put the Bible down. 'Well?'
'If Dorothy was killed,' Ellen said, 'the man who did it would swear on a dozen Bibles. And if she thought he loved her, then he was a good actor too.' Gant rolled his eyes heavenward and extended his wrists for the handcuffs. 'All right,' he said, 'I'll go quietly.'
'I'm glad you think this is something to joke about.'
He lowered his hands. 'I'm sorry,' he said sincerely. 'But how the hell am I supposed to convince you that-'
'You can't,' Ellen said. 'You might as well go.'
'There were other blond guys in the class,' he insisted. He snapped his fingers. 'There was one she used to come in with all the time! Cary Grant chin, tall...'
'Dwight Powell?'
'That's right!' He stopped short. 'Is he on your list?'
She hesitated a moment, and then nodded.
'He's the one!'
Ellen looked at him suspiciously.
He threw up his hands. 'Okay. I give up. You'll see, it was Powell.' He moved towards the door; Ellen backed into the hallway. 'I would just like to leave, as you suggested,' Gant said loftily.
He came into the hallway. 'Unless you want me to go on calling you Hester, you ought to tell me what your name really is.'
'Ellen.'
Gant seemed reluctant to go. 'What are you going to do now?'
After a moment she said, 'I don't know.'
'If you barge into Powell's place, don't pull a fluff like you did this afternoon. He may be no one to fool around with.'
Ellen nodded.
Gant looked her up and down. 'A girl on a mission,' he mused. 'Never thought I'd live to see the day.' He started to go and then turned back. 'You wouldn't be in the market for a Watson, would you?'
'No, thanks,' she said in the doorway. 'I'm sorry but...'
He shrugged and smiled. 'I figured my credentials wouldn't be in order. Well, good luck...' He turned and walked down the hallway.
Ellen backed into her room and slowly closed the door.
... Its 7: 30 now, Bud, and I'm comfortably settled in a very nice room at the New Washington House -just had dinner and am ready to take a bath and turn in after a full day.
I spent most of the afternoon in the waiting room of the Dean of Students. When I finally got to see him I told a fabulous story about an unpaid debt which Dorothy owed to a handsome blond in her fall English class. After much digging through records and examining a rogues gallery of application blank photos, we came up with the man-Mr. Dwight Powell of 1520 West 35th Street, on whom the hunting season opens tomorrow morning.
How's that for an efficient start? Never underestimate the power of a woman!
Love,
Ellen
At eight o'clock she paused in her undressing and dropped a quarter into the coin-operated bedside radio. She pushed the button marked KBRI. There was a low humming and then, smooth and sonorous, Gant's voice swelled into the room. ',.. another session with The Discus Thrower, or as our engineer puts it, 'Puff and Pant with Gordon Gant,' which shows the limitations of a purely scientific education. On to the agenda. The first disc of the evening is an oldie, and it's dedicated to Miss Hester Holmes of Wisconsin...'
A jumpy orchestral introduction, nostalgically dated, burst from the radio and faded under the singing of a sugary, little-girl voice: Button up your overcoat When the wind is free, Take good care of yourself, You belong to me...
Smiling, Ellen went into the bathroom. The tiled walls rang with the sound of water pounding into the tub. She kicked off her slippers and hung her robe on a hook beside the door. She reached over and turned off the water. In the sudden silence, the wispy voice sifted in from the next room: Don't sit on hornets' tails, ooh-ooh, Or on nails, ooh-ooh, Or third rails, ooh-ooh...
'Hello?' the voice was a woman's.
'Hello,' Ellen said. 'Is Dwight Powell there?'
'No, he isn't.'
'When do you expect him back?'
'I couldn't say for sure. I know he works over at Folger's between his classes and afterwards, but I don't know to what time he works.'
'Aren't you his landlady?'
'No. I'm her daughter-in-law come over to clean.
Mrs. Honig is in Iowa City with her foot. She cut it last week and it got infected. My husband had to take her to Iowa City.'
'Oh, I'm sorry...
'If you have a message for Dwight, I can leave him a note.'
'No, thanks. I have a class with him in a couple of hours, so I'll see him then. It wasn't anything important.'
'Okay. Good-by.'
'Good-by.'
Ellen hung up. She certainly wasn't going to wait to speak to the landlady. She was already more or less convinced that Powell was the man who had been going with Dorothy; checking with the landlady would only have been a sort of formality; verification could be obtained just as easily from Powell's friends. Or from Powell himself...
She wondered what kind of place it was where he worked. Folger's. It would have to be near the campus if he went there in free hours between classes. If it were a store of some sort, where he waited on customers...
She picked up the telephone book, turned to the IP's and skimmed through the listings.
Folger Drugs 1448 UnivAv.. .2-3800
It was between 28th and 29th Streets across the avenue from the campus; a squat brick structure with a long green sign stretched across its brow: Folger Drugs and in smaller letters Prescriptions and in still smaller letters Fountain Service. Ellen paused outside the glass door and smoothed her bangs. Drawing herself up as though making an entrance onto a stage, she pushed open the door and went in.
The fountain was on the left; mirrors, chrome, gray marble; fronted by a line of round-topped red leatherette stools. It was not yet noon so only a few people were seated at the forward end.
Dwight Powell was behind the counter, wearing a snug white mess jacket and a white cap which rode the waves of his fine blond hair like an overturned ship. His square-jawed face was lean and he had a moustache; a thin carefully trimmed line of almost colorless hairs, visible only when the light gleamed on it; a feature which evidently had been added some time after the taking of the photograph which the Dean had shown. Powell was squirting whipped cream from a metal cannister onto a gummy-looking sundae. There was a sullen set to his lips that made it clear he disliked his job.
Ellen walked towards the far end of the counter. As she passed Powell, who was placing the sundae before a customer, she sensed him glance up. She went on, eyes straight ahead, to the empty section. Taking off her coat, she folded it and put it with her purse on one of the row of empty stools. She seated herself on the next stool. With her hands flat on the cold marble, she examined her reflection in the mirrored wall opposite. Her hands left the marble, dropped to the bottom of her powder blue sweater and pulled it down tight Powell approached along the gangway behind the counter. He put a glass of water and a paper napkin before her. His eyes were deep blue, the skin immediately below them gray-shadowed. 'Yes, miss?' he said in a low-pitched voice. His eyes met hers and
