Murder Is Served (2 page)

“It was a very interesting course, sir,” the anonymous one said. “I feel I got a lot out of it.”

“Good,” Leonard murmured. “Er—good.”

Mr. Ah went away, having broken the ice. Two other students, neither of whom had wanted to be first, stood up simultaneously and advanced, holding blue offerings. Leonard smiled to their vague smiles, checked the presence of their names, began the pile of blue books. When they had left the classroom, he opened the topmost book, looked at the chirography, and shuddered. He put it down and, unconsciously, rubbed his fingers with the tip of his thumb. He hoped that conscience would not, tomorrow, make him fight his way from the beginning of that one to the mist-enshrouded end. A rogue, indeed! He would bet Handleigh, faced with that, would give it three minutes, two paragraphs, and a B-minus. And I'll bet I won't, Leonard thought, and sighed. He did not enjoy his conscience.

They came more rapidly then. By eight-forty they were coming one a minute. They had enjoyed the course. They had got a lot out of it. They hoped they could arrange to come back for the spring term. “Yes,” Professor Leonard murmured. “Yes. I'm glad. I hope so. Yes.” And the pile of blue books grew. A second pile started.

Weldon Carey came forward at eight-fifty. He was not smiling. He seemed to consider Leonard one with the desk, the chair. He did not say that he had profited from the course, or that he hoped to come back for the spring term. He put his book down and turned away.

“Oh—Carey,” Leonard said. Carey turned back, did not move back, waited. “How's the new play coming?” Leonard said.

“All right,” Carey told him. “All right, I guess.” He was not impolite, but he was waiting to go on.

“Good,” Leonard said. He smiled faintly, and Carey did not return the smile. “Why did you take this course, by the way?” Leonard said.

Carey did not seem surprised at the question, or much interested in the question.

“Had the time,” he said and paused. “You can't tell,” he added.

“No,” Leonard said. “You can't tell. All right, Carey.”

He watched Carey go out. Where would he meet Peggy Mott, Leonard wondered. At the subway kiosk? At the coffee counter in the bookshop? Or would he merely wait outside, in the corridor? And where would they go? Professor Leonard looked, almost without volition, at Peggy Mott.

Peggy's head was still bent forward, the light still made shadows on her face. But the shining blondness of her hair reflected the light. She had finished writing, was reading over what she had written. As he watched her she turned the last page, changed a word on it and closed the book. She looked up then and the light fell on her face. She's got the widest eyes, Leonard thought. The
widest
eyes. She was looking toward him, but did not seem to see him, or anything. The shadow which had been on her face seemed still to be in her eyes, although literally it was not. She sat so for a moment, and then she pushed back the hair which had fallen against her right cheek. She stood up. She had her fur jacket over her arm. They were meeting in the corridor, then, Leonard thought, suddenly.

She was rather tall. He wondered if that was a problem to her. It was better for actresses not to be tall; height in women was a casting problem. He watched her move the few feet toward his desk. She walked well; she had learned that part of her business. He wondered whether she could really act. She smiled as she came toward him and she put the examination book on top of the smaller pile. She had written her name in the corner—“P. S. Mott” and “X33” and the date—and then his own name, “Professor Leonard.” He looked up at her, taking his glasses off.

“It's been very interesting,” she said. “May I come back next term?”

“I'm glad,” he said. “Of course.”

He felt he was looking at her too intently, that he was embarrassing them both. He looked down at his desk.

“I hope it's all right,” she said, seeming to mean her examination paper. She started away and paused after a few steps. “Next term,” she said. “If—if nothing happens.”

Then she went and opened the classroom door and kept her left hand on the knob, pulling it shut behind her. There was a large dinner ring on the smallest finger. That was all. Well, Leonard thought. So. Professor Leonard resumed his glasses.

He picked up her blue book. She printed. It was an affectation of which, for practical reasons, he strongly approved. He found it easy to read the first few sentences. He turned the page. Then, as he read on, lines formed in his high forehead, and his eyebrows drew together. He shook his head slightly, as if to shake off something, and went on reading. When he finished, he laid the book down carefully on the pile, took his glasses off and began to polish them with a handkerchief, looking at nothing, looking across the two toilers who remained, still writing anxiously, still pouring forth their ideas of hate and love, of greed and fear.

