Murder Comes First by Frances and Richard Lockridge

level. The boy—one kept thinking of him as a boy—must, Bill Weigand thought, have had words ready to say to Sally Sandford; have had a smile ready and a handshake ready. But there was nobody to receive words or smile or pressure of hand.
    He had, Paul Logan said, tried one or two other hotels, without result. He had felt that, in some fashion, he was failing to perform a very simple task, and had decided it was his inadequacy, and inexperience, which were to blame. So he had hired a private detective to help. The detective, beyond more or less establishing that Sally, at least under her own name, was not at any likely hotel in the city, had not helped.
    â€œNot likely to,” Bill told him. “Even if he was interested in more than his fee. It’s a big town. All he could do was ask around. The police—”
    Paul Logan shook his head. His mother wouldn’t have wanted that.
    â€œNor I, for God’s sake!” Barton Sandford said, somewhat explosively. “Didn’t it ever occur to you two that Sally’s my—” He stopped again, reddening.
    â€œIn any event,” Bill Weigand pointed out, “the fact you couldn’t find her proves nothing, Mr. Logan. She may never have planned to stay in St. Louis, may merely have used the hotel writing room. It’s common enough.”
    It was time, Bill decided, to end this journey down a side path. He got back to it.
    Paul Logan was sure, to the point of vehemence, that his mother had had no enemies; was unable to suggest anyone who would want her death, or gain by it. Most of her money came to him, he thought; some went to Sally. (That either of them might be suspected did not appear to occur to the slight, handsome youth. Which could be naïve innocence but did not have to be.) Probably some sort of provision had been made for Rose Hickey.
    â€œThen, as he mentioned Mrs. Hickey’s name, Paul hesitated and looked puzzled.
    â€œIsn’t she around?” he asked.
    Bill told him she wasn’t, told him what appeared to be the reason she wasn’t.
    â€œQuarreled?” Paul said. “Mother and Mrs.—” But then he stopped. It was, Bill Weigand thought, as if he had been incredulous and then had remembered something, or thought of something, which sharply abated incredulity.
    â€œYou know what about?” Weigand asked. “Or can guess?”
    â€œHow could I?” Paul Logan asked. He pointed out he had been away for four—no, five—days.
    Whatever disagreement the two had might have started at any time, Weigand told him. During the past five days, to be sure; as easily, a month ago.
    â€œI don’t know anything about it,” Logan said. “You’ll have to ask Mrs. Hickey.”
    â€œRight,” Bill said. He added they were going to, that they had sent for Mrs. Hickey.
    â€œThey’re coming here?” Paul asked, quickly.
    â€œThey?” Bill repeated.
    Paul Logan looked as if he had said more than he had planned.
    â€œI suppose I was thinking of her daughter,” he said, after a moment. “Lynn. She’d naturally come with her mother, I’d think.” He looked at Bill Weigand intently. “You’ll be wasting your time with Mrs. Hickey,” he said. “She wouldn’t have anything to do with—with anything like this.” He paused. “It must have been an accident,” he said.
    â€œCan you,” Bill asked him, “suggest any way a capsule full of potassium cyanide could get mixed with your mother’s vitamin capsules? Or, for that matter, any innocent reason for filling a capsule with potassium cyanide?”
    Logan slowly shook his head.
    â€œRight,” Bill said. “Neither can I.”
    â€œUnless—” Barton Sandford said, and Bill turned to him.
    â€œUnless someone planned to kill an animal of some sort,” he said. “A pet dog, for example. I mean, that might account for the