Hanged for a Sheep by Frances Lockridge Page A

“It’s hard to tell. She—she’s peculiar, don’t you think?”
    â€œYes,” Weigand said. “Very. Why did she think he’d been shot, do you suppose?”
    Pam thought a moment, and then thought of something.
    â€œShe grew up in the Southwest,” she said. “Where there was lots of shooting. She may—well, may think of murder and being shot as synonymous. D’you think?”
    Weigand nodded. He said it might be that way.
    â€œAnd women being poisoned,” Pam went on, “because she thinks somebody has been trying to poison her.” She paused. “And I think they have,” she said. “But Cousin Alden doesn’t.”
    â€œThe major?” Weigand said.
    Pam nodded. Weigand said he would try to get them straight. Starting with Aunt Flora. And her fourth husband who must, certainly, have been much younger. Pam nodded. Forty years, anyway, she thought. Younger than either Alden or Ben.
    â€œStart with the major,” Weigand said.
    Alden Buddie, Pam told him. Major, A.U.S. On duty at an army training center in New Jersey. And Aunt Flora’s oldest son. Son of a previous Major Alden Buddie, whom Aunt Flora had married first.
    â€œAnd Ben Buddie?” Weigand enquired. “Another son?”
    â€œBen Craig ,” Pam told him. “A son by Aunt Flora’s third husband. A baseball player.”
    â€œBen?” Weigand asked, in surprise.
    â€œBen’s father,” Pam told him. “Don’t be silly, Bill.”
    â€œPam!” Weigand said. “And the girls?”
    â€œThe major’s children,” Pam explained. “Their mother’s dead. And there’s Dr. Wesley Buddie, who is the major’s full younger brother and—.”
    She broke off, because Weigand was staring out through the door into the hall. He met the enquiry in her gaze.
    â€œSomebody going downstairs,” he said. “A young man. Newcomer, apparently. They’ll hold onto him, however.”
    It might, Pam told him, be Christopher Buddie, Dr. Wesley Buddie’s son. He had been expected the evening before and might have come late and stayed over. Or it might, of course, be Bruce McClelland. Weigand looked a little tired.
    â€œWho,” he asked, “would Bruce McClelland be? More family?”
    Pam nodded. Another grandson, she explained. Son of Robert McClelland, deceased, who was, in turn, son of Aunt Flora and her second husband, who was also Robert McClelland. Weigand ran the fingers of his right hand through his hair.
    â€œJerry,” Pam said. “Just like him. But this isn’t my fault, is it? It’s Aunt Flora’s, if anybody’s.”
    â€œRight,” Weigand said. “Quite an aunt. No wonder—” He broke off. “Tell me about the poisoning,” he directed. Pam told him. It was about two weeks ago. Aunt Flora had become violently ill a short time after breakfast and had been violently ill the rest of the day and that night. Then, slowly, she had recovered. A doctor had been called and at first diagnosed acute indigestion. But he had apparently not been easy in his mind, because he had retained specimens. And the specimens, on Aunt Flora’s statement, had revealed arsenic. Weigand said it sounded fairly conclusive, and Pam nodded.
    â€œI think so,” she said. “But Cousin Alden thinks she’s just sort of—sort of flighty. He thinks she imagined it, because of Stephen.”
    â€œListen, Pam!” Weigand said. “Be helpful.”
    â€œFlighty,” Pam explained, “because she married Stephen who was—oh, a worm or something. Or a snake. The arsenic, he thinks, is just another proof. But I don’t know.”
    â€œNo,” Weigand said. “We’ll have to find out, of course. Now about this murder. The butler—is he really named George Sand?” Pam nodded. “The butler seems to think you found the body.