Murder Is Served by Frances Lockridge

“It sure makes you think.”
    He became, apparently, lost in the thoughts thus forced upon him. They went up the West Side Highway, swung right at 125th Street, continued up Broadway, turned right again and stopped. The Norths got out, paid and tipped. The wind took them, swept them into wide doors. A young man sitting at a desk marked “Information” told them they were wrong. This was the building, yes. But this was not a means of ingress. “The Dyckman Academic Theater, this is,” the young man said. “To get to the Extension offices you go out and around. Around to the right’s shorter. Go in the students’ entrance and climb the stairs.”
    â€œThere must be a way through,” Pam said. “It’s cold out there.”
    â€œPassages,” the young man said. “Subterranean. Full of old desks. And, anyway, I can’t let you. Against regulations. The regulations say out and around.”
    They went out and around. They walked with the wind behind them beside the tall building, which might have been any tall building. “No ivy,” Pam said, her teeth chattering. They found a wrong door, locked, and then the right one. They went into a corridor and faced a flight of stairs. “Even universities smell like schools,” Pam said. “It makes you think.”
    â€œIt’s a small world,” Jerry assured her.
    A stenciled hand pointed up the stairs toward “Offices of University Extension.” They started up. The first flight was only half a flight, ending in a landing, with double doors on the left and corridors leading off on the right. They started across the landing toward the next flight of stairs and stopped halfway, opposite the double doors, which were marked “Exit Only.” There was a sound coming from behind the doors; a human sound. It was a voice, it was a wordless moan.
    â€œOh,” Pam said. “No!”
    The moan came again.
    â€œOh,” Pam said. “Somebody’s—”
    Jerry North was already pulling at one of the double doors. It opened toward him. Just inside a man was lying, face down. Beyond him, the seats of an empty theater stretched away, around and down toward a stage. The man moaned again. It was a kind of “oh, oh, oh,” slurred into a single, continuing sound. Pam North held the door and Jerry knelt beside the man. Jerry touched him and then looked at his hands. There was blood on them. “Oh,” the man said. “Ohohohoh.” Gently, carefully, Jerry turned him a little so they could see his face. The eyes were closed.
    It was a familiar face. It was John Leonard’s face. Jerry pulled at his coat, opening it. The shirt was red around the left shoulder. More blood was seeping into the shirt from a wound under it.
    The movement seemed to arouse Leonard. His eyes opened slowly and he looked up at Jerry North.
    â€œLie still,” Jerry said. “You’ll be all right. You’ve been hurt.”
    â€œKnife,” Leonard said. “A knife. Wasn’t it?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Jerry said. “How do you feel?”
    Leonard started to get up.
    â€œNo,” Jerry said. “You’d better lie still. We’ll get somebody.”
    â€œI feel all right,” Leonard said. “It just—stings. I remember, now. He had a knife—whoever it was had a knife. I was—” Leonard could look down, now, at the blood on his shirt. He closed his eyes suddenly and let himself slip back onto the floor. “Makes me faint,” he said. “Always did. Since I was a boy. One of those things, I guess.”
    But his voice sounded stronger.
    â€œI’ll get somebody,” Pam said. “Where?”
    â€œThrough the theater,” Leonard said. “There’ll be somebody at the information desk in the lobby. Have him call the Medical Office. Only I don’t think it’s anything. Just the blood.”
    Pam