Short Fiction

of the lyric a terrible hunch came to him. He had heard the tune before. Where? Why, back at home in the Episcopal church choir. Only there it had been in nine-eight or something, and now it was four-four. “The strife is o’er, the battle done.”

“I won’t give up till I’m sure,” he said to himself.

There was one composer in town who, chances were, would be up at this time of night, five or ten minutes past three. It was quite a job to grab hold of the telephone, but Booth finally managed it.

“Well, whistle it or hum it, but do it quick because I’m working,” said Mr. Youmans.

Booth whistled the refrain, though whistling was difficult.

“I like it very much,” said Mr. Youmans.

“But isn’t it a hymn? I seem to have heard it in church.”

“It’s a hymn all right,” said Mr. Youmans, “but I don’t think you heard it in church. I’m sure I never did.”

“No. I can imagine that.”

“But I can tell you where you did hear it.”

“Where?”

“Do you remember the morning you came to my Great Day rehearsal? That’s where you heard it. It’s the Negroes’ hymn that opens the second act.”

Booth tore up his sheet of music paper and looked across the court. Clearly visible was the silhouette of the gentleman putting on his coat and hat.

Booth lunged for the telephone again.

“I’ll call her up,” he thought. “I’ll tell her I’m sorry her husband has to go to work so early.”

The operator answered in a voice as thick and sleepy as his own.

“Listen,” he said, “what’s the number of the room right across the court from me?”

“I don’t know, and if I did I wouldn’t tell you.”

“But I’ve got something important to say.”

“You sound like it. Anyway, you tell it to me and I’ll deliver the message.”

“All right,” said Booth. “You tell her I’ve been in my room alone all evening, trying to think up a second-act curtain. And I can’t think of one.”

At seven in the morning he was aroused by strange noises that issued forth from the telephone receiver, which was off the hook, and the cord of which was looped around his neck.

Detected!

“Will you please hang up your receiver?” said the operator.

“I will if you’ll send me the house detective.”

“All right.”

A house detective appeared before Booth had a chance to get back to sleep.

“Officer,” said the latter, “there was somebody in this room last night.”

“It looks it.”

“When I came in, I brought a full bottle of pretty good stuff. I had my dinner, I worked a little and read a little, and then I went to sleep. Ten minutes ago I woke up to find the bottle empty and the telephone cord twisted around my neck as if someone had tried to strangle me.”

“Go back to sleep,” said the detective, “and give me time to run down clues. I think we will find that both crimes⁠—the emptying of the bottle and the displacement of the telephone receiver⁠—were the work of one man.”

Mamma

The crosstown car came to a stop at the east end of Forty-second Street. One passenger stayed on, a woman of about thirty who had been riding, the conductor thought, from as far west as Broadway.

“We go back now, lady,” he said.

She smiled at him, but made no reply.

“This is the end of the line,” he said.

“Yes, I think so.”

“Well, you must get off.”

She smiled again, but was silent. The conductor went to the motorman.

“Should I put her off?”

“What is she, pickled?”

“I didn’t smell no liquor.”

“She must be crazy or a hophead. Or maybe she just enjoys the ride. You might ask her where she wants to go.”

The conductor returned to the woman.

“Where do you want to go, lady?”

“Home,” said the woman. “I must get home and bake a cake.”

“Where is your home?” asked the conductor.

The woman just smiled vaguely.

“Do you live in New York?”

“I think so.”

“Whereabouts in New York?”

She shook her head.

“In the city or in one of the suburbs?”

“I think so.”

“Do you live over in Jersey?”

No answer.

“Out on Long Island?”

No answer.

“Up in Westchester somewheres?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Do you want to get off at Grand Central Station?” asked the conductor.

“Oh, yes!” She said it almost eagerly.

“Where is your purse?” asked the conductor.

“The woman took it, the woman that was standing next to me.”

“Whereabouts?”

“In the store. She stood next to me in the store and took my purse.”

“Haven’t you any money or any ticket?”

“My husband will take care of me.”

When the car, now well filled, stopped in front of the Grand Central Station, the conductor came to the woman and touched her on the arm.

“Here’s where you get off,” he said.

He escorted her to the platform and watched her alight and enter the station. He thought perhaps he ought to have put her in the care of a policeman. Still, if she did not “come out of it,” someone in the station would notice her and take her in charge. There was no danger of her being robbed if she had nothing.

The woman, who would have been rather pretty if she had had more color and had not looked so tired, wandered uncertainly along the lane into the upper-level concourse. She acted like a sightseer, walking around the several times and stopping every little while to regard attentively some prosaic object such as a ticket window, a closed gate, the information booth. At length she went up the slope that led to the waiting room. She sat on a bench, sometimes observing the people near her, sometimes dozing, sometimes smiling to herself as if her thoughts were pleasant.

Late at night, when the waiting room was nearly empty, a policeman found her asleep and awakened her.

“It’s time to go home,” he said.

“I’m waiting for my husband,” said the woman.

“Where is he?”

“At the office. He’s going to stop for me and take me home.”

“Where do you live?”

“My husband knows.”

“Don’t you know, yourself?”

“He’ll take care of me.”

“Do you live in the city?”

“I think so.”

“What’s your name?”

“My name?