Hanged for a Sheep (3 page)

In a long, dark-blue dinner dress, Pam sat in front of the dressing table mirror and regarded herself. She nodded to herself, in reasonable contentment and again wished Jerry were there.

“Particularly,” she thought, “if there are going to be murders. But I don't suppose there are, really. It wouldn't be like Aunt Flora to be poisoned.”

She slipped through the door carefully, but Toughy was too quick for her. He bounced past her into the hall, galloped to the head of the stairflight, and stared down. Then he bristled, and the hall—the hall and the whole stair well and probably the whole house—was filled with indignant barking. Toughy snarled and bristled and a young voice said, indignantly, “Oh!”

A brown cocker was pulling up the stairs, restrained by a green leather leash. At the other end of the leash was a slender girl. She was hatless and her black hair swept down to her shoulders. She pushed it back, looked up indignantly through dark blue eyes and said, in an indignant voice, “A Cat!” The brown cocker, his suspicions thus countenanced, bounced at the end of the green leash and barked with every bounce.

Pam moved quickly. She swept Toughy into her arms and was rewarded by scratches which Toughy had been intending for the cocker. Toughy wriggled and stared back, still hissing. But Pam opened her bedroom door enough to push him through, closed it quickly enough to thwart the emerging Ruffy, and turned to face the cocker and the girl. The cocker was allowed to bounce on to the landing, and the girl followed him. She said, “Pam! Hullo darling. Is it yours?”

“Yes, Judy,” Pam said. “Sorry if we frightened Nemo.”

Judy Buddie shrugged it off.

“Although,” she said, “we'll have to keep them apart. It's nice to see you, Pam. Did you just come?”

Pam told her when she had come. Judy was interested, but abstracted. She had, she explained, to rush.

“Grandma wants everybody to dress,” she said. “I expect it's for you, Pam—although Grandma always likes it. She says she likes people to look pretty. Can you picture Uncle Ben looking pretty? But the cocktails will be better. They always are when we dress. Did you ever notice?”

“Cocktails always are,” Pam told her. “It's because we're always more dignified and—formal. Or so Jerry always says.”

“Where is Jerry?” Judy wanted to know. “Grandma didn't say anything about him.”

Pam told her. Judy hesitated a moment, said “Oh” in a certain tone, seemed uncertain whether to go on or stay, and then went on rather abruptly. Judy was very young, really, Pam realized. It was hard at twenty to know when and how to end a conversation. Judy, followed reluctantly by Nemo, who wanted to investigate the door which sheltered the cat, went on up the stairs. Then she paused, leaned rather perilously over the balustrade—with casual disregard of a possible drop of better than fifty feet down the stair well—and called back, “Cocktails in the library. Be seeing you.” Then, evidently conscious of social duty smoothly performed, she went on up the stairs, slim legs flickering behind the iron balusters.

Not Judy, Pam decided; it couldn't be Judy. The administration of arsenic to a wealthy grandmother, and particularly to one so unexpectedly perspicacious as Aunt Flora often proved herself, would be an undertaking requiring poise. Aside from everything else, attempted murder would embarrass Judy. She wouldn't, Pam decided, know which way to turn.

“And poisoners have to,” Pam decided, going down a flight to the library. The door leading from the hall to the library, which stretched across the front of the house and was under Pam's bedroom, was open and when she entered Pam thought for a moment she was the first. But Benjamin Craig arose with dignity from a low chair by the fire and advanced toward her, a plump hand extended and a plump face smiling carefully.

“Cousin Pamela!” Benjamin Craig reported, with an air of pleased surprise, although it was improbable that he was really surprised. “How delightful!”

“Hullo, Ben,” Pam said. Of course, she thought, he really is my cousin, but why make an issue of it. She looked at him. “You're looking well,” she told him. Benjamin always liked, she knew, to be told how he looked. Now he nodded.

“Fine,” he said. “Never better. And where's that young man of yours?”

Jerry would appreciate that, Pam thought, allowing her hand to be enfolded by Benjamin Craig's plump, warm hand. Because after all Ben couldn't be over fifty—couldn't even be fifty—and Jerry wasn't so young as all that. However—

“Texas,” Pam told Cousin Benjamin. “Reading a book.”

