Read Online The Norths Meet Murder by Frances Lockridge - Free Book Online

“You’ll tell me about it, right? Who left his name? Where?”
    Mrs. North said she wanted to begin at the beginning. The beginning, she said, was the Mortons, who were coming to dinner that evening. “And flowers,” Mrs. North said. “There’s a man over in the doorway who sells them for almost nothing. And—”
    â€œListen,” said Weigand. “He left his name? Right?”
    Mrs. North said she was coming to that.
    â€œIt’s a big clue,” she said, “but it goes in order or it doesn’t mean anything. It was when I was going out to buy the flowers because the Mortons are coming to dinner tonight. Right?”
    â€œRight,” said Weigand.
    Mrs. North had gone downstairs, on her way to get flowers, she said. It was about—“What time is it now?” Mrs. North said. It was a quarter of two, near enough. Then it would have been about an hour ago. Between 12:30 and 1. She looked in the mailbox to see if there was any mail for them, and there wasn’t. “But there was a letter in the wrong box,” she said.
    â€œThe wrong box?” Weigand asked.
    â€œThe fourth-floor box,” Mrs. North said, “and I thought I’d wait and see if it was for us.” So she had waited, knowing the postman was due about 1:30. “Timothy,” she said. “That’s the postman’s name. Timothy Barnes.” He was the regular carrier and the Norths both knew him. “Because he brings so many books,” Mrs. North explained, “and they won’t go in, so he has to ring.”
    Weigand felt that he was galloping, but he was getting used to it. Once you got the hang, you could keep up quite easily, playing leapfrog with words. He nodded.
    â€œSo Mr. Barnes said he would look to see if it was for us,” Mrs. North explained. “He thought it might have been the substitute carrier on the 11 o’clock delivery.” She was being very clear and careful, now, Weigand could see. Mullins made an occasional low, bewildered sound, and tried to take notes. Every now and then he would look at his notes and make a discouraged sound.
    Mrs. North said the carrier had looked at it and it was, so he let her take it out.
    â€œAnd was that the clue?” Weigand said. Mrs. North looked at him, as if he should have known better. She said certainly not, it was an announcement from Saks of a private sale. The clue was under it.
    â€œUnder it?” Weigand said.
    â€œIn the bottom of the box,” Mrs. North said. “After I got the letter out of the wrong box there was still something in the bottom.”
    â€œOf the fourth-floor box?” Weigand said. “Where the murder was?”
    Mullins made an even lower and more discouraged sound; now, the sound said, the Loot was getting that way. Weigand himself felt oddly elated and triumphant.
    It was the fourth-floor box, Mrs. North agreed. And after she had taken the letter out there was still a little slip. She had known at once it was a clue. She had persuaded Mr. Barnes to leave the box open while she went up and got a pair of manicure tweezers and she had fished it out with them.
    â€œNot touching it,” Mrs. North said. “Fingerprints, you know.”
    Weigand said he knew.
    â€œAnd it had his name on it,” Mrs. North said.
    â€œWhose?” said Weigand. “I mean—can I see it?”
    That, of course, was what she was explaining for, Mrs. North said. It was a clue, so naturally it was for him. Nobody had touched it except with the tweezers. “Right?”
    â€œExactly right,” Weigand agreed. Mrs. North said she would go and get it, and she went and got it, bringing it out in the tweezers. They laid it down on the coffee-table and looked at it. It was a slip of rather stiff paper, an inch and a half long, and about half an inch wide. There was a name lettered in ink on one side of it. The name was: “Edwards.” The size and