Obviously someone had been prowling there. Boxes were pulled down, papers and musty old clothes strewn over the floor.
“Well, what the hell do you know! So you weren’t thinking up fairy tales!”
“Do you think we should call the police?”
“Police? He’s gone, isn’t he? You saw him scoot out, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
He shook his head.
“We don’t even know if anything’s missing. If anything valuable was stolen, Mrs. Garr can tell the police. That’d be the only way they could catch him now—by nabbing him when he tried to sell what he got. How would you go about catching the guy? If he’s as far away as you’d go if you were him? No, no, lady, you’ve always got to think, in moments like this, that police are just as human as we are, and not any brighter. If as.”
“Thanks,” I said.
There didn’t seem to be much more we could do in the cellar. Nothing else that we could see looked as if it had been touched. In fact there wasn’t much else there, just gray cement walls, gray cement ceiling, a swept but grimy gray cement floor, the big hot-water furnace, pipes, laundry tubs, Mrs. Garr’s table and chair. What could there be that a thief would want?
Unless, of course, she had something valuable hidden in that storage room.
In that case, it was probably gone.
I trailed upstairs again. The room at the head of the basement stairs, and under the second-story stairs, looked in only its normal mess; a rather unclean old lady’s room, with faded tapestry curtains hiding the dresses on a rod at one end, one cot with a matching tapestry cover, one many-times-varnished chest of drawers, one chair, no window. I didn’t see how Mrs. Garr could sleep in that airless place, with the peculiar overhanging ceiling made by the stairs above.
The young man, right at my heels, paused when I did to look at Mrs. Garr’s room, then followed me confidently into my living room.
“I’ll stay by until you’re safe and sound with Mrs. Garr back,” he offered debonairly. He dropped onto my studio couch before I’d sat down myself, and examined the room.
“My, my, how clean we are.”
“My personal imprint.”
“She brags about herself.”
I was still standing. He wasn’t a particularly polite young man, and it disturbed me to think how few clothes he had on. I wished he’d go upstairs for more. He triangled an eyebrow at me and patted the couch by his side.
“Come sit by Papa?”
“No, thanks. I like this chair.” I stood by the armchair.
“Oh well, I always try,” he philosophized. “Why don’t you sit in it then, instead of emphasizing how impolite I am? Didn’t you ever hear about George Washington drinking coffee out of his saucer so as not to embarrass the congressmen, who were just as elite in his day as in ours? Now, my motto is, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Sit down or come here.”
He was impudent. I sat down.
“You’re Mr. Kistler, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am. Mr. Kistler. Hodge Kistler.”
“I was sure you couldn’t be Mr. Buff’nim.”
“Mr. Who?”
“Buff’nim. Mrs. Garr said—”
“Oh, Mr. Buffingham. Spelled B-u-f-f-i-n-g-h-a-m. What those English don’t think up!”
“I’m Mrs. Dacres.”
“Always formal and a lady?”
“Names are good dresser-uppers.”
“Alas, aren’t they? Do you like this weather, Mrs. Dacres?”
“Very much.”
“Lovely April day.”
“Very.”
“Don’t think it might be coming on to rain?”
“Not a chance.”
“I’m so relieved. These damp nights . . .”
I stood up again. “I suspect I shall never know you again after Mrs. Garr gets home.”
“Slapped again. But, ah, you got it. That was all I wanted to know.” He was grinning at me fiendishly. “Is there any approach you do like?”
“I’m sorry, but I’d like it just as well if I waited here alone.”
“Oh, sit down, baby. You know how newspapermen are. We have to live up to the reputations the movies give us, don’t we?”
“Not with me.”
“The trouble with you is that you should be introduced to yourself sometime.”
“I shan’t go to a reporter for the introduction.”
“Reporter? If by that name you mean me, Mrs. Dacres, you belittle me. Once I may have been a reporter, but no more. I have left that infancy behind. In me, you behold a publisher.”
I stared at him. Mrs. Garr had said newspaperman, and I’d filled in the reporter without thinking.
“Then what are you doing living in a—a place like this?” I blurted out.
“Dear lady, why not?” he asked largely. “I get two rooms for six dollars a week, big ones with plenty of light and air. I’ve got practically a private bath. I’ve got maid service, such as it is. How much’d I have to pay in an apartment hotel? Or would you suggest I rent a house? Me, a bachelor?”
“William Randolph Hearst in disguise, I suppose.”
“Just like all women, always expecting too much. Very silly of Mr. Hearst, squandering himself on all those papers. Spreads himself out too thin.”
“Have you telegraphed Mr. Hearst your opinion?”
“I am too big a character to write anonymous telegrams. Now me, I devote all my talent to one paper, and what a paper. Fastest-growing paper in Gilling City. Most ads. Brightest columns. Most wit. Best movie reviews. I handle most of it personally.” He waved a grandiose arm.
I stared again. Gilling City has only one big newspaper.
“Do you mean to sit there and try to make me believe you’re the publisher of the Comet?” I began furiously.
“That tradition-bound, blind, earmuffed rich man’s rag? No, no, lady. I wouldn’t touch the Comet. I haven’t touched it since I said good-bye to it forever in 1933.”
“You were fired, I bet.”
“Bull’s-eye in one shot.” He grinned again.
“Then what?”
“Now, Mrs. Dacres, haven’t you heard of the paper everyone in town reads? The paper at every door? Haven’t you heard of that illustrious, that incandescent, that blisteringly brilliant publication, the Buyers’ Guide?”
Comprehension flooded in on me.
The Buyers’ Guide is interesting. When I first saw a copy, two years ago, it was a small, four-page sheet of local