Which is strictly true, she added to herself, waiting with anticipation for Cousin Benjamin to be confused. He merely blinked and continued to regard her as if she were a long lost depositor.

“How's the bank?” Pam enquired, one thought leading to another.

The bank was doing well enough, it appeared. But Benjamin Craig permitted an expression of concern to cross his soft features, indicating that the bank was still much on his mind, however he might unbend. He was about, Pam suspected, to go into the bank in detail, but Aunt Flora intervened. Aunt Flora came briskly through the door from the hall, looking very much like a red top except that she was not spinning. She said “Oh, here you are,” to Ben and, “Have a nice rest, dearie?” to Pamela. Neither remark seemed to need, or to expect, an answer.

“My feet,” said Aunt Flora with feeling. “And why don't you ring for Sand, Ben? It's time for a drink.” She thought this over sternly as she deposited herself in the most comfortable chair. “Past time,” she added, nodding vigorously from the waist. Her wig slipped a little, Pam thought. Ben rang. Flora looked at Ben and Pam affectionately. She looked at Ben a second time and said, with a maternal note which came a little unexpectedly, that he looked tired. Ben accepted this comment much as he had Pam's assurance that he was looking in the pink. He nodded, appreciatively.

“The bank, you know,” he said. “But it's nothing. A glass of sherry, perhaps.”

Sand appeared momentarily at the door, but drew back to let Major Buddie precede him. Major Buddie came in solidly, one foot firm after the other; shoulders very straight and very broad; face ruddy. Sand came behind him, by way of contrast. Major Buddie marched forward, bent crisply and kissed his mother's cheek, said “How'r'y?” to Ben and turned to Pamela. He said “Hello, young lady,” to Pam and took her hand firmly.

“Hello, Alden,” Pam said. “You're looking—”

Major Alden Buddie, Jr., was not impolite but he was not interested. He broke in.

“Oh, Sand,” he said. “Rye and plain water, will you?” Sand bowed. Major Buddie turned back to Pam, raising his eyebrows in step. “Martini,” Pam told him. She went on, a little hurriedly. “Aunt Flora and I are drinking martinis today.”

“Out of a small shaker,” Aunt Flora reminded her. Sand said, “Certainly, madam.”

“No olives,” Aunt Flora said, on second thought. “You can't tell. Recesses.”

Benjamin Craig and Major Buddie looked at her with vague interest and then at each other. Ben smiled and Major Buddie accepted the smile. That was the way mother was, the half-brothers agreed. Pam shook her head very slightly at Aunt Flora. Ben ordered sherry, and the major, suddenly very businesslike, demanded that somebody tell him where the girls were.

“Gadding about,” he said, with disfavor.

“Not Judy, anyway,” Pam told him. “She came in a few minutes ago. With Nemo. He barked at the cats. At one cat, rather.”

“Cats?” said Major Buddie. “What cats? Who's got cats?” He looked suspiciously at his mother.

“I have,” Pam told him. “Very nice cats.”

She said it defensively. But Major Buddie surprised her.

“Of course,” he said. “All cats are nice.” It sounded very obvious as he phrased it. “Where are they?”

Pam told him where they were. She said that she would take him to see them, or bring them to see him, after dinner. If he liked.

“Naturally,” said the major. “Always like to see cats. Some sense to cats. The others—always yapping. Bite, too.”

That must be dogs, Pam decided. Then she remembered. It was a family joke; Major Buddie, who was afraid of nothing else that anyone knew about, was afraid of dogs. Or was, at any rate, unhappy in the presence of dogs. He had a chance to prove it almost at once, because Nemo entered. The cocker observed the family group, and the major observed him, haughtily. Nemo rounded the major, flattened himself at Pam's feet and smelled her shoes. He looked up at her with doubt and went to Aunt Flora. He put his forepaws on Aunt Flora's precipitous knees and looked at her longingly. She pulled his drooping ears and he extended his right paw. She took it and his soft brown eyes filled overwhelmingly with devotion.

“Hello, everybody,” Judy said from the doorway. “Oh—Dad! Sorry about Nemo. Come here, Nemo.”

Nemo went. Judy snapped the green leash to his collar and pulled him into the hall. She returned, alone.

“Hooked him to the banisters,” she explained. “Dad doesn't like him much, do you, Dad?”

“No,” the major said. “Where's your sister?”

