A Key to Death Read online

  “Somebody came in,” Mullins said.

  “Right,” Bill Weigand said. “I’d think so, sergeant. Enter, a murderer.”

  III

  Tuesday, 3:05 P.M. to 5:55 P.M.

  When Pam and Jerry North have lunch together they commonly spend more time about it than they plan to, or than is for any practical purpose necessary. Such luncheons, usually for no especial reason, tend to become minor celebrations—the signing of wills, after long consideration and much postponement, might well have provided occasion for celebration, or the fact that it was Tuesday. But they had not signed wills, and it was anything but a good Tuesday, for this time a friend had died.

  Forbes Ingraham had not been a close friend, but he had been a pleasant one of rather long standing. Each in his own way was thinking of Forbes Ingraham, and not of the manner of his death, as they stood on a windy sidewalk in front of the elderly, and most dignified, office building and waved at passing taxicabs. It was Pam who suggested they forego the luncheon they had planned; Pam who said it wouldn’t seem right, somehow, because, in spite of themselves, they would enjoy it. The logic might be contested, Jerry thought, and smiled down at her—the logic but not the spirit.

  So the cab, when one answered, dropped Jerry at his office, which (he thought) was certainly where he ought to be if things were to be in any sense cleaned up for holiday, and took Pam home. It would, she decided there, be a good afternoon to balance her bank statement. That should keep her mind off things. She, therefore, shut herself away from cats, who were made furious—Martini clawed at the very best chair, in reprisal—provided herself with abundance of scratch paper and went at it. If she could only, she was thinking in ten minutes, remember to do them as soon as they came, instead of a week afterward when they were harder—

  In half an hour, she had struck a balance, but it was evidently not the right balance. It had better not be. She must, she decided, be subtracting the wrong thing from the other thing, or perhaps adding a deposit to a withdrawal. Pam thought, with care, slowly. You take your present balance, and add to it the sum of the checks that haven’t gone through, and that will be what the bank says the present balance is, if you add deposits that haven’t—Was that really the right way? The way she had done it the month before, when it really had balanced, if you didn’t count the odd cents and took into account the deficit left over from the month before? Or was it better to deduct the outstanding checks from the balance the bank had decided on and then subtract the deposits—No, surely you didn’t subtract deposits. If you added what the check book showed to what—

  “This,” Pam North said aloud, “is perfectly ridiculous. I’ve done this dozens of times. You take what doesn’t show in the book and add it to what doesn’t show in the statement and then—” Pam leaned back. She put the pencil in her mouth and chewed it absently. The funny thing, she thought, is that I’ve always rather liked the taste of lead pencil since I was a little girl. Only there was that awful time when it was an indelible pencil. I’ll just keep cool and add all the ones that are out to what the book shows is in and then—

  She did this. She now apparently had in the account four hundred and sixty-six dollars and the cents—but forget the cents—less than she had thought she had. This was extremely depressing. If it was going to stay this way, it would be silly of them to try to go to Florida. Of course, they weren’t going to go on this account, but still—

  Sometimes when you added down, you got an entirely different answer than if you added up. The thing to do was to start over entirely, because otherwise you made the same mistakes again. Pam copied figures into a column, being very careful to keep the decimal points in a straight line, because if you started adding the cents in with the dollars it was hopeless. (She had done that once and come up with a bonanza of nearly a thousand dollars, but Jerry had checked her figures and lost the money. This had depressed both of them.) “And carry three,” Pam said, “and nine is twelve and six is eighteen and seven is twenty-three and—”

  It came out better. It came out too much better. Now she had a hundred and twelve dollars (and the cents) more than she ought to have. It was—

  “Damn!” Pam North said. “If it takes all afternoon I’ll—”

  But then the telephone on her desk rang.

  Phoebe James’s voice had velvet in it. She had heard only an hour before about this awful thing that had happened—about Forbes. The richly soft voice shook then. “About Forbes,” Phoebe James repeated, and it was as if she repeated the name to make herself believe. “You were friends of his, weren’t you? You and your husband?”

