saw. I hope you realize that being brushed off as a crank was the luckiest thing that could have happened to you. If your name had appeared in the papers along with mine, you mightn’t have stayed alive long enough to come here this afternoon.”
Miss Smith laughed incredulously. “You make me sound pretty important.”
“You are important. Decent citizens who have the courage to act on their convictions are always important. Miss Smith, you must listen to me. You may think I’m trying to shut you up because I don’t want the story to get around that one of my lodgers has been murdered, but believe me, I’m not. If this boardinghouse business flops, I stand to lose my property, but I could live with that. What I could not bear is the thought that I’d sent you out into the dark and got you killed.”
“Mrs. Kelling!”
“I’m speaking from experience. Give me your address so that we can keep in touch. I’ll let you know anything I can find out, but I most earnestly beg you, for your own protection, to keep acting like a harmless crank and trust me to handle the matter from now on. Will you promise?”
“I might as well, I guess. At least you stand a chance of getting somebody to pay attention, which is more than I do. Look, have you got a back door I can sneak out by? I don’t want to embarrass you by running into one of your other boarders.”
“You wouldn’t embarrass me, but there’s always the nasty little odd chance one of them might recognize you and guess what you’re doing here. I’ll call you a taxi.”
“No, don’t do that. I live over in the project. If anybody around there saw me coming home in a cab, they’d think I must have money hidden in my room. Let me go on the subway same as I always do.”
“All right, if you must, but you’re not going alone. I can’t go with you myself right now because I have to cook dinner, but you must wait till I see what I can arrange.”
Sarah touched the bell and Charles came running.
“Charles, fetch Miss Smith’s parcels from the vestibule and her wraps from the closet, and show her down to the back door. She is doing valuable secret research for the Ecological Commission and we mustn’t let anybody know she was here. I’m sure I needn’t explain, Miss Smith, that you can rely absolutely on the discretion of my staff. You’d better wait inside until your escort arrives. We sometimes have prowlers in the alley, I’m sorry to say, and Charles’s duties will keep him upstairs. I’ll try not to keep you too long, but I beg you to be patient.”
Charles couldn’t resist this appeal to his sense of drama. He led Miss Smith and her bags of ecological research down the back hall in furtive majesty. Now Sarah’s problem was to find the woman an escort.
Cousin Dolph had already done his good deed for the day. Anyway, Sarah couldn’t see him tootling out to the project with a woman who looked like a walking ragbag. Uncle Jem couldn’t go because he was already booked to show up for dinner and keep the boarders’ minds off Mr. Quiffen. He was no doubt getting decked out in his antique soup-and-fish right now, thinking up a few more picturesque skeletons to hang on the family tree and warming his vocal cords with a couple of quick martinis, knowing he’d get no cocktails from his impecunious niece.
Egbert might possibly be persuaded, but Jem’s valet was getting on in years himself, and had enough to cope with as it was, riding herd on his wayward employer. Mr. Lomax would be just the person, but he was. an hour’s drive away at Ireson’s Landing. Miss Smith couldn’t be left dithering in the alleyway door all evening. There was only one person Sarah could think of who might realistically be asked to perform such an errand.
If only he wasn’t in Hong Kong or Uxbridge or some other outlandish place! No, he was at home. Sarah, could have cried with relief when she heard his voice on the phone.
“Mrs. Kelling! I’ve just
Miss Smith laughed incredulously. “You make me sound pretty important.”
“You are important. Decent citizens who have the courage to act on their convictions are always important. Miss Smith, you must listen to me. You may think I’m trying to shut you up because I don’t want the story to get around that one of my lodgers has been murdered, but believe me, I’m not. If this boardinghouse business flops, I stand to lose my property, but I could live with that. What I could not bear is the thought that I’d sent you out into the dark and got you killed.”
“Mrs. Kelling!”
“I’m speaking from experience. Give me your address so that we can keep in touch. I’ll let you know anything I can find out, but I most earnestly beg you, for your own protection, to keep acting like a harmless crank and trust me to handle the matter from now on. Will you promise?”
“I might as well, I guess. At least you stand a chance of getting somebody to pay attention, which is more than I do. Look, have you got a back door I can sneak out by? I don’t want to embarrass you by running into one of your other boarders.”
“You wouldn’t embarrass me, but there’s always the nasty little odd chance one of them might recognize you and guess what you’re doing here. I’ll call you a taxi.”
“No, don’t do that. I live over in the project. If anybody around there saw me coming home in a cab, they’d think I must have money hidden in my room. Let me go on the subway same as I always do.”
“All right, if you must, but you’re not going alone. I can’t go with you myself right now because I have to cook dinner, but you must wait till I see what I can arrange.”
Sarah touched the bell and Charles came running.
“Charles, fetch Miss Smith’s parcels from the vestibule and her wraps from the closet, and show her down to the back door. She is doing valuable secret research for the Ecological Commission and we mustn’t let anybody know she was here. I’m sure I needn’t explain, Miss Smith, that you can rely absolutely on the discretion of my staff. You’d better wait inside until your escort arrives. We sometimes have prowlers in the alley, I’m sorry to say, and Charles’s duties will keep him upstairs. I’ll try not to keep you too long, but I beg you to be patient.”
Charles couldn’t resist this appeal to his sense of drama. He led Miss Smith and her bags of ecological research down the back hall in furtive majesty. Now Sarah’s problem was to find the woman an escort.
Cousin Dolph had already done his good deed for the day. Anyway, Sarah couldn’t see him tootling out to the project with a woman who looked like a walking ragbag. Uncle Jem couldn’t go because he was already booked to show up for dinner and keep the boarders’ minds off Mr. Quiffen. He was no doubt getting decked out in his antique soup-and-fish right now, thinking up a few more picturesque skeletons to hang on the family tree and warming his vocal cords with a couple of quick martinis, knowing he’d get no cocktails from his impecunious niece.
Egbert might possibly be persuaded, but Jem’s valet was getting on in years himself, and had enough to cope with as it was, riding herd on his wayward employer. Mr. Lomax would be just the person, but he was. an hour’s drive away at Ireson’s Landing. Miss Smith couldn’t be left dithering in the alleyway door all evening. There was only one person Sarah could think of who might realistically be asked to perform such an errand.
If only he wasn’t in Hong Kong or Uxbridge or some other outlandish place! No, he was at home. Sarah, could have cried with relief when she heard his voice on the phone.
“Mrs. Kelling! I’ve just
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