16

Saturday, 5:30 P.M. and Later

The Norths sat side by side at Charles’ bar and Bill Weigand came in and they moved so that he could sit between them. The Norths looked around for Mullins, and Weigand, who looked tired, smiled and shook his head.

“He’s gone to Newark to get something he forgot,” Weigand told them. “Where are the nieces?”

“At home,” Mrs. North said. “It turned out they are supposed to study and they’re studying. I think. I’ve told Jerry.”

“About the murder,” Jerry amplified. “About Vee-dee and Daffy and the use of ‘sick.’” He paused, doubtfully. “Which,” he added, “I still think anybody might have used.”

“Well,” Mrs. North said, “it worked. I knew. And, of course, there was the discrepancy about the man in the restaurant and the way Mrs. Williams was looking at him. That worked, too. But the little dark man did throw me off for a while.”

Weigand agreed that the little dark man had been a nuisance. Thinking how much of a nuisance, Weigand rubbed his head thoughtfully. There was still a faint bump. It made him think of Dorian, who also had a faint bump, and he said that Dorian was coming along presently, and why didn’t they all have dinner?

“Of course,” Pam said. “Martha can feed the nieces.”

There was a little pause while glasses were filled. Then Jerry North said that it was all all right, of course, but that he still didn’t fully get it. What happened, yes. He got that. But how Weigand knew, that he didn’t get. Granting the discrepancies—even granting the girls and their names. Mr. North looked at Weigand darkly and said it still wasn’t enough.

“It sounds to me like intuition,” he said. He said it with disapproval. Bill Weigand shook his head. He said that the pattern was obvious. Once the outline came clear, it was easy to fill in.

“The Iowa pattern,” Weigand said. “And the divorce pattern. Sproul was not supposed to be married; he was married and he was getting a divorce. In New York. Nobody had heard of his having been married in the east; it was a good guess that he was married in the Middle West before he came east. Demming knew something; Demming’s connection was that he came from Iowa. Hence—he knew something which had its origin in Iowa. The person who killed him, however, lived here, which indicated that one of the group here had his origin in Iowa, and that what he—or she—wanted to keep secret had happened there. Hence, it had happened a long time—a pretty long time—ago. So then—”

“So then,” Mr. North said, unforgivingly. “You used intuition.”

Weigand smiled.

“I guessed,” he said. “A marriage which had happened a pretty long time ago, interest by the murderer in something which had happened a long time ago; the New York divorce law and—well, the determination of a mother not to lose the children she had given her life to; to lose them to a man who had never shown he cared anything for them or would, if he got them, give them a second thought. Except, perhaps, to put them in schools somewhere and pay their bills. And you could guess that Sproul’s wife, if he had a wife, wouldn’t be fond of him—might, if she were that kind of woman, hate him. And, if she were hard enough and confident enough, kill him out of resentment, which might by now be hatred, and a desire to protect the things she had worked for—and got. And a determination to keep the children out of his hands. That more than anything.”

“He would have been bad for them,” Mrs. North agreed. “Terribly bad. You can—you can almost see how she felt.”

“Listen,” Mr. North said. “You just guessed this. Right?”

“Right,” Weigand said. “If you want the word, Jerry. I guessed. I thought—suppose Mrs. Sproul isn’t the sweet, deserted little homebody tending flowers out in Iowa. Suppose she is here. Then it was Mrs. Williams. It had to be.”

“I—” Jerry began.

“Because,” Bill Weigand told him, “she was, if nothing else, the only woman the right age. The only one with children. The only one—”

He broke off, because Pam North had turned in her chair and was staring at the door. The men turned and stared with her.

Beth and Margie both looked radiant as they came in. They both had sailors.

“Those girls,” Pam said, “are unfair to the army. They ought to be—they ought to be picketed.”