  “Yes,” Pam said. “It is hard to believe. When only last night—” She did not finish. She felt that Mrs. James merely waited, did not listen.

  “Can you,” Mrs. James said, “is there any chance you can—have tea with me this afternoon? I—” She stopped. “I want to see you,” she said. “You and Mr. North.”

  “Why—” Pam said.

  “Please. If you possibly can. About five?”

  “Yes,” Pam said. “I think so. I’m almost sure, really. Unless Jerry can’t get away.”

  “Try. Please try. I’m at the Westminster. In East Fifty-first, you know? Tell your husband it’s—I’d like to see you very much.”

  Pam looked at the telephone for a moment after she had replaced the receiver. She had thought they would be out of this one, except for what Bill told them; except for what, and that so without pertinence, they had already told Bill. But the urgency in Phoebe James’s beautiful voice—

  Pam dialed North Books, Inc.; got Jerry; heard him say, “Now listen, Pam—” finally heard him say, “All right, I suppose so. I’ll meet you there. I had thought—”

  “Good,” Pam said. “In the lobby.”

  She replaced the receiver, and was confronted with columns of figures. She shook her head; she put the pencil back into her mouth, and chewed it gently. She said, “Oh well,” and made a new listing of the checks which had not cleared. She added this column until, on two additions, she got the same total. She substracted the sum so arrived at from the balance shown on the statement. She drew a double line across the stub sheet in her check book, so wiping out all that had gone before. Below the double line she entered the new balance, dating it.

  “Let them,” Pam North said, “have it their way.” As, she added to herself, they will in any case; as they always do.

  She spent time with the cats, who then were pleased with her. She lowered them from her lap, and they were no longer pleased. She went to the kitchen, and told Martha that, the way it looked, they wouldn’t be home for dinner.

  “You weren’t home last night,” Martha said. “This leg of lamb I was going to do yesterday—there’s a limit to legs of lamb, Mrs. North, even in the refrigerator.”

  “I know,” Pam said. “Why don’t you take it home, Martha? Before it does?”

  To this Martha said, “Yes’m,” but over it she shook her head. Pam shook her own; this was no way to save for Florida, and only a few days left. Pam bathed and dressed, and now she could not make her mind forget murder. It was about that that Phoebe James wanted to see them, of course; wanted so insistently to see them. She took a cab to the Westminster, which is a residential hotel of some elegance. She was a few minutes early, but Jerry was not appreciably late. He looked, however, like a man who has spent a day at the office and for this, seeing Pam—who looked like a lady dressed for tea, although hatlessly—apologized mildly. He also said that it would be nice to have a little time at home, some time.

  They were announced, rode up in an elevator which (a little gratuitously Pam thought) provided a cushioned bench. They went along a carpeted corridor and rang the indicated bell, which responded musically with chimes. A uniformed maid opened the door for them, took their coats, preceded them across a foyer into a long room. Mrs. Phoebe James, who wore a black dress, and was very grave, came toward them, down the room. She’s very handsome, Pam North thought. The velvet voice s
aid it was wonderful of them to have come. “I know I’m imposing on you,” Phoebe James said, and merely smiled and shook her head slightly when this was denied. She said that she was having tea, but that there were alternatives; said she knew most people didn’t expect tea when asked to tea; said, “Forbes keeps telling me—” and put a long-fingered brown hand up so that the fingers for an instant covered her eyes. She swallowed. She said, then, “I’m sorry.”

  “I’d love tea,” Pam North said, quickly.

  “I—” Jerry said, and just perceptibly hesitated.

  “Wouldn’t,” Phoebe James said, and suggested whiskey. Or a cocktail? Jerry, so urged, chose a martini. Mrs. James rang and they waited. She rose from a deep chair—all the chairs were deep, as the carpet was deep. The apartment inclined to wrap itself around its occupants. She walked to a window and said that they must see her view, and they saw her view, which was New York from height, lighted and so spectacular. “People are so much smaller,” Phoebe James said, and turned away as the maid brought tea, a pitcher holding more than one martini, a chilled glass. “Thank you, dear,” Phoebe James said, and looked at the tray, found it complete. “We’ll ring if there’s anything more.”

