“Oh no. They’re just holding him. For investigation or something. Because he had a ticket. A Memorial Day excursion ticket to Chicago. That’s the ticket Mrs. Garr was going to use to go to Chicago on, but couldn’t find. It was a little hard for Mr. Kistler to explain.”
“Oh, for cripes sake! Where does he say he got it?”
“Mr. Kistler’s darling little story is that a girl gave it to him. One of the girls you and he were out with a week ago last night.”
“Well, say—say! Maybe she did! Say, the girl I was with had one, too. They were passing ’em around the table. They said—Say, I’ll bet that’s where he did get it!”
“I’m hearing you,” I said.
“But for gosh sake, he can’t stay in jail loafing today! Doesn’t he know we’ve got that advertising manager from the P-X stores coming in today? He’s got him half sold on a big advertising contract. And we need that dough. Sister, how we need it!”
“He never goes down till noon anyway,” I pointed out.
“Say, woman, do you ever check on when he comes down Wednesday and Thursday mornings? Say, sometimes he doesn’t have to come down—he is here!”
I didn’t realize Mr. Kistler went in so heavily for labor; he’d always spoken of his work as a joke. But he would.
“Then it looks to me as if you’ll have to sell your advertising manager yourself,” I said.
A loud groan. “But I can’t! I don’t know the facts. I don’t know the figures. I’m no salesman. Hodge handles all that. Do you realize what’ll happen if we don’t get that dough? Do you realize we got a press right now that breaks—Hey, wait a minute!”
A loud rumbling at the other end of the wire.
“I’ve got to go,” he yelled. “Do something! Get Hodge here!”
“Do something yourself,” I retorted, but it didn’t do any good. He’d hung up.
Mrs. Tewman, when I replaced the receiver, was behind me, taking the conversation glumly in.
“So they got him locked up now.”
“Why, hello, Mrs. Tewman! Where’ve you been?”
“I was over to my husband’s brother’s house.”
“I suppose you’ve heard?”
“Oh yeah, I heard.” Fury was burning in her. “They kep’ me and my husband over at his brother’s house all day yesterday, askin’ and askin’ and askin’. I never heard so much askin’. And Jim, he had to work again last night. Hardly one hour sleep he had. He’s downstairs sleepin’ now, so dead he might just as well of been murdered hisself. They make me sick.”
It appeared, however, that after being questioned through most of the day before, the Tewmans’ alibi of the beer party during the evening and night of the Friday in question had been substantiated; people had noticed them because they were so seldom able to get away. Jim had hired a man to replace him at frying hamburgers that night.
“So then they wanted to know why I moved out of here this week, so I told ’em. It was the smell. They said why didn’t I tell somebody there was a smell.”
“You mean you did notice—Well, for heaven’s sake, why didn’t you tell someone?”
She shrugged. “It wasn’t none of my business. Who should I go tellin’ to? Mrs. Garr wasn’t here, was she? I went over to my husband’s brother’s house. I stayed there. Now they told me I gotta come back and stay here. But I ain’t goin’ to stay in that cellar. I ain’t goin’ to do no cleanin’, neither,” she ended doggedly and went to sit in Mrs. Garr’s front room. Just sit, doing nothing.
As Mrs. Garr had so often sat. It was shuddery to see her there.
I went about my own concerns, but my thoughts kept veering back to Mr. Trowbridge. I didn’t, however, get far with either my concerns or my thoughts. I’d no sooner begun breakfast than quick knocks sounded on my door. I opened to Mrs. Halloran.
“My, you must be feelin’ good this morning,” she cried spitefully.
“Not especially. I’m sorry it turned out to be your husband, but of course I had to tell.”
“Well, I come to tell you somethin’! And you can just put this in your pipe and eat it! Mr. Halloran’s out, see. He wasn’t nowheres around this house Friday, see? He’s got an alibi, see? And they can’t prove he don’t!” Her voice rose on every word until she had a fine scream at the end.
“I’m glad to hear it. Was that all?”
“No, that ain’t all! This house is mine now, see? I heired this prop’ty. The police read it to me in the will. I’m a heiress. And I’ll thank you to get out of my house!”
She drew herself up grandly, her little eyes black over cheeks for once naturally red. For the first time I saw the resemblance in her to Mrs. Garr. I understood then, too, the reason for the elation I’d glimpsed on her face and on her husband’s face the evening before when they’d been emerging from Lieutenant Strom’s office. They’d come into property. I thought fast.
“Why, of course I’ll move. Anytime you say. If the police will let me.”
“Let you! Huh! Nobody’s going to tell me who I can keep in my house. You come here!”
She marched out to the policeman in the hall with me close at her heels.
“I demand this woman get out of my house!” She pointed a theatric finger at me.
The fat lump placidly shook his head.
“You mean I can’t tell her to get out of my house?” she shrieked.
Another shake.
“I heired this prop’ty! I’m goin’ to live in it! I won’t have this woman in it!”
Another shake.
She collapsed, a grounded parachute. “If that don’t beat all,” she whined, turning to me. “Right in my own house!”
I suppressed my grin.
“That’s the way it is—these policemen,” I sympathized.
“You’ll get out as soon as they says you can, though,” she warned, trying to work herself up again.
Now was the time to strike.
“Of course I will, Mrs. Halloran. Do you think your aunt
