Murder Comes First by Frances and Richard Lockridge Read Free Book Online Page A

processes outside them.
    Bill Weigand told him he was doing fine.
    â€œDon’t get the idea I think she was domineering,” Sandford said, still earnest, his wide-spaced eyes intently on Weigand’s face. “Nothing like that. She was a fine person. She just might—” He stopped.
    â€œHave rubbed someone the wrong way?” Bill suggested, when Sandford did not continue.
    â€œNot that much,” Sandford said.
    Bill didn’t answer that. Somehow, it was evident, Grace Logan had rubbed someone the wrong way—possibly, of course, merely by continuing to be alive.
    â€œDo you,” he asked, “know whether Mrs. Logan had been in touch with your wife? Since your wife’s been on vacation, I mean?”
    â€œSally’s written her,” Sandford said. “Grace showed me the letters. But just ‘I’m here for a few days, everything’s fine.’ That sort of thing.” He paused again. “Wrote her oftener than she did me,” he added, with a note in his voice half rueful, half bitter. “But that’s nothing to do with this.”
    â€œMrs. Logan wrote your wife?” Bill asked. “The point is, if they were close, as you say, if there was something troubling Mrs. Logan, or frightening her, she might have confided in Mrs. Sandford.”
    Sandford shrugged and spread his hands. He said he supposed Grace had written his wife. He supposed she might have confided, if she had had something to confide.
    â€œThe fact is, I don’t know,” he said. “At the moment it’s all—all a little beyond me.”
    â€œYou know where your wife is?”
    Sandford flushed then. He shook his head slowly.
    â€œNot precisely,” he said. “In the middle west, somewhere. St. Louis. Kansas City. One of those places. She’s driving.’”
    She was, Weigand thought, apparently driving away from Sandford. But that should have, as Sandford said, nothing to do with this.
    â€œBy the way,” he said, “do you happen to know where we can reach Mrs. Logan’s son? There seems to have been some mix-up about his plans. He’s not—”
    â€œLieutenant,” Mullins said from the doorway. “Mr. Logan just showed up. He—you’d better talk to him, Loot.”
    Mullins stepped aside and let Paul Logan pass him into the room.
    Mrs. Logan’s son was slight, at first glance—and perhaps now particularly—he seemed almost frail. Probably, Bill thought, taking a second glance, the appearance of fragility was deceptive, was heightened by the delicate modeling of his face. When he was even younger, Bill thought, they must have called him “pretty boy,” and he must have hated it. Now, still appearing very young—younger than he could be if Sandford’s chronology was right—he was rather extraordinarily handsome. Now he was very pale, his face contorted.
    â€œThey say,” he said to Weigand, his voice uncertain. “They say—mother—”
    â€œI’m afraid so,” Bill said. “I’m sorry.”
    â€œIt’s—it’s hard to believe,” Paul Logan said. He put a hand up to his forehead, rubbed with slim fingers between his brows. (Lynn Hickey could have told Weigand that, unconsciously, Paul had copied this gesture; could have called it symbolic.) “She was—” He broke off. “ Why wasn’t I here? ” he said. “Why?”
    â€œShe died very quickly,” Bill said. “Nobody could have done anything. There wasn’t time.”
    â€œShe was always so well,” Paul said, as if he were groping in his mind. “She—you’re here because she was killed?”
    â€œYes,” Bill Weigand said.
    â€œHow?”
    Bill told him. He said it was very quick.
    â€œIt must have been—agony,” the boy said.
    â€œIt was very quick,” Bill told him. “Only seconds. Nobody could