Puzzle of the Pepper Tree by Stuart Palmer Page A

argument.
    “Two dollars is the price for a trip to the airport, lady,” insisted the plump driver. “Unless you want to wait until four-thirty for the regular run.”
    Miss Hildegarde Withers was most emphatically opposed to waiting. Neither did she want to pay two dollars for a two-mile trip for which a taxicab in her own Manhattan would have charged fifty cents. But there were only half a dozen motor vehicles in all Catalina, and this was the only one for hire.
    “I’ll give you a dollar,” bargained that canny lady. But the plump young man in blue overalls shook his head and returned to his studious perusal of yesterday’s newspaper. It was evident that he would just as soon stay where he was.
    Miss Withers was at the point of weakening when a vibrant young voice beside her cut in.
    “Two dollars it is,” said Phyllis La Fond. “Dollar apiece, sister—are you on?”
    “I’m—er, on,” agreed Miss Withers. She surveyed her prospective bus companion carefully. “What’s this, another amateur detective in our midst?”
    “God forbid,” Phyllis told her cheerily. “My baggage is still up at the airport, and I figure that the best way to make sure of getting it is to go after it. So we’ll kill a couple of birds with one stone, eh?” They were climbing aboard.
    “Let’s not speak of killing,” requested the schoolteacher, as they sped away. “But I get the drift of your remark. You’re the pretty girl who was on the plane this morning, aren’t you?”
    Phyllis took this as it was meant. “Uh huh. Unless you mean the redhead, and she’s a little thin if you ask me.”
    “No figure at all, from what I saw of her,” Miss Withers agreed. She was not one to waste an opportunity. “I’ve already heard one version of that trip,” she remarked with the proper amount of casualness. “Mr. T. Girard Tompkins gave me his outline as he rode in with the body. But I’d like to hear your impressions. It must have been very exciting.”
    “Exciting?” Phyllis held on tight as they rounded a curve at forty miles an hour. “It was about as exciting as riding an electric hobbyhorse. You can have my share, thanks.” All the same, Phyllis found herself giving a reasonably accurate story of the ride on the Dragonfly, with one important omission.
    “And at the end, when we were all saying ‘Thank God that’s over,’ why, the man in the brown suit didn’t get up. You know the rest,” she finished.
    “I’m not sure that anybody knows the rest,” Miss Withers told her. “Or that anybody ever will, though I’m going to try.”
    “Here’s luck,” Phyllis said. They rode over the crest of the last hill in silence and finally after a toboggan-like descent were deposited beside the gate which led down to the villa and the airport landing.
    The plump chauffeur slid out of his seat. He looked at the dollar watch which hung on a knotted shoestring from a buttonhole of his overalls. “I’ll get your bags, miss. Starting back in five minutes.”
    “But—you’ll have to wait for me!” Miss Withers was indignant. “I won’t be ready to go back in five minutes.”
    “Then you’ll walk,” said the man in the blue overalls. He went down the hill toward the office.
    “Fresh guy,” said Phyllis comfortingly.
    “I suppose you’ll be ready to go then,” said Miss Withers. “For my part, I came to have a look at the plane down there, and a look I’m going to have.”
    “All I want is my bags,” Phyllis admitted. “But I’m in no hurry. Suppose I go down to the plane with you?—I can show you where each of us was sitting.”
    “And you’ll walk back to town?”
    “Walk—me? Never!” Phyllis proudly displayed a bit of twisted metal. “Let that fresh hayseed try to start his bus without us now. I’ve got his ignition key!”
    Miss Withers’s eyes flashed. “Stout fella,” she said. “Come on.”
    They moved down toward where the big red-and-gilt plane was standing, but as they passed the