Murder Is Suggested by Frances and Richard Lockridge Page B

anyway—don’t you see?” Her eyes were very wide, questioning.
    Pam’s mind hurried. This tall—this touching—girl appealed for help, but appealed thinking Pam knew more than she knew, could respond more quickly. And now a question would seem—cold, unresponding. It would seem as if she did not want to help when—
    Pam’s mind hurried over what Bill had told them. Of course—
    â€œOf course,” she said. “Had met Mr. Hunter at the bookshop at three. But my dear—”
    â€œMrs. North,” Faith said, “I know what all of you think—Captain Weigand and you and Mr. North and everybody. And—it isn’t true. Carl couldn’t do a thing like that. And—why would he? Jamey was his friend. Jamey was helping him. You don’t know how much. And to think that he’d—he’d—”
    This time she did cry. She groped in her purse blindly and pulled out a draggled bit of tissue and dabbed at her eyes with the tissue.
    â€œWe’re so alone,” the girl said, her soft, low voice watery too, uneven. “Now with Jamey gone and—” She did not finish.
    â€œListen, dear,” Pam said. “Bill—that’s Captain Weigand—doesn’t think Mr. Hunter killed Jamey. At least, I’m sure he doesn’t.”
    â€œI know he does ,” Faith said. “And Hope’s right—why shouldn’t they think that, when he was there—or could have been there—?”
    Hope? Oh, of course. Faith called her mother by her given name. When childen did that—
    â€œWait a minute,” Pam said. “Tea or coffee?”
    The girl looked at her.
    â€œElevenses,” Pam said. “I always do.”
    Which is not true; which then seemed a good idea.
    Faith didn’t care which. She did not seem to think about it. She looked at her twisted hands.
    â€œJust sit still,” Pam said. “Here—have a cigarette.”
    The girl shook her head.
    Pam walked the length of the room, poked her head into the kitchen, said, “Coffee please, Martha,” and came back. The girl had not moved. Pam lighted a cigarette and said it wouldn’t be a moment.
    â€œI shouldn’t have come,” Faith said, rather suddenly. “I—I just had to talk to somebody. Somebody whose mind wasn’t already—made up. Because if I had been at the bookshop at three we could prove —”
    â€œOf course you should have come,” Pam said. “And nobody really thinks Mr. Hunter had anything to do with it.”
    She spoke firmly. And, she thought, I’d better cross my fingers, since I don’t know what Bill thinks. Except that, if he didn’t, Bill won’t think he did.
    â€œThey do,” Faith said. “All of you do. And Hope—She keeps saying she told me he wasn’t—”
    â€œWhatever your mother’s told you,” Pam said. “She doesn’t know any more about it than anybody else.” The girl looked at her with eyes very large. “Of course she doesn’t,” Pam said, in the tone—she trusted—of an oracle. “Now—”
    Martha came in with a tray, with two cups steaming. Instant, obviously, in so little time. Well, instant was all right.
    â€œDrink your coffee,” Pam told Faith Oldham, and demonstrated by sipping hers. Yes, instant. Good enough, though.
    â€œNow,” Pam said. “So far as I know, all there is against Mr. Hunter is that he was with Jamey a little while before somebody shot Jamey. And—I suppose there’s nobody else at the bookshop who remembers seeing him?”
    That supposition was reasonably obvious. It seemed, nevertheless, momentarily to startle Faith. Then she said that that was just it. There had been a lot of people at the bookshop, but none Hunter knew, and he had not bought anything, or even spoken to any of the clerks. It was just a place to meet—one