Read Online Murder Comes First by Frances and Richard Lockridge - Free Book Online

the easy one. He asked the Norths to tell again about the follower.
    The light had been from street lamps, leaving shadows. He had appeared and disappeared. A man of no characteristics outstanding in such light. About medium height; of medium weight; a soft hat worn to dip over the forehead.
    â€œI had an impression he was well dressed,” Jerry said. “I don’t know why.”
    The man had, Bill thought, been adept at his trade, or lucky at it. He had waited for a time, then gone. If he were trying to find Barton Sandford in what might, sometime, be termed a compromising situation, he had known the Logan house was not the place for it, since otherwise he would have remained. The presence of the police car, which any private operative would have recognized, had not immediately thrown him off.
    â€œThe murderer?” Pam North said. “But what would be the point?”
    Bill didn’t know. He said so. Then he made up his mind and took the Norths back down to the living room below.
    â€œMr. Sandford,” he said, “Mr. and Mrs. North passed you as you were coming here. They think you were being followed.”
    Barton Sandford looked at them blankly.
    â€œFollowed?” he repeated. “What the hell for?” He shook his head. “No reason to follow me,” he told them.
    â€œYour wife,” Bill said, “might conceivably have hired private detectives. For obvious reasons.”
    â€œThat’s impossible,” Sandford said, flatly. “Sally couldn’t—do anything like that. I told you, it hadn’t come to that, anyway. Not by miles.”
    Bill asked him if he had anything else to suggest.
    â€œSure,” Sandford said. “Your friends here dreamed it. Somebody happened along after me, maybe. There are a lot of people in New York. Who’d follow me? What would be the point?”
    â€œYou can’t think of any?”
    â€œLook,” Sandford said. “I’m a biochemist. Nobody important. Sure, my wife’s aunt has been murdered. And my wife’s off somewhere making up her mind about something. What’s in any of that to make some guy follow me?” He looked again at the Norths. “They dreamed it up,” he said.
    â€œRight,” Bill said. “They dreamed it up. But, I never knew them to before.”
    â€œWe—” Pam began, with some firmness, but Bill moved fingers at her and she stopped.
    â€œAll right, Mr. Sandford,” Bill said. “That’s all for now. You’re going back to your place?”
    He was going to eat, Sandford said. Then, probably, he would go back to his apartment.
    â€œDamn it,” he said, “I’d like to help on this.”
    He hesitated, uncertainly, as if half expecting to be asked to stay and help. But he was told only that, when there was a way he could help, he would be asked to. He left, then. A detective from the precinct, briefed by Mullins, drifted after him, keeping an eye out for any other drifter.
    It was, Bill Weigand said, as good a time as any to get something to eat. When Mrs. Hickey showed up, she was to be asked to wait. With the Norths, Bill Weigand went to a restaurant they had recently discovered on Central Park South, where martinis were crisply cold and filet mignon was thinly sliced and tender beyond anything which seemed likely; where service was rapid, if you wanted it so.
    When they had finished, stood outside in the dim, warm night, Bill hesitated, and the Norths waited.
    â€œYou may as well come back with me,” Bill said, then. “After all, Pam’s aunt—”
    It was as good a reason as came to mind, since policemen do not overtly solicit the aid of observant amateur eyes.
    â€œAnd,” Bill said, “the inspector won’t be there.”
    â€œThat’s something,” Jerry said, and the three went back.

4
    Monday, 12:05 P.M. to 3:15 P.M.
    Monday was warm again, and bright, but at a few minutes