“That I might dash ahead of the bus, and leave Cassie’s car, and hop on the bus myself? Oh, yes,” Dow said. “I thought of that one. But I couldn’t get past the thing. The street was only cleared for two lanes, and what with the streetcars and the west-bound traffic, I never got the chance. I tried. God knows I tried. I did everything but hurdle that damn bus— That reminds me, Cassie. Have the bill for the fender and the new radiator grille sent me. That’s what I got for trying.”
“They don’t cost much,” Cassie said consolingly. “The man gives me the grilles wholesale, you know. What a pity you didn’t have Popeye!”
“Or even my own car,” Dow said. “I could have got by with either. But you could put my car and Popeye in that damn black sedan and still have room for two tables of bridge. Anyway, I consoled myself by thinking that maybe it would be better if I waited and saw what she did. She got off at Lake and Water—”
“Oh, dear!” Cassie said. “I know what happened there. There wasn’t any place to park. Was there? There never is!”
“Is that that place,” Leonidas said, “where the streetcar line stops in a square?”
Dow nodded.
“It’s also the junction of Routes Seven, Eighteen, and One-thirty-four-A, and several others I don’t remember. Finally I drove Simeon into a snow bank and started out on foot along Water Street after her. She turned— Cuff, is there anything the matter with you that you make those peculiar sounds?”
“I’m thinking,” Cuff said.
“Oh. Well, I followed Chard at what I thought was a discreet distance, but after a while she started to turn back and take little peeks at me. Then she walked faster. So I walked a little faster. At a brisk trot,” Dow said wearily, “we traversed practically all of Dalton Upper Falls. Finally I stopped in a doorway on Florence Street—you know that section, Bill? It’s just beginning to degenerate from frame houses with cupolas into three-family tenements. And Chard paused, and looked around, and then she started off like mad, in a terrific rush. So I rushed. And she turned back to Water Street. And before I realized, that wench opened her mouth and started to scream ‘Stop Thief,’ and point at me. What does Rutherford feed his cops for breakfast?”
“I gather,” Leonidas said, “that Dalton’s finest were on the job?”
“On the job, and apparently on their marks, just waiting for someone to yell ‘Stop Thief.’ One weighed about two-fifty and had the speed of an antelope—”
“Mac Ardle,” Cuff said. “He’s an old marathoner.”
“I don’t doubt it. The other was lighter, with a pointed face, and he ran like two antelopes.”
“Pimcek,” Cuff said. “He used to be anchor on the Golden Rule Athaletic Club relay. Say, you mean them two chased you, and you got away?”
“In my day,” Dow said, “people have pinned medals on my chest for the way I ran. Hear that, Leslie? Advt. But I never ran for dear old Dumbert or the dear old college the way I ran from those two cops. I wasn’t going to have Swiss Chard get me for being a bag-snatcher. So I circled back to the car.”
“I know,” Cassie said. “And then they got you for parking Simeon near a hydrant. That’s what always happens to me on Water Street.”
“No, darling,” Dow said. “No. Swiss Chard was pointing at the car, and telling two more of Rutherford’s finest that the young cur .who tried to snatch her bag had followed her on the bus in that selfsame car. I couldn’t hear what she said, but it was obvious to a child from the way she gestured up the street, and at the car, and then at her bag.”
“Whereupon,” Leslie said unexpectedly, “whereupon the gallant young officer seized Disguise Kit Number Six from his pocket, and in a trice had transformed himself into the very counterpart of Ivan, the sneering young aide of Prince Casimir Vassily.”
Dow threw back his head and howled with laughter.
“Ah, the incomparable Lieutenant Haseltine! There, there’s a common bond. I could never marry a woman who didn’t love Prince Casimir of the sinister mustache and the nitroglycerin. But d’you know, the funniest part is that’s who I did think of! Haseltine. So I ducked into an alley, and turned my trench coat inside out, and stuck on a beret I had in my pocket, and put on my driving glasses. And then I strolled past the car in time to hear Rutherford’s finest promise Swiss Chard that they’d stay right there till the guy came back to his car. They looked as if they meant it, so I took the next Upper Falls bus back to the village, and then the Birch Hill bus over here. Filling Simeon’s gas tank was a capital outlay. I couldn’t afford a cab.”
“Did Miss Chard recognize you? Did she know who you were?” Leonidas asked. “And why didn’t you follow her, Dow, and see where she went?”
“I couldn’t tell whether she recognized me or not,” Dow said. “You can’t tell anything from that frightened manner of hers. You can’t tell what she thinks from the way she looks. But she had the cops so upset with her fright that one of ‘em said he’d take her wherever she was going and make sure she wasn’t bothered again.”
“Listen, Bill,” Cuff said plaintively, “who was it got bumped off here, anyway?”
“Medora Winthrop. Miss Medora Winthrop,” Leonidas said. “I’m sorry nobody thought to tell you. D’you know her?”
“I think I had a car of hers once,” Cuff said casually. “Look, who’s this Prince Somebody?”
“Is there anyone here,” Dow said, “who feels competent to explain Prince Casimir Vassily to Cuff?”
“Now, Dow,” Cassie said, “don’t confuse him! Cuff, that’s just someone in a book. Like—well, like Tarzan. You know. In a book. Have you got it straight? The woman who was killed was Miss Medora Winthrop. The prince is
