little bookshelf above the bed, with His Monkey Wife, The Oxford Book of English Verse, Gulliver, and Modern Home Decor.
Miss Withers took out her handbag. This sleuthing was getting to be an expensive avocation, what with fifty-word telegrams and back-rent bills to pay. Yet she felt a real and personal interest in this case.
“How much did you say was due you, Mrs. Macafee?”
The woman hesitated doubtfully. Then—“Now, did Dulcie really go and write you to send her things down there?”
Miss Withers had to admit that she had received no such message. “Then if you don’t mind I’ll keep them here for her,” the landlady decided. “She’ll pay me when she can, and if she came back and found her room changed or her things gone I know she’d feel bad. She’d probably skin me alive. She hasn’t got red hair for nothing, that girl, I was just like her forty years ago,” Mrs. Macafee added. “Only with less sense as regards men.”
They were at the head of the stairs when Miss Withers remembered to ask one last question. “What sort of pictures did Dulcie have in those frames that are empty now? Of whom were they?”
Mrs. Macafee picked up the purring tiger cat, ruffled its broad striped face. “Oh yes, she did take those along. Moment I came into the room I knew that something was different.”
“Were they movie stars?”
“You’d never guess,” the landlady confided. “Not in a thousand years. No, they weren’t movie stars nor painted pictures nor portraits of the boyfriends she had so little use for. They were pictures of cows!”
“Cows?” echoed Miss Hildegarde Withers weakly. “You said ‘cows’?”
Mrs. Macafee nodded solemnly. “Cows, as God is my judge.”
Train number forty of the Ferrocarriles Nacionales roared southward into the night, its cars darkened, its passengers presumably asleep. Inspector Oscar Piper had, in fact, seen most of them to bed.
The inspector was taking no chances in the interim before arriving at Mexico City and turning his Pandora’s box of headaches over to the authorities there. He had been standing, smoking a good-night cigar, in the corridor, when the Mabies admitted the porter to make up the berths. “I’m so glad you’re keeping an eye on things,” Adele said. “I feel so safe now.”
“Thanks,” said the inspector. “But lock your door all the same.”
He had watched from his vantage point in the corridor while the little world of Pullman car Elysian turned in. First to disappear behind the green curtains were the Ippwings. “Guess there’s no chance of bandits or any more excitement tonight, Mother,” the old man had decided. “Guess we’d better hit the hay. Tomorrow is another day.”
Closely following had been the Mexican-American family with the children—a consul at New Orleans, somebody said, homeward bound for a vacation. Hansen and Lighton quit their checker game. Somewhere along the way the two broad-hipped and giggling señoritas had disembarked, but the Spanish gentleman with the handlebar mustaches was still in evidence, snoring thin patrician snores in his upper berth.
Julio Mendez S. (the S. to give a something at the end) was the last. He came into the Pullman shaking his head. “She won’t do it,” he told Piper.
“Who won’t what?”
“Miss Prothero. She has damn small dinero, that charming one. I try to get her to take my berth. I tell her I don’t mind sit up in the day coach. But she says she don’t sleep anyway. So …” He shrugged and climbed into his berth along with the guitar and the two alligators.
The train roared and rattled, steadily climbing now, lurching in its rough roadbed. At length the weary inspector sought his berth, slipped off his coat, vest and shoes, and settled down to a night’s vigil. He chewed on a dead cigar as insurance against sleep, stared out at the dark sky and darker hills, while little towns jerked by gray and ghostlike without the flicker of a single
Miss Withers took out her handbag. This sleuthing was getting to be an expensive avocation, what with fifty-word telegrams and back-rent bills to pay. Yet she felt a real and personal interest in this case.
“How much did you say was due you, Mrs. Macafee?”
The woman hesitated doubtfully. Then—“Now, did Dulcie really go and write you to send her things down there?”
Miss Withers had to admit that she had received no such message. “Then if you don’t mind I’ll keep them here for her,” the landlady decided. “She’ll pay me when she can, and if she came back and found her room changed or her things gone I know she’d feel bad. She’d probably skin me alive. She hasn’t got red hair for nothing, that girl, I was just like her forty years ago,” Mrs. Macafee added. “Only with less sense as regards men.”
They were at the head of the stairs when Miss Withers remembered to ask one last question. “What sort of pictures did Dulcie have in those frames that are empty now? Of whom were they?”
Mrs. Macafee picked up the purring tiger cat, ruffled its broad striped face. “Oh yes, she did take those along. Moment I came into the room I knew that something was different.”
“Were they movie stars?”
“You’d never guess,” the landlady confided. “Not in a thousand years. No, they weren’t movie stars nor painted pictures nor portraits of the boyfriends she had so little use for. They were pictures of cows!”
“Cows?” echoed Miss Hildegarde Withers weakly. “You said ‘cows’?”
Mrs. Macafee nodded solemnly. “Cows, as God is my judge.”
Train number forty of the Ferrocarriles Nacionales roared southward into the night, its cars darkened, its passengers presumably asleep. Inspector Oscar Piper had, in fact, seen most of them to bed.
The inspector was taking no chances in the interim before arriving at Mexico City and turning his Pandora’s box of headaches over to the authorities there. He had been standing, smoking a good-night cigar, in the corridor, when the Mabies admitted the porter to make up the berths. “I’m so glad you’re keeping an eye on things,” Adele said. “I feel so safe now.”
“Thanks,” said the inspector. “But lock your door all the same.”
He had watched from his vantage point in the corridor while the little world of Pullman car Elysian turned in. First to disappear behind the green curtains were the Ippwings. “Guess there’s no chance of bandits or any more excitement tonight, Mother,” the old man had decided. “Guess we’d better hit the hay. Tomorrow is another day.”
Closely following had been the Mexican-American family with the children—a consul at New Orleans, somebody said, homeward bound for a vacation. Hansen and Lighton quit their checker game. Somewhere along the way the two broad-hipped and giggling señoritas had disembarked, but the Spanish gentleman with the handlebar mustaches was still in evidence, snoring thin patrician snores in his upper berth.
Julio Mendez S. (the S. to give a something at the end) was the last. He came into the Pullman shaking his head. “She won’t do it,” he told Piper.
“Who won’t what?”
“Miss Prothero. She has damn small dinero, that charming one. I try to get her to take my berth. I tell her I don’t mind sit up in the day coach. But she says she don’t sleep anyway. So …” He shrugged and climbed into his berth along with the guitar and the two alligators.
The train roared and rattled, steadily climbing now, lurching in its rough roadbed. At length the weary inspector sought his berth, slipped off his coat, vest and shoes, and settled down to a night’s vigil. He chewed on a dead cigar as insurance against sleep, stared out at the dark sky and darker hills, while little towns jerked by gray and ghostlike without the flicker of a single
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