Hanged for a Sheep by Frances Lockridge Page B

Right?”
    Pam corroborated the butler’s impression. She told about finding it. Her face looked strained as she remembered. Bill Weigand made consoling sounds. Then Pam shook it off and said, suddenly, “The cats!” Weigand was puzzled.
    â€œThey haven’t had breakfast,” she said. “ Or clean newspapers. I forgot.”
    Weigand looked amused.
    â€œSo you brought Toughy and Ruffy,” he said. “That must help.”
    Pam was a little indignant. She said it did, because they led her into things. Already they had led her—She broke off.
    â€œGo on, Pam,” Weigand said. “You ought to know that by now.”
    Pam went on. She told him, quoting as exactly as she could, of the conversation she had overheard between Clem and Judy when she was fishing for Toughy under the sofa. Weigand seemed interested. Then Pam remembered something else.
    â€œJust as I was going to sleep,” she said, “I heard a door slam. Could that—could that have been the shot, do you suppose?”
    Weigand was interested again. He said it might have been, if she were far enough away. She told him where her room was, and he thought that might be far enough. On the other hand, it might have been a door slamming. In any event, it was worth knowing about, because it might fix a time. What was the time? Pam looked at him, guiltily.
    â€œDidn’t you look?” he asked. She nodded.
    â€œOnly,” she said, “it had stopped. I forgot to wind it, or something.” She studied Weigand’s expression.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said. “But it was after 11:45, anyway.” She told, him how she knew.
    But Weigand continued to look very disappointed in her. I’m not, Pam thought, starting this one very well.

5
    W EDNESDAY
    9:05 A.M. TO 9:40 A.M.
    Weigand sat for a moment looking at Pamela North and then he shrugged. He said, abstractedly, that it might have been a help.
    â€œHowever,” he added, “what are M.E. ’s for?”
    â€œDon’t you know at all?” Pam asked. “When, I mean?”
    Obviously, Weigand told her, they could guess. Rigor was fairly well advanced; you could guess, then, that death had come somewhere between six and eight hours before the body was examined. It was examined at 8:35, which would make it between midnight and 2:30 or thereabouts. But rigor was a variable, depending on too many things. For one thing, it might be hastened if violent muscular activity had immediately preceded death.
    â€œAnd?” Pam said. “I mean, did it?”
    Weigand was still abstracted, but he smiled faintly. He said he wasn’t there. However—
    The course of the bullet had been rather odd. It had entered the throat below the jaw and ranged upward through the head, blasting its way out through the rear of the skull. That could happen, obviously, in several ways. For one thing, Stephen Anthony might have been lying flat on his back.
    Pam shook her head, doubtfully. Bill Weigand admitted that the posture would, under the circumstances, have been an odd one. Other theories were more persuasive.
    The killer could, for example, have been kneeling in front of Anthony, who in turn was standing. That was a possibility, although it presupposed another odd situation. Or the killer might have been sitting in a chair, with Anthony standing above him. Or perhaps leaning down toward him. That was, off-hand and until they knew more, the most likely supposition. And in that event—
    â€œSuppose,” Weigand said, “that Anthony was worked up about something and that the murderer wasn’t, or wasn’t showing it. Anthony was walking up and down, perhaps. Excitedly. Then he leaned over toward the murderer, perhaps put his hands on the arms of the chair and stared down at him.”
    â€œOr glared down,” Pam said. Weigand said, “Precisely.
    â€œThat would have been right for the angle,” he went on.