Murder in a Hurry by Frances and Richard Lockridge Page B

it. “‘Please arrange all family to dinner seven Monday,’” he read. “‘J. K. Halder.’”
    â€œSuccinct,” Pam said, and Bill Weigand, putting the telegram back in his pocket, said, “Right.”
    â€œAnd, of course, it proves Mr. Halder really did make the arrangement,” Pam said. “If somebody wanted to prove it. Only, of course, it doesn’t really, does it? Because usually they merely count and don’t even look up.”
    There was the slight pause which was, Liza was beginning to realize, the customary tribute to Pam North’s syntax. And yet it was not difficult: the actuality of the telegram might be supposed to prove the validity of the arrangement; it need not because someone other than Mr. Halder might readily have sent it and signed Halder’s name; it would be difficult to identify the person, Halder or another, who had handed in the message, if it had been handed in, since Western Union clerks usually counted, without looking up at the sender, the words in a message. It wasn’t, Liza decided, really clearer phrased so; it was merely longer.
    â€œAnyway, there’s always the telephone,” Liza heard herself saying. “To, I mean—”
    â€œOf course,” Pam said. “Much more likely. Only, easier to trace, wouldn’t it be, Bill? A record so they could charge?”
    â€œRight,” Bill said. “We’re checking. I think we’ll find Mr. Halder actually sent the wire. We may not.”
    â€œNobody admits knowing why?” Pam asked.
    â€œNobody,” Bill said. “After all, he may merely have wanted to see them about nothing in particular.”
    They seemed to come to dead end. There was a pause.
    â€œAnd nobody admits to knowing Sneddiger?” Jerry North was saying.
    â€œExcept Brian Halder,” Weigand said. “He met him once. As a matter of fact, he seems to have kept a little more in contact with his father than the others did. But Brian denies having seen Sneddiger for a couple of weeks. And the others say they never saw him before, although Mrs. Halder—Brian’s mother, I mean—admits she had heard of him.”
    â€œThey all—looked?” Pam said.
    â€œRight,” Weigand said. “After Miss O’Brien made the identification they all—looked. All normally upset, so far as one could tell. Nobody more than that.”
    â€œAll the same,” Pam said, “one of them should have been.”
    â€œOh yes,” Weigand said. “Yes, I think so. It’s hard to see it any other way.”

6
    Tuesday, 11:40 P . M . to Wednesday, 1:35 A.M.
    Lieutenant Weigand drove Liza home, in a convertible Buick which looked like any other convertible Buick, except that there were red-lensed lights where fog lights might have been. During the short drive through comparatively uncrowded streets, Weigand did not talk of the murder. He asked how long she had known Dorian, how they had met, in the casual tones of acquaintanceship. “Dorian’s wonderful, she’s tops,” Liza said and, without taking his eyes from the way ahead, Bill Weigand smiled and said that sort of remark was one for which he had never found an answer. “Except,” he added, “‘Right,’ which never seems particularly responsive. I do agree, of course.”
    â€œShe put me on to this chance with the cat book,” Liza said. “With Mr. North. He said he likes the sketches, incidentally. Do you—do you suppose he does?”
    â€œOf course,” Weigand said. “Otherwise he’d hardly have—also, I saw them. I like them myself. I even recognized the cats, you know. Whereas, in life, I’m constantly confusing Martini and Gin.”
    â€œOh, there’s lots of difference,” Liza told him. “The eyes, the expression, to say nothing of Gin’s being so much longer and having a tail like a whip.”
    He could