Payoff for the Banker Read Online Free

your apartment and a man is lying dead on the floor. With blood around him. Why wouldn’t you scream?”
    â€œI don’t know,” the girl said.
    â€œYou wouldn’t scream if he were still alive,” Bill pointed out. He spoke softly. “Now would you, Mrs. Hunter? If he were—just standing there and you recognized him.”
    â€œAnd then shot him,” the girl said. “Is that what you mean?” She paused. “And I suppose the elevator man would have heard a scream, but wouldn’t have heard three shots?”
    Weigand smiled. His smile was not friendly.
    â€œNot if he had gone on down,” he said. “If there had been—say two or three minutes intervening. As probably there would have been.”
    â€œWherever he was, he would have heard shots,” the girl insisted.
    Weigand shook his head.
    â€œThe trouble with that is that he didn’t,” he told her. “I don’t know why, but he didn’t. He thinks he wouldn’t if he were four floors down, or if he did would mistake the sound for a truck backfiring. In any case, he didn’t. And shots were fired. Obviously.”
    The girl showed spirit.
    â€œNot by me,” she said.
    â€œRight,” Weigand said. “It’s all a coincidence. You rent an apartment, a man you used to know picks it to walk into, somebody else shoots him. You’re not connected at all.”
    â€œI don’t care how it sounds,” Mary Hunter said. But there was desperation in her voice. “Mrs. North will—”
    â€œMrs. North,” Bill Weigand said, “is a very charming young woman who does work for the Navy League and is married to a man who publishes books. She is not—”
    â€œBill,” Pam North said from the door. “How nice of you. Are we late?”
    Bill looked at her and beyond her at Jerry. He said, “Hullo, you.” He said no, they weren’t late.
    â€œIt’s nice to be charming,” Pam said. “Where’s the body?”
    â€œIn the morgue,” Bill said. “Where would it be?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Pam said. “As you were saying, I’m not a detective. Hello, Mrs. Hunter. This is Bill Weigand.”
    â€œWe’ve met,” the girl said. “He thinks I did it. He thinks because I called you I—.” She stopped.
    â€œYes,” Pam said. “I wondered about that too. It wasn’t wise of you, if you didn’t do it. Or, if you did.” She paused and looked from Mary Hunter to Bill Weigand and back again. “Not that we’re not interested,” she said. “This is Jerry.”
    She gestured over her shoulder.
    â€œAren’t we, darling,” she said.
    â€œOh,” Jerry North said. “Very, of course. How do you do, Mrs. Hunter?”
    The Norths seemed to have animated her.
    â€œTerribly,” she said. “Your friend thinks I killed the old—Mr. Merle.”
    â€œThe old what?” Pam said. She sounded interested.
    The girl flushed.
    â€œThe old boy,” she said. “Not what you think. Josh used to call him that and I—I did too. Because Josh did. Josh is his son, you know.”
    â€œLook,” Jerry said, “we don’t even know who got killed, or anything. Perhaps we’d better just go along and—.”
    Pam shook her head at him. She turned to Bill and said, “All right, Bill.” Bill looked at Sergeant Mullins.
    â€œO. K., Loot,” Mullins said. “Sooner or later. Hullo, Mrs. North. Mr. North. They’ll want to know.”
    Weigand looked at the Norths.
    â€œYes,” he said. He said it with a certain inflection.
    Mrs. North crossed the room and sat on the sofa with Mary Hunter. “All right,” she said. Jerry still stood inside the door.
    Weigand told them, economically, what he knew. He was impartial about Mary, telling what she had said. He told about the scream which was