Murder Has Its Points by Frances and Richard Lockridge

Weigand went down into the area and opened the bookshop door and, from some distance, a small bell tinkled. For the moment, nothing else happened.
    There were shelves of books on either side of the narrow shop. There were two easy chairs with their backs to the street windows; there was a table beside each chair, and on each table a spray of cigarettes in a pewter container. A long table ran down the center of the room, and there were books on it in varicolored jackets. Waiting, Bill Weigand looked at the books. A small stack of Gardner Willings’s latest. Several titles in French. Two titles by Marquand. Cozzens was represented; Anthony Payne was not. There were light footsteps from a rear room and a girl with dark hair and large dark eyes, with a singularly white skin, came out of it. She wore a loose sweater and a tweed skirt and loafers.
    She said, in a somewhat faraway voice, and in a soft voice, “Can I help you? Or would you prefer to browse?”
    It occurred to Bill Weigand that the words had been learned by rote; had been planned, whether by the girl or someone else, as a conventional expression of a detached, noncommercial attitude. Certainly the pretty girl spoke as if she were weary of the words. She spoke entirely without animation.
    And yet, as she had come into the room, there had been animation in her young body. Much can, Bill Weigand believes, be told about people by the way they move. (He sometimes wonders whether it was not extraordinary grace of movement of which he was first conscious when he looked, long since, at a girl named Dorian. But he can no longer think of Dorian Weigand in segments.)
    This dark girl moved freshly, muscles quick in supple body. Only her voice was tired, indifferent, as if her mind went slowly through its motions.
    Weigand wondered if he could see Mr. Self. In the same tone of detachment, of indifference, she said that she was afraid Mr. Self was out. But if there was some particular book? If an especially rare book he would, indeed, have to see Mr. Self. But—if, perhaps, he wanted them to search for a book? She could make a note of what he wanted—
    â€œNo,” Bill said. “Nothing like that, miss—”
    He gave her opportunity. She did not seem to hear him.
    â€œI wonder,” he said, “if you’ve got Payne’s new one in stock yet? Anthony Payne? The Liberators , I think it’s called. Out yest—”
    He stopped because the girl had drawn back. It seemed to him that her dark eyes widened; that the tiny muscles around them set. Her skin had been white, but with glow under it. Suddenly her face was flatly white.
    â€œWhat do you want?” she said. Her voice did not increase in volume; it was still a soft voice. But its whole timbre was very different.
    â€œWhat?” he said. “Why, Anthony Payne’s new—”
    â€œNo,” she said. “You brought his name up, didn’t you. To see what—what I’d do?”
    And that, of course, was true enough. There might be one very pretty, dark-haired, dark-eyed, girl in James Self’s shop and another in his life—one (what had Willings said?) “tender” girl. It had seemed worthwhile finding out. He had, he thought, found out.
    Candy from a baby, Bill thought. A singularly defenseless baby.
    â€œWho are you?” the girl said. And then, unexpectedly, “I suppose, whoever you are, you’re very proud of yourself.”
    Bill found that he wasn’t, particularly. Policemen have to take candy from those who have it. The girl wasn’t, certainly, stupid. Merely—innocent? Merely “tender”?
    â€œRight,” Bill said. “I’m a detective. And—”
    â€œWhat do you want to see Jim about?” The voice was a little higher now.
    Bill managed, he hoped, to look surprised; even to look blank.
    â€œWhy,” he said, “Payne’s killing, miss.” He tried to get surprise into his