Judy answered almost too quickly.

“She wanted me to tell you,” she said. “She ran into a girl she used to go to school with and—and—. You know how it is, Dad. She said not to wait dinner, because she might be late. It was Mary Conover, I think, and you know—.”

She's talking too much, Pam thought. Too much and too—too
anxiously
. But then Sand came in with a tray and bottles and glasses and Judy stopped, as if she were glad to stop. Sand put the tray down on a side table, poured drinks and passed them. Pam watched him pour martinis from a small shaker into clean glasses; watched Aunt Flora's glass until she lifted it from the serving tray. All right so far. Pam took her own drink. Sand made good martinis, but they needed lemon peel. Judy, her father's eyes on her, took sherry with her Uncle Ben. Pam remembered she was standing and that the men were standing with her and stepped backward to a chair. For a moment they sipped.

“Hello, everybody,” a new voice said. “Oh, Pam! Darling! Hello!”

You would have guessed that Clem and Judy Buddie were sisters or you would, at the least, have wondered whether they might not be sisters. But still they were very different. Clem, standing in the door, was not so tall as Judy. She was quicker, brighter, more compact—and infinitely more assured. Her eyes were blue, like Judy's, but her cascading hair, uncovered, was auburn. The brightness came from her hair. It came from her reddened lips and from a kind of excitement which entered the room with her.

“Clem!” Judy said, half starting up. “I thought—.”

There was a look between the sisters. And did Clem's jaunty head shake just perceptibly? Nobody else seemed to notice, and Pam wondered. I'm seeing things, she thought. It's this arsenic business.

“Stood up, darling,” Clem said gaily. “Helen didn't show. Kept me—.”

“Oh,” Judy said, and spoke quickly. “It
was
Helen, wasn't it? I couldn't remember—I told Dad Mary Conover.”

There was no pause this time.

“No,” Clem said. “You were mixed up, darling. Helen. But it was only half a date, really—just one of those I'll-come-if-I-can-but-don't-wait sort of things. And apparently she couldn't. And anyway, if I'd known that Pam—.”

She crossed to perch on the arm of Pam's chair, to say, “Ah, martinis!” with evidences of delight and to call to Sand across the room. Sand brought a martini for Clem Buddie.

It was family talk then for a quarter of an hour, with Ben refilling his glass and Judy's, waving his half-brother toward the whiskey decanter, solicitously carrying the martini shaker to his mother and to Pam. Then Sand announced dinner. They went back to the dining room, which occupied the rear half of the same floor. The table was long and candles lighted it. Aunt Flora went firmly to the far end and sat in the large chair; for Pam she patted the one at her right. Pamela sat down, feeling surrounded by family. She looked around the circle—Cousin Alden Buddie at her right, Cousin Benjamin at the end, opposite his mother as became the resident son, the girls opposite.

“Looking for Chris, dearie?” Aunt Flora enquired, while Sand passed soup. “Thought he'd be here myself. Telephoned Sand he couldn't come at the last minute. Something about dinner with somebody who might put on his play. Nonsense, of course.”

“Well,” Pam said. “You can't tell about the theater.”

It seemed a safe remark.

“And Harry eats in his room when there's a crowd,” Aunt Flora added. “Doesn't like crowds, Harry doesn't. Particularly of relatives.” She looked around the table. “Can't say I do myself,” she added. “Except you of course, dearie.”

She looked around the table. Everybody was eating soup.

“I tried to get him down tonight though, dearie,” Aunt Flora went on. “And I wanted Chris, too.”

She spoke loudly enough for all to hear. There was something in her voice which commanded attention.

“Wanted you to see them all, dearie,” Aunt Flora continued, only ostensibly to Pam. “See them all in a bunch. Because it was one of them, Pamela.”

Everybody was looking at Aunt Flora, now. Her yellow wig bobbed.

“That's right,” she said. “One of you. Tried to poison me, one of you did. Arsenic, it was.”

She looked around at them, her eyes bright with interest.

“Nasty stuff, arsenic,” she said. “People put it in soup.”

There was a clatter. Benjamin Craig dropped the filled soup spoon he had raised to his lips. It clattered against the soup plate and fell in. It splashed.

3

T
UESDAY

8:15
P.M. TO
A
BOUT
M
IDNIGHT