  She poured tea, then, not hurrying as the maid walked the long length of the room and out of it. She handed a cup to Pam, watched while Jerry filled his glass. She put her own cup down on a little table, and did not drink from it.

  “Forbes and I were in love,” she said, then, and spoke as if the sentence, in its simplicity, had for some time been formed in her mind. She did not look at them when she spoke, but did so immediately she had spoken.

  “It’s an odd thing to say to people who are almost strangers,” she said. “I assume a great deal. Demand a great deal.” She looked from one to the other. Then she smiled faintly. “I wouldn’t have a character say it that way,” she said. “Not so—barely. I’d write in—oh, little gasps. Little verbal gasps.” She looked directly at Jerry. “You know,” she told him. He nodded his head.

  “Only,” she said, “it was as simple as that—as final. I’m—well, I’m almost fifty.” She shook her head. “I’m quite fifty,” she said. “Forbes was older, a few years older. I’ve been married twice. And so—Forbes and I were in love. And now it’s a story I tell to strangers.”

  She sipped from her teacup, finally.

  “A story told to strangers,” she repeated. “That would make a title, wouldn’t it? Probably it has.” She put the cup down, very gently. She said, “Damn! I—I always listen to the words. It’s a trick of the trade. But I wouldn’t have written it the way it was. Lovers—they’re always young, aren’t they? In their twenties, or thirties at most. Or very dewy and in their ’teens and hesitant—so prettily hesitant, so God-damn hesitant. People in their fifties wear slippers and sit by fires, and kiss each other on foreheads and worry about the younger generation.” She stopped.

  “I’m not very coherent,” she said. “I am usually quite coherent. Your cup is empty, Mrs. North.”

  Pam looked at her cup. Surprisingly, it was empty. “It’s dry work listening,” Phoebe James said, and Pam held out the cup. As she filled it, Phoebe James’s hand was entirely steady.

  “Why did he die?” she said. “I have to know. You see why I have to know. All this was so you would.”

  “We don’t know,” Pam said. “How could we know, Mrs. James?”

  “I want—” Mrs. James said, and sipped from her cup. “I want you to help me find out. You’ve found out things like this—things about murder. You’ve—”

  “Wait,” Jerry said. “We’re not detectives. We’re just people who—” He paused. “Who know a detective,” he said. The truth, he thought uneasily, is so seldom convincing. “That’s all, really,” he added, weakening it further.

  “I’m not,” Phoebe James said, “suggesting you are for hire, Mr. North. But—I’ve thought recently I might change publishers and—”

  “No,” Jerry said. “Oh, we’d like to have you. Who wouldn’t? But—no.” He paused. “Not on this basis,” he said, and uneasily realized that, so, he left a door not quite closed. Or not, at any rate, quite locked.

  “The police won’t find out,” Mrs. James said. “Or, not if it’s a certain way. They—well, they won’t be allowed to. Unless somebody else finds out enough to make them. I’m going to find out. If you won’t help me—” She stopped. “Forbes Ingraham was your friend too,” she said. “He was fond of both of you, and he wasn’t fond of a great many people. Last night he was alive. He laughed, remember? He held that cigarette holder in his left hand and gestured with it in a certain way he had. He spoke in a certain way—used certain words. His mind was a kind of light. Today, somebody switched the light off. Like that—click—out.” She raised her teacup, but seemed not to know she had done so, and did not drink from it. “You can’t not care,” she said, and spoke very slowly.

  “It isn’t that,” Pam said. “It isn’t that at all. But, what can we do? That the police—”

  “I know a great many of the people Forbes knew,” Phoebe James said. “I know more about them than the police can ever find out—from what he said, from what I’ve seen, and listened to. Even if the police tried they couldn’t—”

  “Wait,” Jerry said. “You said something like that a minute ago. That the police won’t try. They won’t be allowed to, you said. That simply isn’t true. What did you mean by that, Mrs. James?”

  “What is your friend?” she said. “A lieutenant? A captain?”

