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

have done anything.”
    â€œI don’t understand it,” Paul Logan said. “Everybody loved mother. It must have been—it couldn’t have been planned.” Then he seemed to see Barton Sandford for the first time. He said, “Everybody loved her, Bart.”
    â€œThat’s right,” Barton Sandford said, his voice gentle. “That’s right, Paul.”
    Grace Logan’s son was, Bill thought, in no condition to be questioned. They would have to wait until—
    â€œI didn’t find her, Bart,” Paul said. “It was the last thing mother asked me to do, and I was no good at it. No damned good.” His voice was bitter.
    â€œFind her?” Sandford said. “Find who, Paul?”
    â€œWho?” Logan repeated. “Why, Sally. Didn’t you know?”
    â€œNot me,” Sandford said. He added that he didn’t get it. He looked at Weigand and his eyebrows went up and he shook his head slightly.
    â€œWe’ve been trying to find you,” Bill told Paul Logan. “You were somewhere looking for Mrs. Sandford? Why?”
    â€œMother’s—mother was worried about her,” Paul Logan said, and his face contorted again, briefly, as he made the change in tense.
    The younger man turned to Barton Sandford.
    â€œShe thought you were—well, too casual about it, Bart,” he said. “That Sally must be in some kind of trouble.”
    â€œFor God’s sake,” Sandford said. He reddened slightly. “Sally’s my wife. Couldn’t Grace ever—” He stopped abruptly. He said, “Sorry, Paul.” He hesitated a moment, and said, “Your mother was hearing from Sally every couple of weeks. Sally was all right.” He turned to Weigand, and said he supposed it was obvious enough.
    â€œSally’s left me,” he said. “Not permanently, I think—I hope. She said something about things not working out right, that she had to get away for a while and think about things. I tried to talk her out of it, and couldn’t. She took her car and promised to write and—and said she hoped she’d come back. It’s nothing to do with this. I’ve told people she’s on a trip, which God knows is true enough. She can take care of herself.” He turned back to Paul. He said Grace should have known that. Again he said he didn’t get it.
    All Paul Logan knew, he said, was that his mother had become worried. Perhaps it was something in one of the letters. He didn’t know.
    â€œShe knew how you felt,” Paul told Sandford. “She said, ‘Maybe I’m a foolish old woman’ but—but she wasn’t old. Not really. She—” He seemed about to lose control, then to regain it. “She asked me to go to St. Louis, where Sally’s last letter came from—to find Sally and talk to her, and see—well, just see if she was all right.”
    â€œShe’s all right,” Sandford said, and now his voice was a little harsh. “She wants to be left alone.” He looked down at Paul. “Look,” he said. “People grow up. Some people.”
    It was getting a long way from Grace Logan’s murder, Bill Weigand thought. But he let it go; perhaps it was merely going the long way round, in some fashion not now clear. More probably, it was merely one of those things about people that come out when lives are slashed by murder; one of those things with no value, no application, of no use to him as a policeman. But he let it go. He listened.
    Logan had flown out to St. Louis and been unable to find Sally Sandford there. She had written on the stationery of a hotel, but she wasn’t at the hotel.
    â€œAnd,” Logan said, “she hadn’t been. That’s what they told me, anyway. No record of a Mrs. Sandford.”
    It had been, apparently, like stepping up for a step that wasn’t there, coming jarringly, flat-footed, on an unexpected