Arsenic and Old Puzzles by Parnell Hall

bagged as evidence. You’re going to want to process it, find Sam Brogan’s fingerprints.”
    Sam muttered a choice comment under his breath.
    “What was that, Sam? I didn’t quite catch it.”
    “Sam, take this down to the station, run off a copy. I want to know what it says.”
    “You’ll have to wait, Chief,” Cora said. “Harvey Beerbaum isn’t up this early.”
    “No, but you are.”
    “Yes, I am. But I’m not solving any crossword puzzles. Particularly, not this one.”
    “Why not?”
    “Harvey solved the first one. Why? Because it wasn’t important. If you don’t let him solve the second one, everyone’s going to think it’s important.”
    “Who cares what people think?”
    “You do if it’s the Channel Eight news team. The last thing in the world you want is Rick Reed blowing the case out of proportion.”
    “No one even has to know there is a crossword puzzle.”
    “Oh. Bad move, Chief. To start withholding things from the public and the press. The word cover-up rears its ugly head.”
    “Cover-up of what? It’s a stupid old newspaper.”
    “Exactly. Unless you make a big thing out of it. After breakfast, run it to Harvey Beerbaum. Point out how it’s an old puzzle from the paper. Ask him if he remembers solving it before.”
    “Why should he?”
    “I don’t know. Some of these puzzle people, they have photographic memories.”
    “These puzzle people? You exclude yourself from the category?”
    “I exclude myself from the crazies who let it be an obsession. I don’t remember this puzzle, but Harvey Beerbaum might. Not that it matters. All that matters is that you treat it as if it weren’t important, and exclude it as a potential clue. I hate to say it because he’s such a sweet old fuddy-duddy, but being able to say you gave it to Harvey will go a long way toward convincing people you didn’t think it was important.”
    Before Chief Harper had a chance to argue, Sam Brogan came back in the door grinning from ear to ear.
    “Got him, Chief!” he announced.
    Sam was wrestling with a young man who was struggling mightily to get free. He was hampered by the fact that Sam had already clamped handcuffs on his wrists.
    Cora’s mouth fell open.
    It was the Guilford sisters’ nephew, Alan.

 
    Chapter
    14
    “Found him sneaking around in the bushes, Chief,” Sam said. “I asked him to stop, he tried to run.”
    “Oh, big brave cop,” Alan said. “Like you outran me. I tripped and fell.”
    “What were you doing prowling around the house?”
    “Prowling? Who said I was prowling? I was on my way home.”
    “At four in the morning? What were you doing up at four in the morning?”
    “None of your business.”
    “Now, see here. This is a murder case.”
    “Murder?”
    “If I could step in here, Chief,” Cora said. “Sam, could you go see if you could arrest anybody else?”
    “Oh, are you running the police force?” Harper said.
    “Just trying to speed things along. Sam, why don’t you unlock this young man. I’m sure the chief and I will be safe.”
    “Chief?”
    “This is the Guilford sisters’ nephew, Sam. I don’t believe he’s a flight risk.”
    Sam grudgingly took off the handcuffs and left.
    “Now, dear boy,” Cora said to Alan. “If you would allow me to expedite. Chief, you will recall Alan is engaged to Arlene, who lives next door. Alan has doubtless escaped staying with his aunts by pleading a motel room somewhere. Whether he has one, or whether it is merely an invention to appease his aunts, in either case he was at Arlene’s now, and what Sam Brogan took for guilt was merely his embarrassment at having the fact he was staying over with the young lady in question found out. The thing I don’t know is whether he was apprehended attempting to sneak back to his motel in case the police searched Arlene’s house, or whether he was merely trying to see what was going on. Which is it, young man?”
    Alan was wearing slacks and a white shirt open at the