Curtain for a Jester by Frances Lockridge Page B

got out on one side; Weigand on the other. By common impulse, they looked up, but not toward what Pam North had described as the top of the building. They looked toward windows on the fourth floor. Pamela and Gerald North, side by side, were leaning out of a window, looking down.
    â€œThis’ll tie Arty in knots,” Sergeant Aloysius Mullins said, referring to Deputy Chief Inspector Artemus O’Malley, bearing with fortitude the thought of Inspector O’Malley tied in knots. “There’s that to be said for it, Loot I mean captain,” Mullins said. He lifted a hand in salute to the Norths. “With the Norths in it,” he added.
    â€œIt’ll be screwy,” Weigand finished for him, leading the way. “All right, sergeant.”
    They went among the curious, past uniformed men at the door of the apartment house, past a uniformed man in the lobby. They went up in the elevator, not stopping at the fourth floor. That would come later. They climbed the stairs to the penthouse.
    It was surprising—it was always surprising—how so many men could get so little in one another’s way. In the doorway from the foyer, Bill Weigand stopped for a moment, watching a scene with which he was long familiar. Mr. Wilmot’s last party was well attended.
    The precinct was, as usual, fully represented. The detective district—in this case the First, with headquarters at the Charles Street Station—had provided a three-man contingent, headed by Captain Rothman. The police photographers were at it, the fingerprint men were industriously dusting. There wasn’t yet—Weigand moved into the room to let new arrivals enter—there was now an assistant district attorney from the Homicide Bureau and a detective from the same. “Hello, Flannery,” Weigand said to the latter. Rothman came over. “M.E.’s not here yet,” he said. He looked at Mr. Wilmot, still on his back, still wearing a black-handled knife in his chest. “Bled a lot, didn’t he?” Rothman said. “How’s Arty?”
    â€œAs usual,” Weigand said.
    Rothman expressed sympathy. He said it looked as if this—he indicated—had been dead quite a while. He said, “You know about him, don’t you?”
    â€œRight,” Bill said. “By reputation.”
    â€œThe playboy of the Western World,” Rothman said. “Rather a nuisance in his early days.”
    â€œWell, the joke’s on him this time. You got the squeal?”
    â€œFriends of mine live in the building,” Weigand said. The two watched. There was as yet nothing more required of them. Mullins, talking with a precinct man, wrote in his notebook. “People named North,” Bill said.
    â€œThe ones who get in Arty’s hair?”
    â€œRight,” Bill said. “He considers them-irregular. He—”
    But then the man from the medical examiner’s office came. He looked with distaste at the blood. He said, to the photographers, “You boys about through?” and one of the photographers took just one more. The physician moved in, then. He looped a cord around the knife and drew it out. He looked around with it, and a man from the lab took it. The doctor examined; he took temperature; he probed the wound. Photographers shot elsewhere; elsewhere fingerprint men dusted. Overlooking all, a sketch-artist made a diagram. After a time the doctor stood up. He turned to Rothman and Weigand, and the assistant district attorney and the bureau detective joined them.
    â€œWell,” the doctor said. “He’s dead enough. Got him in the heart or close to it. Lost consciousness within seconds; probably died within seconds. You want an estimate?”
    â€œRight,” Bill said. “The usual.”
    The doctor looked at his watch. It was twenty minutes past eleven.
    â€œAfter midnight,” the doctor said. “Before—oh, say six.”
    They waited. Dr.