The Dishonest Murderer Read Online Free

hand-shake was frequently firm; it was apt to be particularly so with people he did not know well. It was one of the small things which Freddie Haven knew, tenderly, about her father. He was firm with people he knew only a little. Because, Freddie thought, he had once—oh, long ago—been shy. You would never know it now.
    Mr. North did not wince. He released his hand, made polite sounds, and said, just as Freddie reached them, “Pam, this is Admiral Satterbee. My wife, Admiral.”
    â€œHow do you do?” Pam North said, in a clear, light voice, and almost as if she were really asking. “Sideboys.”
    The tallish man beside her grasped at his hair. He said, “Pam.”
    â€œAll I could think of at first was sideboards,” Pam North said. “But that didn’t sound right. To pipe you aboard.”
    â€œOh,” Admiral Satterbee said. “Oh—yes. Yes, of course.”
    It did not seem entirely clear to her father, Freddie thought. She had joined them, by then.
    â€œMrs. North,” the admiral said. “Present my daughter. Freddie, Mrs. North. Mr. North. Told you about them. North’s going to bring out this book of mine.”
    â€œMiss Satterbee,” Mr. North said and Mrs. North smiled and Freddie had an odd, vagrant sense of pleasure which was disproportionate to anything in the expression of this slight young woman with the attractively mobile face. But Freddie felt, without being able to explain why she felt so, that she had been approved of, frankly and with pleasure. Freddie felt that she must be looking even better than she had hoped. She also felt that, intangibly, she had been outdistanced.
    She shook her head and said that Dad always forgot, never made little things clear. “Mrs. Haven,” she said. She also said she was so glad the Norths could come, and asked if the Norths knew everybody. Mrs. North’s eyes widened a little momentarily.
    â€œOh no,” Mrs. North said. “Nobody, really.” She paused, as if she had just heard herself. “Here, I mean,” she said. “But it’s all right, because we do have to go on almost at once.”
    Freddie said she hoped not; Admiral Satterbee said, “Nonsense, come and have a drink, North.”
    Mr. North went, obediently. Mrs. North looked up at the taller, somewhat younger woman.
    â€œYou mustn’t bother with us, you know,” Pam North said. “We do have to go on. We’re meeting some people. But Jerry said—”
    Pam North stopped, then. Freddie Haven waited, suddenly grinned.
    â€œGo on,” she said, feeling that she had known this Mrs. North for much longer than minutes.
    â€œOh,” Pam said, “that I ought to see a real admiral. That it probably would be educational.” She spoke unhesitatingly, without any indication of embarrassment. “So few authors are admirals,” she added, paused, and said: “Or so few used to be, now it’s hard to tell. Like all the people who knew Roosevelt.”
    Again, for an instant, Freddie Haven felt outdistanced. It was, she thought, like trying to read a sentence in its entirety, not word by word. But even as she thought this, she realized she had caught up.
    â€œIs it?” she said. “Educational?”
    â€œProbably,” Pam North said. “Was his hair once like yours?”
    â€œYes,” Freddie said. “Satterbee hair.”
    â€œLook,” Mrs. North said. “You must just park me somewhere, you know. It doesn’t have to be another admiral or anything. Because you’ve got to hostess, of course.”
    It was undeniable; Freddie Haven admitted it with a smile, without words. She decided that this Mrs. North probably would enjoy, would really enjoy, the Dowager Admiral. She thought, indeed, that Mrs. North probably would enjoy most things. She took Mrs. North to the Dowager Admiral’s group, was pleased to see the slight widening of Mrs.