Murder Comes First by Frances and Richard Lockridge

worry about me. Tell Bart I’m all right and still thinking.’ The envelope was postmarked in Kansas City, twelve noon Friday. We’ve asked the K.C. police to see if they can find her. Of course, she may have gone on by now.”
    â€œActually,” Pam said, “she may be any place by now.” Pam pointed out the existence of airplanes. “Not that I would on a bet,” she added. “They run into things. The ground, mostly.” She paused. “Speaking of airplanes,” she said, “why didn’t the letter get here Saturday?”
    That one had an easy answer. The letter had not been sent by air mail.
    â€œJust signed with an ‘S,’” Pam said. “But I suppose you checked the handwriting?”
    The letter, Bill told her, had been typed. Only the signing initial was handwritten. But, before Pam got ideas, they had no doubt the letter was from Sally Sandford. Grace Logan had kept her niece’s recent letters and several older ones, written before Mrs. Sandford had left her husband to think about whatever she was thinking about. The letters were all typed, and all, at the most casual glance, on the same typewriter—an old one certainly, a machine with the letter “r” canted to the right and the letter “e” perceptibly below alignment.
    â€œWe’ve checked with Sandford this afternoon,” Bill said. “Showed him the letter. This was before we were told about the finding of the cyanide, incidentally. He identified the letter as from his wife; said the signature “S” was characteristic, and that he’d recognize the typescript anywhere. He said she always typed letters, on a portable Underwood she’d had for years.”
    â€œOf course,” Pam said, “anybody who had the typewriter could write the letter. And anybody could forge a single initial, I’d think.”
    â€œRight,” Bill agreed. “So?”
    Pam didn’t, she admitted, see where it got them. She merely said it was strange that there was a mystery about Sally Sandford, and at the same time a mystery about her aunt’s poisoning, and Sandford’s being followed.
    â€œAnd my being,” she said. “Also, about why Mrs. Logan and Mrs. Hickey quarreled. Mr. Sandford thinks he knows that, incidentally.”
    She told Bill about that. As she repeated what Barton Sandford had suggested, she suddenly stopped.
    â€œLook,” she said. “Suppose Mrs. Logan was right. Suppose the girl is, as Mrs. Logan thought, ‘hard’—hard enough to—to eliminate obstacles. Particularly since, I suppose, Paul gets his mother’s money?”
    â€œRight,” Bill said. “Sally Sandford gets fifty thousand. He gets the rest. Perhaps another two hundred thousand.”
    â€œThen,” Pam said, “why not? The girl. Or the girl and Paul. Or the girl and her mother. Oh, when you come to that, just her mother?” She began to tick off on her fingers. “Or Sally, for the money or something we don’t know about,” she said. “Or even Sandford, so his wife would get the money? Or—”
    â€œBecause,” Bill Weigand said, “your Aunt Thelma had cyanide in her possession, opportunity, a motive of sorts.”
    â€œPlanted,” Pam North said. “Anybody could have got into her room. I could have. There’s a little suspicion on her, and the murderer wants there to be more, so he does.”
    Jerry pointed out that they were going in circles and went to make more drinks. The cats jumped to the chest to assist. Sherry put a paw on Jerry’s hand, apparently to stop the movement of the mixing spoon; Gin happily smelled lemon peel; Martini made herself into a chunky boat, paws curled under her chest, and watched with enormous, unblinking blue eyes. Jerry spoke to her and she closed the eyes slowly and then reopened them. Gin, after apparently considering it, decided not