“Dislodging, in the process,” Leonidas said, “your ubiquitous lipstick, which rolled on the floor and lured me in the drawing room. Did Miss Chard offer no explanations?”
The girl shook her head.
“She was in no state to think. Neither was I. I only knew if we called anyone in, and they looked at you, and the gun and handcuffs, Chard and I would share a cell. And I’d never get the gun and handcuffs back. I felt Chard was crazy, but I couldn’t figure out what she was up to. If she were a kidnaper, or something sinister, she wouldn’t have been blubbering around, waving that useless gun. She’d be giving orders in a sharp voice—”
“Sharp, staccato voice,” Cassie corrected. “That’s the way Lieutenant Haseltine does. Do you know him, by the way? This sounds like one of Haseltine’s adventures.”
Leslie Horn laughed.
“I did a jacket for one of those books last year, and I was so enchanted, I read straight through the set. Frankly, I’ve thought of Haseltine more than once in the last day or so. Anyway, you see my point. If Chard were a sinister creature, at work on a sinister plot, she’d either have been giving orders behind a bona fide gun, or she’d have beat it. I knew by then that you were alive, Shakespeare. I saw your bump, and you were breathing. And I knew it would almost be worse, if you came to and started a ruckus. I shook Chard and told her to snap out of it, that you were alive, and we had to get out, and she had to do some quick thinking. And d’you know, she did!”
“Oh, she would!” Cassie said. “You’d never guess how efficient she is, under that scared manner. I know. I’ve been on committees with her. It was she who thought of the Camavon train, and making the conductor and everyone think you’d been out of your drawing room for a long time, so they’d figure Bill got bumped when that snow plow got in the way. Chard thought of that, didn’t she? And then you dashed off the train at Back Bay— Go on from there.”
“Yes.” Leslie’s voice seemed strained. “Yes. She made it, but I dropped my pocketbook, and of course the catch popped. And while I picked things out of a snow bank, that Camavon train went puffing off without me.”
“But you weren’t really going with her!” Cassie said.
“Yes, I decided that any existing plan would be pretty well rooked by this quick train change. And Chard had already gummed things up when she biffed Shakespeare— That reminds me, Shakespeare. She didn’t think you saw her hit you, and she said even if you had, probably no one would believe you if you told them.”
“I did see her face,” Leonidas said, “but her theorizing was absolutely correct. I wonder how she—m’yes. So Miss Chard planned all that hasty exiting at Back Bay, but you still felt that she was not the master mind behind this strange expedition of yours?”
“Look,” Leslie said, “she didn’t want to get mixed up with the authorities, but she didn’t want to involve me, either. Otherwise she’d have yelled for help, there in the drawing room, and pointed to you, Shakespeare, and said I was responsible. She could have. In this whole mess, it’s her word against mine. And the word of Miss Medora Winthrop’s companion is as good as mine. But she didn’t take any steps. The only thing she seemed to have on her mind was getting me to Dalton. And while we waited there in the day-coach vestibule, before we got into Back Bay, she muttered something about doing her duty, and fulfilling her obligations. And that led me to believe that if there was dirty work afoot, Medora Winthrop was responsible.”
“We thought that,” Cassie said. “So you decided to find out?”
“Yes. I changed my mind for the millionth time, and decided that Medora was the crazy one. Not Chard. Poor, frightened little Chard was trying to cany out Medora’s orders, and all this biffing, and throwing away of the gun and handcuffs, was just sheer panic. Then, after I picked up the things that had fallen from my pocketbook, I came to. Poor, dear, frightened little Chard had swiped my hundred-dollar bill from the inside compartment of my bag.”
Leonidas and Cassie both blinked.
“Chard took it?” Cassie said. “Chard?”
“It couldn’t have dropped out. The compartment was still snapped. She took it while I dashed out and palavered about trains with the conductor. While she was getting dressed. That left me with fifteen cents to my name. And I discovered that she’d also made off with my brush box—you know, one of those long, tin boxes. And the gun and handcuffs, too.”
“Not even the estimable Haseltine/’ Leonidas said, “ever achieved anything quite like this. His adventures have been more violent, but certainly no more puzzling. What did you do then?”
“Hocked my watch, and took the next train to Dalton— Tell me, how many varieties of Dalton are there?”
“Fifteen,” Leonidas said.
“Seventeen,” Cassie corrected him. “East Dalton, West Dalton, North Dalton, South Dalton, Dalton Hills, Dalton Farms, Dalton Centre, Dalton Village, Dalton Falls, Dalton Upper Falls, Dalton Lower Falls, Daltondale, Daltonville, Daltonham, Dalton Landing, Daltonwood—how many is that?”
“Enough,” Leonidas said. “Do I gather that you got to the wrong Dalton, Miss Horn?”
“I got to more wrong Daltons that I would have believed possible. I got to them,” Leslie said wearily, “on busses, trains, streetcars—once I even took a subway to a ferry.”
Leonidas chuckled.
“Dalton