Professor Leonard did not see them, was not even impatient for them to finish. He sat for a moment, polishing his glasses more and more slowly. Then he stood up, still carrying his glasses in his hand-kerchief, and walked to the window. He looked down into the snow-covered street seven stories below. There were moving figures, indistinguishable, on the cleared sidewalk, and Professor Leonard watched them without thinking about them. He would be damned, Professor Leonard thought; it was, certainly, the damnedest thing. He had not expected anything like this.

2

F
RIDAY
,
11:15
A.M. TO
10:25
P.M.

“—subsidiary rights,” Mr. Gerald North said, finishing a sentence. “Make it ‘cordially,' Miss Corning, under the circumstances. Now, take one to Miss Wanda Wuerth, and be sure it's u, e, not o, care B and B, dear Miss Wuerth several of our readers have objected that damn that telephone I told them never mind, I'll take it—yes?”

“A Mr. Leonard is calling,” the girl at the switchboard said.

“Leonard?” Jerry said.

The switchboard girl was firm.

“A Mr. Leonard,” she said. “He says it's important. Wait a minute, please. Yes?” There was a momentary pause. “He says it's Professor Leonard of Dyckman, if that helps,” she said. “Just a moment, please.” Jerry North reclined against the telephone in his left hand and looked at nothing. “He says you ought to remember,” the switchboard said. “He says because it only sold twelve hundred and you lost your—”

“Miss Nelson,” Jerry North said, with firmness. “Please. I do remember. Just put Mr. Leonard on.”

“I have Mr. North for you now,” the switchboard said. “Go ahead, please.”

“Mr. North?” a new voice said. It was a male voice, modulated, vigorous. “This is John Leonard. You did a book of mine last year and—”

“I remember,” Jerry said. “Hello, Leonard. Another book? I'm afraid—”

John Leonard laughed.

“Don't sound so alarmed,” Leonard said. “Not that bad, Mr. North. Nothing worse than murder, this time.”

“Oh,” Jerry said. “What? You mean you've done a mystery? I thought—”

“Not I,” Leonard said. “One of my boys and girls. Potentially. Or I'm afraid so, I want advice.”

“In that case, I'm afraid our mystery list's full up,” Jerry said.

John Leonard made sounds. He said that Mr. North didn't understand. He said he would admit it was difficult.

“It has nothing to do with a book,” he said. “That's where we went off. I'm not calling you as a publisher. I really want advice.” His voice changed. “It's serious,” he said. “I have a feeling it's vital. I think a young woman in one of my classes is working up to kill somebody. I feel I've got to try to do something.”

“My God yes,” Jerry North said. He looked at Miss Corning, still poised with her shorthand book. She looked merely attentive, obedient, politely detached. “Who?” Jerry said into the telephone.

“—thought of you,” Leonard said. “Because you know this detective, know about things like this.” Now there was anxiety in his voice. “I tell you,” he said, “I'm damn serious, North. I want help. Can I come around and talk to you?”

“Now?” Jerry said.

“Any time,” Leonard said. “Better, lunch with me. Can you do that?”

“I suppose so,” Jerry said. “Of course, I don't understand this. Why don't you go to the police?”

“You would understand it,” Leonard said. “That's the point. The police—no. It's too vague. Too intangible. Perhaps, if you agree, you can take it up with that friend of yours. The chap I met. Winan?”

“Weigand,” Jerry said. “Bill Weigand.” Jerry had a sudden idea. “I'll have to check something,” he said. “A—a tentative engagement for lunch. Can I call you back? Are you at the university?”

“In my office,” Leonard said. “Do that. I'll wait.” He paused again. “I think it's important,” he said then, slowly. “As important as—death.” Then he hung up.

Jerry held the telephone receiver off and looked at it and shook his head at it. He looked at Miss Corning, who raised her eyebrows in polite attention and waited.

“The damnedest thing,” Jerry said. “Where was I, Miss Corning?”

“—our readers have objected that,” Miss Corning said, “to Wanda Wuerth, care Brandt and Brandt.” She hung her pencil in the air over the page of her notebook.

