A Pint of Murder by Charlotte MacLeod

tonight.”
    Janet worked off her spleen on the dishes, then went into the front room and turned on the television. There was nothing worth looking at, but she found relaxation of a sort in lolling back on the chesterfield and gazing through half-shut eyes at the jumping patterns on the screen. Never before, not even that night at the hospital, had she felt so totally drained. Without meaning to, she fell asleep.
    When she woke up, everything was pitch black around her except for the television screen. How could she have slept with the volume turned so high? No, the racket was coming from outside. Over at the Mansion a horn was honking, dogs were yapping, people were shouting.
    Janet ran to the window. Surely that was her brother’s station wagon pulled into the driveway and Bert getting out of it, carrying an armload of something. Clothes, perhaps. Somebody had just switched on an outside light and she could see what looked like a coat sleeve dangling. Whatever could he be doing, and who was that woman with him? Then she saw it was Gilly Bascom with a wiggling bundle in her arms that must be one of the dachshunds. Behind her came young Bobby, also carrying a dog.
    Before she’d consciously made up her mind to do so, Janet was out the door and across the yard. “Gilly, what’s happened?”
    It was the usually taciturn Bobby who answered. “We had a fire! Our house burned up and the goldfish got boiled to death. And Schnitzi had puppies in Mr. Wadman’s car!”
    “The Owls were breaking up when we spotted the blaze,” Bert explained. “Some of us ran and got the engine, but the house was too far gone. We did manage to put up a water screen and save the fire from spreading. Then I brought Gilly and the kid up here. Fred and the rest were still wetting down the ashes when I left.”
    “I rescued Fritzi,” yelled the boy. “Didn’t I, Ma?”
    “Sure you did, honey,” said his mother exhaustedly. “You’re a good kid. Look, Marion,” her coheiress had appeared with a headful of pink plastic rollers, an old kimono of Mrs. Treadway’s clutched about her, “I hate to bust in on you like this, but I couldn’t think where else to go.”
    “The boys’ room is all ready,” Janet was beginning, but in the face of disaster Marion Emery showed an unexpected streak of benevolence. “Sure, Gilly, why not? This is your house as much as mine. Here, Bert, give me that bundle.”
    They all trooped in carrying the dachshunds and what few bits and pieces Gilly had managed to snatch from the burning house. Marion eyed the squirming litter of newborn pups with pardonable misgiving. “What do we do with those things?”
    “I’m keeping them with me,” said Gilly desperately.
    “Then you’d better take Auntie’s bedroom. It’s the biggest. Bobby can have the little room next to it if he wants. I guess we’ll have to do something about the beds.” Marion obviously wasn’t sure what.
    Janet stepped in and took charge. “Gilly and I will tend to those. Why don’t you nip down to the kitchen and make us all a cup of tea? Bert, you’ll find some cartons in the cellar. Go get one and fix a bed for the pups. There’s a bagful of clean dust rags hanging just inside the cellarway.”
    For a while they were milling around getting in each other’s way, finding clean linens, rushing back and forth to the Wadmans’ for tea, for milk, for another pair of pajamas to fit Bobby because his were alarmingly scorched around the edges, for a dozen other things. At last they got settled at the kitchen table to eat the pie Janet had saved from suppertime and drink Marion’s rather peculiar tea. There was nothing like a catastrophe to bring people together, Janet thought, watching Marion fill Gilly’s cup in the friendliest way possible.
    “Any idea how the fire got started, Gilly?” Bert was asking.
    “All I can think of is that somebody must have thrown a lighted cigarette into that big smoke bush against the front of the house.