looked up at it and me and shook her head. She was used to angry customers. She merely rang me up, took my coupons, put my groceries in a brown sack.
I headed for the door. Behind me I heard her say, loud enough to be sure I heard, “Hey, Glad, watch my checkout for a second. I gotta wash my hands and the counter. Some nut just syruped the place.”
I went carefully to my car, opened the door and put the groceries inside. I placed the dart on the seat next to me on top of an old Popular Science magazine with the drawing of a monorail Train of the Future on the cover.
Someone had either tried to scare the hell out of me, or kill me, or maybe just inflict a little warning pain. The question was “Why?”
Best guess was that someone didn’t want me trying to help Shelly. Looked at one way, this was a good thing. It meant that someone else had probably killed Mildred.
I pulled out into traffic with my windows closed and turned on the radio. A girl was singing something that sounded like opera.
I had another thought. Why had whoever it was shot at me with a dart? Why not hit me on the head or blow a hole in me or cut my throat or … I didn’t want to follow this particular line of thought.
The girl on the radio now stopped singing. The drowsy voice of Major Bowes came on after the applause, saying that The Original Amateur Hour was always pleased to discover such talent and reminding us that we had just heard “‘The Bell Song’ sung by little Miss Louise Hornerhoven of French Lick, Indiana.”
Major Bowes also informed me that Miss Lily Pons, who had made “The Bell Song” famous, had an entry in the Madison Square Garden Poultry Show.
“A silver-faced Cochin hen named Gilda Rosina,” the Major droned. “And I was informed just before we went on the air that another great opera star, tenor Lauritz Melchior, has won a prize at the show with his cock named Great Tristan.”
The studio audience applauded wildly, Miss Louise Hornerhoven of French Lick now forgotten.
I headed for the boardinghouse. At Mrs. Plaut’s was someone I had to talk to about crossbows and darts.
CHAPTER 6
G UNTHER W HERTHMAN TOLD me to come in when I knocked at his door. Gunther was probably my closest friend. He was certainly my nearest neighbor, one door down from me at Mrs. Plaut’s.
Gunther had lived in the boardinghouse before I got there, and when I helped him—he had been wrongly charged with murdering a Munchkin on the set of The Wizard of Oz —he convinced me to move into a room chez Plaut.
Gunther worked out of his room, a tasteful den with a desk, full bookshelves lining the walls, two comfortable armchairs and a small bed in one corner near the window.
The bed was small because Gunther doesn’t need a big one. He is three feet tall.
When I entered, Gunther was at his desk, pencil in hand, pad of paper in front of him next to his typewriter. Gunther made a good living translating books and articles from or into any of several languages. He worked for government agencies, big businesses and publishers. He wore three-piece suits and Windsor-knotted ties even when he had no plans for leaving Mrs. Plaut’s.
“News of Dr. Minck?” he asked with only a trace of his native accent.
“Doesn’t look good,” I said, sitting in the armchair facing him.
I had dropped off the groceries downstairs with Mrs. Plaut. She had told me that I had done a satisfactory job but that I was late.
“Someone tried to kill me with a blowgun in the grocery store,” I had said, holding up the dart.
She had peered at it over her glasses. “Don’t go to that store anymore,” she said.
I told her I wouldn’t, and she handed me some sheets of lined paper filled with her distinctive handwriting, clear, clean, small, and invincible.
“This is a singular adventure,” she said, nodding at the pages. “It marks a crucial moment on my father’s side of the equation, a moment which might well have resulted in my father not being
I headed for the door. Behind me I heard her say, loud enough to be sure I heard, “Hey, Glad, watch my checkout for a second. I gotta wash my hands and the counter. Some nut just syruped the place.”
I went carefully to my car, opened the door and put the groceries inside. I placed the dart on the seat next to me on top of an old Popular Science magazine with the drawing of a monorail Train of the Future on the cover.
Someone had either tried to scare the hell out of me, or kill me, or maybe just inflict a little warning pain. The question was “Why?”
Best guess was that someone didn’t want me trying to help Shelly. Looked at one way, this was a good thing. It meant that someone else had probably killed Mildred.
I pulled out into traffic with my windows closed and turned on the radio. A girl was singing something that sounded like opera.
I had another thought. Why had whoever it was shot at me with a dart? Why not hit me on the head or blow a hole in me or cut my throat or … I didn’t want to follow this particular line of thought.
The girl on the radio now stopped singing. The drowsy voice of Major Bowes came on after the applause, saying that The Original Amateur Hour was always pleased to discover such talent and reminding us that we had just heard “‘The Bell Song’ sung by little Miss Louise Hornerhoven of French Lick, Indiana.”
Major Bowes also informed me that Miss Lily Pons, who had made “The Bell Song” famous, had an entry in the Madison Square Garden Poultry Show.
“A silver-faced Cochin hen named Gilda Rosina,” the Major droned. “And I was informed just before we went on the air that another great opera star, tenor Lauritz Melchior, has won a prize at the show with his cock named Great Tristan.”
The studio audience applauded wildly, Miss Louise Hornerhoven of French Lick now forgotten.
I headed for the boardinghouse. At Mrs. Plaut’s was someone I had to talk to about crossbows and darts.
CHAPTER 6
G UNTHER W HERTHMAN TOLD me to come in when I knocked at his door. Gunther was probably my closest friend. He was certainly my nearest neighbor, one door down from me at Mrs. Plaut’s.
Gunther had lived in the boardinghouse before I got there, and when I helped him—he had been wrongly charged with murdering a Munchkin on the set of The Wizard of Oz —he convinced me to move into a room chez Plaut.
Gunther worked out of his room, a tasteful den with a desk, full bookshelves lining the walls, two comfortable armchairs and a small bed in one corner near the window.
The bed was small because Gunther doesn’t need a big one. He is three feet tall.
When I entered, Gunther was at his desk, pencil in hand, pad of paper in front of him next to his typewriter. Gunther made a good living translating books and articles from or into any of several languages. He worked for government agencies, big businesses and publishers. He wore three-piece suits and Windsor-knotted ties even when he had no plans for leaving Mrs. Plaut’s.
“News of Dr. Minck?” he asked with only a trace of his native accent.
“Doesn’t look good,” I said, sitting in the armchair facing him.
I had dropped off the groceries downstairs with Mrs. Plaut. She had told me that I had done a satisfactory job but that I was late.
“Someone tried to kill me with a blowgun in the grocery store,” I had said, holding up the dart.
She had peered at it over her glasses. “Don’t go to that store anymore,” she said.
I told her I wouldn’t, and she handed me some sheets of lined paper filled with her distinctive handwriting, clear, clean, small, and invincible.
“This is a singular adventure,” she said, nodding at the pages. “It marks a crucial moment on my father’s side of the equation, a moment which might well have resulted in my father not being
Similar Books