“Never mind,” Jerry said. He pushed the telephone instrument to her end of the desk and said, “Here.”

“Get me Professor John Leonard at Dyckman University, will you?” he said. “Be sure it is Leonard.”

“Certainly, Mr. North,” Miss Corning said. She repeated her instructions to the switchboard girl. She waited. After a time she said, “Professor Leonard?” Then she looked at Mr. North and he shook his head. “One moment, please,” she said to the telephone, and pushed it toward Mr. North. She held a hand over the transmitter end but she did not say anything. She merely nodded.

“Mr. Leonard?” Jerry said and listened. There could be no doubt about the voice; there could be no doubt that there was sudden relief in it. There was even a kind of eagerness.

“North!” John Leonard said. “Good! You can make it?”

Jerry decided then.

“Yes,” he said. “Around one o'clock all right? The Oak Room of the Ritz? Meet in the Little Bar?”

“Good;” Leonard said. “Anywhere you say.”

“See you then,” Jerry said. He decided something else. “Wait a minute,” he said. “I think I'll try to get my wife to join us. All right with you?”

There was, perhaps, the faintest hesitancy. Then John Leonard said, “Fine, perfect.”

“One o'clock, then,” Jerry said. He put the telephone back in its cradle and looked at Miss Corning.

“—our readers have objected that,” Miss Corning said. “To Miss Wuerth.”

“Later,” Jerry said. “Will you see if you can get me Mrs. North?” He pushed the telephone toward her. He left his desk and walked to a window. In the street, many stories down, a dwarf Sno-Go was turning a soiled gray pile into a stream of white dust, spraying it into a truck. “Mrs. North,” Miss Corning said. He went to his desk in two long steps.

“Pam,” he said. “Are you tied up for lunch?”

“Jerry!” Pam said. “How nice. But—yes. Hair, you know. I told you.”

“Cancel it,” Jerry said. “I want you to—to see a man. A man who thinks he's stumbled on a murder. Or—a potential murder.”

“Jerry!” Pam said. “Not you!”

“Of course not me,” Jerry said. “A man named—”

But Pam North said, “No.”

“Getting us into something, I meant,” Pam said. “I realized it was another man. I suppose I can, but it looks terrible.”

“It?” Jerry said.

“My hair, of course,” Pam told him. “And tomorrow's Henri's day off and I'll have to take just anybody. Where?”

“Oh, the Ritz,” Jerry said. “One o'clock. The man's name's Leonard. He's a professor at Dyckman. He says a girl in his class is going to kill somebody.”

“Good,” Pam said. “The Ritz. One o'clock.”

There were always a good many people you knew in the Ritz Little Bar. Publishers took authors there to explain why present conditions required shares of subsidiary rights, and authors, softened, sometimes grew meek. Agents took publishers there and extolled authors over scotches; radio writers went there with producers, dutch, and told them sure it would work, see? Jerry North went down the stairs and discovered that he did recognize Professor John Leonard, who was folded in a small chair by a tiny table in the no man's land between bar and restaurant. Professor Leonard unfolded himself and made greeting sounds. A look enquired as to the whereabouts of the rest of the Norths.

“We'll wait in the bar,” Jerry told him, and led the way. George said, “How're you, Mr. North” and jerked his head toward the nook. Jerry North smiled and nodded to two publishers, noticed that one of them had in tow Helen Langford, and that Miss Langford looked embarrassed on seeing him—and made a note in his mind to check the latest Langford sales figures, to see whether she was worth fighting over. He preceded Leonard into the nook and said, “Well!”

“Late,” Pam North told them, incorrectly. “I've been waiting hours.” She indicated a half-empty martini glass in front of her. “Hours,” she repeated. She slid into the corner and looked up at Professor Leonard. It was a long way up. Jerry North made introducing sounds. Pam looked again at Leonard, who smiled suddenly.

“Yes, Mrs. North,” he said. “Don't I?”

“What?” Pam said.

“Look like a professor,” Leonard said. “You were thinking that, weren't you?”

“No,” Pam said. “Oh no. I didn't have to think about that. I was wondering whether I was right. To save time, I mean.”