The Norths Meet Murder by Frances Lockridge Read Free Book Online Page A

could be done by telephone.
    â€œArty doesn’t think so much of the idea, anyhow,” the office lieutenant informed him.
    Weigand hadn’t thought Arty would. Nor did he suppose Arty would think so much of the other idea, which was for a canvass of cigar-stores with pictures. The canvass might, Weigand thought, begin in the neighborhood of the murder, although there was no particular reason to think the murdered man lived there. Afterward it might broaden out. The Bureau decided, reluctantly, it could give five men to that and Weigand realized the murder was making a stir. He got his newspapers from in front of the apartment door, when he had finished with the telephone. The murder was making a stir, all right; it had, Weigand gathered, everything. There were pictures of the house, and of the bathroom—without body—and of the Norths. Mrs. North looked surprised and interested, Weigand noticed. There were no pictures of the body, except a few shots in one of the tabloids, taken at some distance and after the body had been covered. Nobody, the newspapers reported, knew the identity of the victim, nor the time of the murder. The Norths, he was pleased to notice, had evidently been cautious about what they said to the press.
    Weigand went downtown to Headquarters and waited for reports. It was dull business, and he took a hand in telephoning to the purchasers of electric razors. Most of them were alive and well, or had been when they left home that morning. Two wives who answered gave small shrieks, and, apparently, fainted. About every fourth call gave no response and had to be put aside for further investigation, along with a smaller pile of reports which left matters in the air. It was slow work and probably, Weigand thought, futile. He was explaining to an alarmed Italian woman that her husband was, so far as he knew, in perfectly good health and importing the olive oil he had gone forth that morning to import, when a call came. He hung up on expostulations, and said “Yes?” into the other telephone.
    â€œDetective Stein, Lieutenant,” the voice said. “Got him, I think.”
    Weigand was flooded with pleased astonishment, and demanded particulars. Stein was, he said, in a United Cigar Store on Sixth Avenue, about three blocks from Greenwich Place. It was only the third store he had tried, and the clerk was pretty sure.
    â€œFellow named Brent, he thinks it is,” Stein said. “A lawyer.”
    Weigand told him to stick around; that he would be up. A squad car took him up. The clerk was certain, by now, and pleased with himself.
    â€œHe’s been coming for three years, Mr. Brent has,” he said. “That’s him, all right.” He pointed at a photograph, retouched to lessen the facial injuries as much as possible, taken in profile to hide them still more.
    â€œThat’s the angle he always stood at,” the clerk said. “Put one elbow on the counter and talked a minute, he did. Came in almost every day and just stood there while I got the cigarettes; always the same brand, always two packs. He didn’t ever have to order when I was on.”
    His name was Brent, which was as far as the clerk could go. He could go so far because Brent had come in once or twice with friends who had called him by name. Once one of them had said, to Brent, something about “you lawyers” and after that, when they were talking, the clerk had asked Brent if he were a lawyer and Brent had said he was.
    â€œI like to find out about customers,” the clerk explained. “Makes the job more interesting, somehow.”
    Weigand agreed that it would do that, and started things rolling by telephone. It was easy to find the Brents who were lawyers. There were only three of them. It was easy to discover, by telephone, that two of the legal Brents were in their offices, deep, it proved, in conference, and that the third had not yet come in. It was not, indeed,