wordless sound, hardly more than an indrawn breath.

  “All right, stop it now,” a voice said. “We’re not going any place.”

  He had changed his—no, it was another voice.

  She stopped the car.

  “That’s right,” the new voice said. A light came on behind them; the beam from a big flashlight. “Sit still,” the new man said, and then the light moved as he, himself, got out of the back seat in which—in which, of course, he had hidden to wait for them. He was beside the car, now the beam full on them. “If you’ve got a gun, Sandford, I’d drop it,” the new man said. He had an automatic of his own; a much larger automatic. Sandford dropped the little gun.

  “Get out, now,” the man said. Then, unexpectedly, he whistled shrilly. “Get around in front where we can have a look at you.”

  Sandford got out. The man kept the light on him. “Come on,” he said to Pam. “You too.” She slid across the seat. Oh, they’d come! After all, they’d been in time! But—who were they?

  She followed Sandford into the area illuminated by the car’s headlights.

  “Well,” said the medium man—the man who had followed her up Fifth Avenue and back again, and into Saks. “Well, look who’s here. So—I was right that time, wasn’t I? All right, both you, get your hands where I can see them. Out in front of you, say.”

  “But I—” Pam said. “You don’t want me!”

  “Now sister,” the medium man said. “Now sister. Why ever not?”

  “Because I’m—” Pam began and stopped. “He was—was making me come along. As a—a hostage or something.”

  “Well now, think of that,” the medium man said, in his rather pleasant voice. “Just think of that, sister. Shows how wrong a guy can be, doesn’t it?”

  She looked up at him, her eyes wide.

  “Because,” he said, “I’d figure you were in it with him. Up to your pretty neck, sister.” He motioned. “Right up to here,” he said, and cut with the barrel of the automatic, quickly, across his own throat. Then he pointed the pistol again at them. Then he whistled again.

  “O.K.,” a voice shouted from the direction of the cottage. “Got ’em?”

  The medium man yelled back. He yelled, “Got ’em.”

  “O.K.,” the distant voice said. “Bring ’em along up.”

  They left the car, its lights still burning, and worked around it, Sandford first, Pam after him, the man with the gun and the light behind them. They went back the way Sandford had run, with Pam dragging behind him. With each step, Pam’s twisted ankle was pierced by pain. Seeing her limp, the medium man moved up to her, half supported her.

  They came around the cottage, came to the front door, which was open, with light coming out of it, with a man standing just outside.
The man said, “Hello, Sandford. Think you were going somewhere?”

  Sandford merely swore.

  “Tut tut,” the man said. “Ladies, Sandford. You’re pretty little—” He looked at Pam. “My, my,” he said, “what did you run into, sister?”

  Pam North pointed at Sandford.

  “He,” she said. “He—slapped me.” Then she realized she was crying. “And he killed his wife.”

  “Baby wants to sing, Saul,” the medium man said. “Boy, does baby want to sing.”

  “That’s nice,” Saul said. “That’s very nice. Take them along in. We’ve got quite a little nest of them in here.” His voice hardened. “Quite a nice little nest of lousy spies. Take them along—”

  But then he stopped. A car, its headlights blazing, stopped half off the road, blocked by the Logan car. Almost before it stopped, three men were out of it, running toward the house. Saul’s hands streaked under his coat and the automatic in the hand of the medium man leaped up.

  “Jerry!” Pam screamed. “Jerry! Look out. They’re—”

  The medium man fired and Pam screamed again.

  “Saul!” Bill Weigand yelled, and stopped. “Tell your damned G-boy to—”

  “Hold it,” Saul said to the medium man, the words snapping. “You’re a lousy shot. Look who’s here,” he said to Bill Weigand—to Jerry, to Sergeant Mullins. “You boys are right late for school.”

  Jerry kept on coming. He had Pam North in his arms. She clung to him, crying.

  “Jerry,” she said. “Jerry—they think I’m a spy!”

  “My God,” Jerry said, holding onto her tightly. “The things you get into! Listen, Pam—”

  But then he said nothing, but only held her close and let her cry.

  “I tell you,” the medium man said, apparently to Saul. “She was a contact. I figured all along she—”

  “It looks,” Saul said, mildly, “as if a lot of people have been figuring.” He looked at Bill Weigand. “Thought you’d get here first,” he said.

  Bill looked at Mullins. He looked at Mullins sadly.

  “O.K., Loot,” Mullins said. “I got us lost.” He looked at Pamela North, in her husband’s arms; he looked at her thoughtfully, as if about to make some rather prodigious comment. But then he said only, “It’s sort of confusing in the country, Loot.”