  “Acting Captain.”

  “And over him, inspectors and chief inspectors and a commissioner, and over the commissioner—all the men who run the city. The men who sell protection, collect from the rackets. Suppose your friend is the most honest cop who ever lived. You think he can’t be stopped? Taken off the case? Sent to some sort of Siberia? So that it can all be covered up.”

  “What?” Jerry said. “What do you think they’d want covered up?”

  (Whatever we say, we’re getting into it, Pam North thought. And—she knows it. Pam considered. I guess, she thought, we’re pushovers at heart. Unconsciously, she sighed.)

  “Can’t I get some hot tea?” Phoebe James said. “Because—you’ll at least listen. I know you’ll listen.”

  “Well,” Pam North said, and looked at Jerry. “I think this time I’ll have a drink, Mrs. James. A martini, I guess.”

  The maid was rung for, instructed.

  “Have you,” Phoebe James said, “heard of a man named Matthew Halpern? A labor leader? He’s been indicted for embezzling union funds. Last night at the restaurant, he was the man Forbes saw at the bar.” She looked at them. “You did know that?” she said.

  “We heard that today,” Pam said. “Bill Weigand told us. He’s our detective.”

  “Forbes was Halpern’s attorney. Forbes talked about it to me. Generally—about what it meant, why he got into it. Because, it was outside his usual practice, of course. His usual practice—well, it was with people like me. That’s how we met. But you know that, Mr. North. Everybody like us knew that.”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Halpern is being framed,” Mrs. James said. “Forbes was certain of that. By racketeers—gangsters, really—who are trying to take over the union. So they can turn it into a racket. And—Forbes has been digging into it. I don’t know what he’s found out. He didn’t tell me that. Perhaps he found out too much and—”

  The maid returned. Phoebe James waited until she had gone out again.

  “Perhaps what he found out was dangerous,” Mrs. James said. “I don’t know. If he could manage it, Forbes would have done whatever he could to break up the racket. If men like that killed him, they’ll have protection. The police will protect them. Things are done that way. If—”

  “Not,” Pam North said, “by Bill Weigand. If you think—”

  “An acting captain,” Phoebe James said. “Just an acting captain. What—”

  Chimes sounded melodiously. The maid
appeared at the far end of the room, but Phoebe James said, “Never mind, dear,” and went into the foyer. She returned at once, not alone. Nan Schaeffer wore the mink still, loose on her shoulders. She was not surprised to find the Norths there. She held out a hand to Pam, then to Jerry; she maintained the fiction of a smile on stiff lips. This was prearranged, Pam thought; Mrs. James was very sure of us.

  “The four of us,” Phoebe James said. “The four of us can—”

  The office was small and bare and hot; the hot air smelled and tasted of dust. If, as charged, money was leaking from the union treasury into Matthew Halpern’s private pocket, he was using none of it to provide amenities—here, at any rate. He sat at a plain desk, in a wooden chair, on a felt pad; he was coatless, his shirt open, showing a corded neck.

  “I don’t know anything about it,” he said, not for the first time. “You won’t get anything different.”

  His voice had harshness in it, as if it had long been strained. He had shouted, Bill Weigand thought, in too many echoing halls, perhaps too often in damp winds on street corners. Fog rasped in his voice.

  “You were there, Mr. Halpern,” Bill Weigand said. “When you heard Mr. Ingraham had been shot, you got out in a hurry.”

  “She didn’t say he was shot,” Halpern said. “Something about his being hurt. Hurt bad.”

  “All right,” Bill said. “All the more reason. You didn’t stay around to see if you could help.”

  “There were plenty without me,” Halpern said.

  Bill waited.

  “O.K.,” Halpern said. “I didn’t want to get mixed up in anything. A guy gets hurt, chances are somebody hurt him. A guy who just sits at a desk, anyway. That’s the way I figure it.”

  Probably, Bill Weigand thought, on the basis of experience. He nodded his head. He waited.

  “I’ve been framed once,” Halpern said. “It didn’t look good, captain.”

  “You think it made it look better to get out?”