Lieutenant?â
It hadnât been. But there was no point in insisting on discreet intentions. Weigand listened, dutifully, while the thunder rolled. After some time he was permitted to hang up, on the understanding that he had to solve the murder of George Merle within minutesâfifteen at the outsideâget Mary Hunter away from Mr. and Mrs. North and Mr. and Mrs. North out of the case, and send Sergeant Mullins immediately downtown with a report of progress for the press. Weigand looked at the telephone for a moment after he replaced it and sighed. In some ways, he thought, Inspector OâMalley was getting to be altogether too much like the elder Clarence Day. Life with OâMalley was something, too.
He got Mullins out of the detectivesâ room and sent him south, into the jaws of the inspector. He went in search of Laurel Burke, known sometimes as Mrs. Oscar Murdock. It would be interesting if George Merle, when he made his last visit to anyone, had thought he was visiting Mr. and Mrs. Murdock. It would be, perhaps, even more interesting if he had thought he was visiting only Mrs. Murdock, whose first initial was âLâ for Laurel.
5
T UESDAY , 9:30 P.M. TO 10:20 P.M.
Mary Hunter had seemed to be moving in a dream after Joshua Merle left Charles. She had finished her drink in a dream and eatenâor moved her food in a semblance of eatingâin a dream. After one or two efforts by Jerry North which brought almost imperceptible, but unquestionably negative, movements of the head from Pamâthey had left her in the dream. And having dinner with a sad, if pretty dreamer, haunted by her discovery of murderâand very possibly, Pam thought, by something moreâhad not encouraged either appetite or conversation. So the Norths had appeared almost as dreamy as the girl; it was evidently only absent-mindedness which led Jerry to order fresh martinis after they were at their table. Presumably it was only abstraction which led him to drink his thirstily, and his prolonged gaze at Pamâs half-full glass after he had finished was evidently only the gaze of a man who was thinking of something quite different. He seemed quite surprised when Pam pushed the half-full glass toward him, but the surprise passed quickly, with the martini.
The girl had merely acquiesced to their suggestion that a hotel on lower Fifth Avenue would be handy to where they were, and when she walked between themâthe necessary block or twoâshe might have been a sleepwalker. Only after she had registered and turned to the Norths from the desk did she make an effort to shake the mist from her mind.
Then she tried to make her voice casual, or seemed to try. She said they had both been wonderful.
âIt was an amazing thing for you to do,â she said. âYou must have thought I was crazyâto call that way on people I didnât know. To drag you intoâinto my mess.â
Jerry said it wasnât anything. The girl said oh, but it was. Pam looked at both of them. She spoke suddenly, with no abstraction at all in her voice.
âDo you know,â she said, âyou talk as if weâd filled in at bridge. Or paid your bill at a restaurant because youâd left your purse at home. Or told you that Commerce Street is two blocks down and one to the right.â Pam paused. âOnly it isnât, of course,â she said. âItâsâwhere is it, Jerry?â
âWell,â Jerry said, âitâs not really down at all. Itâs straight across, just about where Fourth Street and Twelfth Street cross.â
âYou,â Pam said, âare thinking of Bank Street. Not that it isnât perfectly naturalâBankâCommerce. But I meant the Cherry Lane Street. Thatâs Commerce. And itâs downtown, with a theater on it. Or used to be.â
Jerry North ran a hand abstractedly through his hair.
âLook, darling,â he said. âWho gives a damn