Read Online Murder Is Served by Frances Lockridge - Free Book Online Page A

in a language she did not understand. The man seemed to be angry, and once he pounded on the table.
    They would know now about what she had written, as well as about Tony. They would know that she had been there, because that would not have been forgotten in the planning. They would be looking for her, they would be stopping up the holes.
    She tried to remember just what she had written, and found she could not. How much did I say, she thought; how much did I tell? Can they tell from what I wrote who I was thinking of, who I was hating? That I was hating a man whose blood was on a desk, in whose neck there was a knife? That I was talking—to myself, to no one—about killing a man who has been killed? What did I write, and why did I write at all? To free myself, to discharge myself? To—to share the feeling, somehow, with someone else? With Mr. Leonard, who looked at me so often; who looked at me that way?
    Almost at once, after she had turned the blue book in, she had wished that she had not written what she had. She had been embarrassed when she thought of it and it had not helped when Weldon, being told of what she had done, had said, “For God’s sake, Peg!” in a voice of angry unbelief. She had told him in the elevator and, but only after she had spoken, had realized that others in the class were in the car and could hear her—that Cecily was there, and Randall Cooper and the older woman who thought, who could be felt thinking, that Peggy Mott used a make-up too smooth, too finished, for a college classroom, or for any place.
    â€œI wrote about hatred, Wel,” she had said. “How I hated—you know. About how much fun it would be to stick a knife in him and twist it.” And then Weldon, suddenly angry, had said, “For God’s sake, Peg!” Everybody would remember what she had said; even Weldon would be forced to admit she had said it. And Cecily would not need to be forced.
    The audience around Peggy Mott laughed because a cartooned wolf had been blown through a roof and was using its ears in a futile effort to fly above a cloud.
    â€œRight, Mullins,” Lieutenant William Weigand said. “Let them in.” Mullins said, “O.K., Loot.”
    â€œAnd Mullins,” Bill Weigand said, “quit calling this place the Male Ox, huh?”
    â€œO.K., Loot,” Mullins said. “It’s spelled that way, just about. Why do they spell it that way, then?”
    Bill merely shook his head.
    â€œLet ’em in, Sergeant,” he said.
    Bill had taken over André Maillaux’s office. They came in; they filled it. They had press cards in their hats and some of them were in a great hurry. In the office they all started to talk. Those who were not asking questions told those who were to stow it, and give the lieutenant a chance. They quieted and waited.
    â€œI can’t give you much you haven’t got,” Bill said. “Somebody stuck a knife in Tony Mott, severed an artery and he died with his blood all over his desk. You know about Mott. We don’t know who did it. It was done, apparently, a few minutes before noon—the M.E.’s guess—by somebody who stood in front of him and used his right hand or stood behind him and either used his left hand or a backhand. Nothing about the wound to indicate which. Mott was sitting down—or standing in front of his chair, and slumped into it—apparently didn’t suspect anything. Maillaux found the body a little after noon. According to the girl in the office, at the switchboard, nobody went past her after Mott came in until Maillaux went to the door, called ‘Hiyah, Tony’ or something as he opened it and then yelled when he saw the body. There are a couple of other doors—one to his office, one to a corridor, so that doesn’t prove much.”
    â€œFingerprints?” the World-Telegram wanted to know.
    Weigand shook his head.
    â€œWiped,” he said.