“Me, too,” Cuff said. “Look, Bill, you mean a guy come here about a icebox? Was that what you wanted to ask Peters about?”
“That’s right,” Leonidas said encouragingly. Any trace of such tremendous mental percolating on the part of Cuff was something, he thought, that ought to be encouraged. “That’s it. Now, you call Peters and ask him if he saw a man wandering around here—”
“Listen, Bill, what did the guy look like?”
“He was a nondescript individual,” Leonidas said, “who might have been peddling shoestrings. His only characteristic appeared to be persistency.”
“Yeah,” Cuff said. “Uh-huh. Was he short, like? And sort of dark? And he had on like a Mackinaw, with a zipper? And pig eyes?”
“Cuff,” Leonidas said with admiration, “that is as masterly a description as I have ever heard. Brief. Concise. Pointed. You have undoubtedly known this man over a period of years!”
Cuff shook his head.
“I don’t know him, Bill!”
“But you must!” Leonidas said. “You—”
“Let me, Bill,” Cassie said. “That isn’t the right way. Look, Cuff, when did you see Pig Eyes? Was it this morning?”
“Yeah,” Cuff said. “I’m coming out of the dispensary, see, and the doctor says the wrist’ll be all right day after tomorrow. And there’s a truck stuck in a snow drift on the corner, and there’s a red icebox in it, see?”
“Like Bill’s,” Cassie said.
“Yeah, that’s right. I thinks, there’s an icebox like Bill’s. And the guy says will I give him a hand, and I shows him my wrist, see? But I get in the truck, see, and cut it for him while he digs and puts on ashes. And we get it out. So when I go, I tell him that’s a snappy job he’s got on, and he says it’s a special job he just got from the warehouse. That wasn’t no repaint, Bill. That was a new box. Brand new.”
“Cuff, that’s marvelous!” Cassie said. “Now we can phone the distributor, or the warehouse, and find out who—”
Leonidas interrupted her.
“Don’t let’s lose the thread. Cuff, Pig Eyes was alone, he had a truck, and on the truck was a red refrigerator like mine, and Pig Eyes told you it was a special job. Did he tell you anything else, as where the box was going, or what he was doing with it?”
Cuff shook his head.
“He didn’t say nothing. But he asked me if Main Avenue’d be cleared so he could go up it.”
“Which means,” Cassie was getting excited, “that he was coming up here to Birch Hill. Now, all we’ve got to do is to phone and find out who ordered it, and then we’ll know who wanted to get in. And then we’ll know who killed Medora. Why, it’s marvelous!” She paused and looked at Leonidas. “Oh. Isn’t it?”
“In the first place,” he pointed out, “it’s too late to call warehouses or distributors, Cassie. And I greatly doubt if the name given by the purchaser will do us any good.”
Cassie wanted to know why.
“If,” Leonidas said, “I found myself compelled for some obscure reason to whisk your icebox away and replace it with another new icebox, and if I wished the whole affair to be shrouded with deep secrecy, I should order the new one in your name, pay cash, and cause my own hireling to make delivery in his truck. But my name would never be involved in the purchase, and my hireling would be deliberately chosen for his inability, if questioned, to remember who I was. M’yes. Now, why didn’t I notice any truck, I wonder?”
“Probably he pulled it around on the back street,” Cuff said. “It ain’t so far to your back door from there. That’s where your driveway is, anyhow. You can’t tell, because it ain’t cleared out. But the drive like for an icebox would be to the back.”
“He means,” Cassie translated, “the service drive is at the rear. What a lot someone knows, Bill! About prowl cars, and your refrigerator being red, and the service drive at the rear— Let’s call Peters and see if he can cast any light.”
But Peters, as he assured both Cassie and Cuff in the course of a lengthy telephone conversation, remembered seeing no trucks in general, and no specific truck with an icebox on it.
Cassie sighed as she hung up.
“The first whiff of a real clew, and we can’t get anywhere with it! Cuff, don’t you remember the truck’s number? Wasn’t there a name on the side, like Joe’s Express, or something?”
Cuff said plaintively that he wasn’t on duty.
“Besides,” he added, “the plates was all covered with snow.”
Leonidas smiled.
“Were they, indeed. All covered with snow. And although Pig Eyes was willing to chat with you, he didn’t allow his truck to be seen by Peters. He drove around the far block and avoided that particular corner where Car Fifteen was. Cuff, if you could whip your brain into recalling more of Pig Eyes and his truck, I should present you and Margie with a green refrigerator for your wedding present.”
Cuff rubbed his nose and stared into the corner.
“Bill,” he said, “I never thought harder than I’m thinking now. You look in it while I keep on thinking.”
“In what?”
“In the box. If he wants it, there’s something in it, see?”
Cassie let out a war whoop.
“Of course! No one’s going to invest in a new de luxe Frosty Spot just for the fun of it! What did you say, Bill?”
“It was an aside,” Leonidas was busy removing the contents of the red refrigerator, “concerning babes and sucklings. You take the lower shelves—”
Two minutes later, they surveyed the assortment of provisions strewn over the kitchen.
“Unless someone’s hidden something in an egg,” Leslie said, “I think
