Read Online Murder Has Its Points by Frances and Richard Lockridge - Free Book Online Page B

said. And forgotten saying?”
    (What were you afraid you might have said? And fogotten saying?)
    â€œGoodness,” Lauren said. “I didn’t have the faintest. That was it. I thought you understood that. I just—there was a gap. It disturbed me a little. That was all.”
    (Oh, come now.)
    â€œAnd,” Lauren said, “it’s been dear of you, and I feel so much better, just having a chance to—to talk. Even if I didn’t make much sense.”
    She got out of the deep chair. Her movement was without effort, remarkable for grace. Not frail at all, obviously. Whatever one thought on seeing her first. Lithe, if one came to that.
    â€œThe more I think of it,” Lauren said, and smiled again and this time held out a slender hand, “the more I think my barging in this way was quite unforgivable.”
    Pam shook her head. Lauren Payne’s expressive face changed suddenly. It seemed to droop, to lose contours.
    â€œIt’s all so meaningless,” Lauren said, and spoke slowly. “So—so horribly without meaning. Somebody—somebody half crazy—shoots a gun, just—just to shoot a gun—and kills somebody like Anthony.” She put both hands to her forehead, covering her eyes. She held them there a moment, took them down, said, “I’m sorry. But it would almost have been better—” She broke off. “The police do think it was that, don’t they? What they call a sniper?”
    â€œI suppose so,” Pam said. “At least—yes, I suppose they do.”
    â€œSomebody they’ll never catch. It’s all so meaningless.”
    Pam thought of several things to say. What she said was, “Yes.”
    Stilts accompanied Mrs. Lauren Payne to the apartment door, and would have gone farther with her if Pam had been less quick. The door closed, Pam put the dancing cat on the floor and spoke to her.
    â€œWhat,” Pam asked her dancing cat, “was she afraid she had said? Doesn’t she know her husband got Blaine Smythe fired, and that I can tell casual acquaintance from something else whatever the direction of the wind? And if she wants to know what the police think, why doesn’t she ask the police? Because she knows we’re friends of Bill Weigand?”
    â€œYow-ough?” Stilts said.
    â€œYou may well ask,” Pam North said.
    There was no point in wasting further time on the case of Anthony Payne, deceased. There were, certainly, aspects of interest. Mr. Payne had, it appeared, given several persons cause to dislike him, most obviously a burly man with a red beard; quite probably a man—undescribed—named James Self; possibly a wife or two; avowedly a harried playwright-director. Which had nothing to do with the case. A man may be hated by hundreds and die, quite by accident, under a ten-ton truck. Or, as is always more likely, quietly in bed. Or, which was more apposite, as the chance target of a madman. In the mind, write “Closed” to the case of Anthony Payne.
    Captain William Weigand, at his desk in the squad offices in West Twentieth Street, stamped the word “Closed” across his mind and the telephone rang on his desk. That would be Mullins, Sergeant Aloysius, reporting the results of cooperation with detectives of the Charles Street Station in connection with a suspicious death in a furnished room in Bank Street. (Probably suicide, but one or two things didn’t check.) Weigand picked up the receiver and said, “Weigand.”
    Not Sergeant Mullins. Captain Frank, commanding, Fourth Detective District. Surprised to find Weigand around so early. (Weigand had been at his desk for some forty-five minutes.) In re this Payne kill.
    â€œI thought—” Bill Weigand said.
    â€œSure. So did I. Only—this character on the roof. Turns out to be an old client. You know Brozy?”
    Weigand did not know Brozy. It would do Bill good to get around more. Bill