I slept well, too.
If there was any prowling that night I didn’t hear it.
Memorial Day, Sunday, dawned rainy and gray, as Memorial Days have a habit of dawning. I had, at breakfast, almost a reception. Even Mrs. Tewman came in, more sullen than ever because the disturbance Friday night had shown up her absence from the house, and she was afraid Mrs. Garr would hear of it when she came back. She stared at me as if I were a victim in a wax museum. Mrs. Waller had told her the story.
“You missed out on it,” I condoled.
“Jim and I went out on a party. We don’t get much chance to go out on a party when she’s here.”
“I’ll bet you don’t,” I said. “Sit down and have a cookie?”
She took the cookie, but she wouldn’t sit down; she munched grimly, standing up.
“It was a beer party,” she said defiantly, and left.
Mr. Kistler came down at eleven to eat everything left on the table.
“I suppose you know your publicity by heart?” he started.
“Whose publicity? You mean I got in the papers?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t know a whole reporter stormed the house yesterday! He telephoned.”
“He missed me. I was a working girl.”
“Didn’t even read last night’s Comet?”
“Too tired.”
“These people who can’t read and then try to alibi,” he said.
He left, taking his slice of toast with him, and came back, still chewing, with a paper.
“See? Page eleven.”
The item he pointed at was a brief notice at the obscure bottom of page eleven.
PROWLER ATTACKS WOMAN
Mrs. Gwynne Dacres, 26, lodger at 593 Trent Street, was set upon by an unknown assailant who attempted to choke her, early this morning. Mrs. Dacres told police she was wakened by a slight noise at the back of the house and went to investigate it. The moment she stepped outside her door, the man sprang upon her and, she says, attempted to throttle her. She found herself lying on the floor of her kitchen when she recovered consciousness a short time later. Police believe she probably surprised a prowler who was trying to break into a basement window. No clues were found. Mrs. Dacres recovered promptly without medical assistance.
“Short and sweet! ‘Recovered promptly’? What about my nerves?”
“Copywriters don’t have ’em in the plural. Only in the singular.”
“Sir! No gentleman is insulting to a lady at her own table!”
“But it’s a breakfast table. How do you know what goes on at breakfast tables—or do you?”
Miss Sands and the Wallers came in then. After they had been there awhile, the breakfast things were all pushed to one end of the table so we could play put-and-take with matches for chips. Mr. Grant came down to chirp around the table, too, although he refused to play. Mr. Buffingham poked his head in at the door just before noon.
“How’re you doin’?” he asked awkwardly.
“Fine,” I said. “I have almost all Mr. Kistler’s matches. Come in and take a hand?”
“No, thanks, I’m a workin’ man.”
After he left we played without interruption. At three o’clock we were still sitting there; the rumpled tablecloth still held the toaster and the empty dishes at one end of the table. At three o’clock Mr Kistler had all the matches. The Wallers and Miss Sands gave up and went upstairs.
“Unlucky in love.” Mr. Kistler aggrievedly piled the matches back into their box. “I’ll pay you back in dinner for that breakfast I ate.”
He did better than that. We dined and danced, and the next morning he got me up early to go fishing in a woolly gray drizzle. We spent all that holiday sitting in a boat on Slater Lake, pulling flat little sunfish up on drop lines, screwing hooks out of their gelatinous mouths, and then throwing them back into the lake again, because they were too little to keep. He thought it was fun. We didn’t have licenses, either.
I rose late on Tuesday morning because of the long day before, and because I wasn’t working. In fact I was just getting out of bed when the telephone rang, about ten o’clock. Mrs. Tewman didn’t answer, so I did.
The high voice at the other end of the wire was Mrs. Halloran’s.
“Could I speak to Mrs. Garr, please?”
“Why, hello, Mrs. Halloran, welcome home. I haven’t seen her, but I’ll call.”
With my hand over the mouthpiece I called, “Mrs. Garr! Mrs. Garr!” I waited, but there wasn’t any answer.
“I haven’t seen her yet, and she doesn’t answer,” I said to the phone. “When did you get in? Did you have a nice time?”
“About a hour ago. I just got home. Oh, swell, I had a swell time. I saw four movies and Lincoln Park and Michigan Avenue and I bought me a hat in the Boston Store and I saw the house where that girl shot her friend in the back; you know, you saw it in the papers?”
“It must have been lovely.”
“Oh, it was, just lovely, my, I had a swell time.”
“Shall I take any message for Mrs. Garr when I see her?”
“No, you just tell her I called up and it was just lovely, my, I had a swell time.”
I don’t see how I could have had an inkling of the truth from that conversation.
The only thing that struck me, as I went back to dress, was that Mrs. Halloran’s message didn’t sound grateful, it sounded vindictive, and that it was odd of her to call before Mrs. Garr had even had time to get home from the station.
I went downtown that morning to proposition different companies, letting them know that I was a good experienced copywriter they might call in while regular
