“Wait, Cupcake,” Dow said. “There’s something tangible we can snatch at and ask about. Rutherford warned Feeny. He’s that old desk sergeant at headquarters, isn’t he? Used to be the cop on our street when I was a kid. All right. Now, what was Feeny warned?”
“You see, Feeny was being guarded—poor man, he’s not very subtle,” Cassie said, “but from this guarded, mysterious way Feeny spoke, anyone at his end would assume that Rutherford was’at my house, or that I knew where Rutherford was, and was just calling for him. He didn’t want to tell me where Rutherford really was because someone was listening, see? Feeny was being guarded.”
“It sounds to me,” Dow said, “as though you suspected Rutherford of being on a Secret Mission.”
“That’s it! And if we call and tell about Medora Winthrop, while Rutherford is away, then that horrid Rossi will take charge, and we simply cannot have him. It would be fatal.”
“We’ve got to call someone,” Leonidas pointed out. “We can’t hinder justice, Cassie. We can’t just leave her down there!”
Cassie sighed.
“You know why Rutherford took over the police, don’t you? It wasn’t from boredom or because he was retired and found it dull doing nothing. The new mayor put Rutherford in to clean up the force. And he did. But you see, Bill, Rutherford was never able to weed out Rossi.”
“Rossi is of the old regime?”
“Yes. Rutherford’s always disliked him, and lately he’s got on the track of something. I don’t know what. He’s just barely hinted at it. Feeny knows—Feeny used to work for us, long ago, and I think that maybe Feeny was the one that started Rutherford on the track. And I think that Rutherford’s tracking down something about Rossi right this minute, and he doesn’t want a soul to know. And I think that Rossi was listening in the office when I called, and that’s why Feeny was so guarded.”
“If you’d said that at first, Gran,” Jock said pensively, “I think you’d have saved a lot of explaining. Now you understand, don’t you, Bill, about everything? Rossi’s tried before to make Uncle Root look silly, but it’s awfully hard to do that.”
Leonidas nodded. Sometimes the colonel’s curt, booming monosyllables misled people into thinking him stupid, but they usually lived to regret their error.
“But here,” Cassie said, “he really can make Rutherford look utterly absurd! This is Rossi’s chance. People won’t think much of a chief of police who puts axes around for murderers to find.”
“But will Rossi know about the pickax?” Leonidas inquired.
“Will he know it’s Rutherford’s? Oh, of course! Rutherford showed those axes to everyone. Rossi’ll call in the reporters, and then there’ll be all the headlines about Rutherford, and then what Rutherford finds out about Rossi won’t matter. People will just say it’s sour grapes. So we can’t call Rossi, or anyone. We can’t.”
“But, Cassie,” Dow said, “you just can’t dismiss all thoughts of the police like that, with a jaunty wave of your hand! We might conceivably wait till Rutherford comes back from wherever he’s gone. Only we don’t know where he’s gone, or how long he intends to stay there. We’ve got to do something right now!”
“Oh, we’re going to,” Jock said. “We’ve settled that.”
“Oh, you have, have you, Cupcake? What?”
Leonidas swallowed. He thought he knew what was coming.
“We’re going to solve this ourselves!” Cassie said triumphantly.
Dow slid off the table top where he had been perched.
“So?” he said. “So?”
Cassie stopped him just as he picked up the red phone.
“Put that back, Dow! That’s what I said, and that’s what I mean! We’re going to solve this.”
Dow looked at her, and then he turned to Leonidas.
“Bill, we’ve already got ourselves into a hole, dallying around like this. Take her by the hand, will you, and talk turkey to her? The House Moderne has gone to her head. She’s daft!”
“I am not!” Cassie retorted. “Heaven knows you won’t be any help in solving anything, but Bill can. He’s done it before. See?”
She waved her hand as though that settled everything.
“Cassie,” Leonidas said. “Miss Winthrop was Dow’s aunt. The pickax belonged to your brother. The garage is mine. The beach wagon was a gift of yours and Jock’s. Don’t you see, Cassie, in one way or another, we all figure in this. And it’s just possible that not reporting it might be considered faintly suspicious. If it had been the mousy woman—”
Cassie dove at her opportunity.
“What mousy woman? You keep mentioning her but you never get down to facts. Bill,” Cassie pointed her finger at him, “you might have fooled Dow with your talk of Maharajahs, but you can’t fool me! Something was going on, this morning, on that train. Something that made you terribly suspicious. And,” Cassie continued, with one eye on the pince-nez, which had just begun to swing, “and something happened here, too? Didn’t it now?”
“Cassie,” Dow said, “you are simply playing for time. You know it. Bill isn’t going to be fooled by you—” Cassie’s piercing scream brought both Leonidas and Dow to their feet. Jock, who was acclimated to his grandmother’s reception of startling ideas, merely looked at her questioningly.
“Dow,” Cassie said excitedly, “think! Think of mousy women! You big goon, think!”
“I don’t even know what you mean by a mousy woman, .Cassie! I only know we’ve got to call the police. And we’ve got to call ‘em now!”
“Dow, can’t you see what’s happened? Don’t you see this is worse than we ever thought? A mousy woman! Of course, there’d be a mousy woman! Why didn’t I think? Dow, we’ve been living in a fool’s paradise! If someone asked you to name a woman who looked like a mouse, and scurried around like a mouse, and was generally gray, and wee, and cowering, and—what’s the rest, Jock? You were learning that the other day.”
“Sleekit and tim’rous,” Jock said promptly.
“Who would you think of, Dow?” Cassie demanded.
“Who would you think of at once, you great, gangling
