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Authors: Dorothy Salisbury Davis
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lovely name to be done in with?”
Mr. Adkins seemed shocked, and Mrs. Norris realized she had come to take murder with the lack of personal involvement a policeman had to have.
“I didn’t mean that quite the way it came out, Mr. Adkins,” she explained. “But we cannot grieve at everyone else’s tragedy. We’d have no strength at all when it came to our own if we did.”
“Oh,” the little man cried, “I agree, I quite agree. Is there a mystery about it? I love a good mystery.”
“You’d better follow it in the papers then,” Mrs. Norris said. “It has all the promise of turning out to be that.”
“Then they don’t know who killed her?”
“The last I heard there was no arrest,” she said. For all she was hearing these days from Jasper Tully, the criminal could be in the Tombs now, waiting trial. “But, of course, my friend doesn’t tell me everything.”
“And I dare say you don’t repeat everything he does tell you,” Adkins prompted. “You seem to be a woman of rare discretion.”
The clock was striking six. “I must get some ice. Mr. James will want to make drinks for you and himself.” She was suddenly feeling the need of a pickup herself. Was it mention of Tully? He was getting along without her very well these days, as the song said. And Annie Norris was not a woman to delude herself. She was not one who would live on fancy, trailing her dreams like a tattered petticoat when the truth failed her. She got up and gave her shoulders a rustle as though to test the starch in them.
Mr. Adkins, watching her, did not get up because he knew it would offend her sense of fitness, and they had got on very nicely that afternoon. When she reached the door, he said:
“Next time I come here, I shall bring you my copy of The North Countrie if you would like to read again some of the old ballads.”
“I’d be honored, sir,” she said, and gave a little bob of a curtsey that she had always found the best way to get out of a room when you were torn between going and staying.
It was too much for Mr. Adkins, fitness or no. He leapt to his feet and bowed low.
12
J IMMIE, HAVING SPENT THE greater part of that day as well as the two preceding evenings either with the person or the problems of Teddy Adkins, could have thought of several people he would have preferred to find waiting in his study.
“You asked me to bring you these newspaper bits as soon as I could,” Adkins said. “Otherwise I should not be here. I’m sure you are already approaching satiety with myself and my family.”
“Not at all,” Jimmie murmured and fortified himself with a stiff drink. Teddy took sherry.
“We should not have this grab-bag of my adventures and misadventures if it weren’t for the dotage of my sisters. But we do have it. So we may as well use it if it turns me out a gentleman.” He opened the portfolio and took a neat scrap book of clippings from it. “How would you like to have had your life catalogued from mewl to middle-age by three doting sisters?”
“It would drive me to a double life,” Jimmie said, hoping to start a gleam of appreciation in Adkins’ eye.
He did not even look up. “Is there anyone in this world who lives but a single life?”
“Let’s see what you’ve got here,” Jimmie said, and pulled up two chairs to the large library table.
Teddy opened the book. The caption on the first piece of yellowed newspaper read: Sit Down Strikers in Brooklyn Encouraged by Socialite.
Adkins ran a long delicate finger along the words and then pointed to the picture of a man, his back to the camera, his fist in the air, apparently addressing a windowful of factory workers.
“That is I,” he said proudly.
“What?” said Jimmie.
“Oh, yes. My sympathies have always been with the people outside. Certainly you did not think me at home in the bosom of my family?”
Jimmie took a long pull at his drink. “It did occur to me to wonder what you would do with that menage when you came
Mr. Adkins seemed shocked, and Mrs. Norris realized she had come to take murder with the lack of personal involvement a policeman had to have.
“I didn’t mean that quite the way it came out, Mr. Adkins,” she explained. “But we cannot grieve at everyone else’s tragedy. We’d have no strength at all when it came to our own if we did.”
“Oh,” the little man cried, “I agree, I quite agree. Is there a mystery about it? I love a good mystery.”
“You’d better follow it in the papers then,” Mrs. Norris said. “It has all the promise of turning out to be that.”
“Then they don’t know who killed her?”
“The last I heard there was no arrest,” she said. For all she was hearing these days from Jasper Tully, the criminal could be in the Tombs now, waiting trial. “But, of course, my friend doesn’t tell me everything.”
“And I dare say you don’t repeat everything he does tell you,” Adkins prompted. “You seem to be a woman of rare discretion.”
The clock was striking six. “I must get some ice. Mr. James will want to make drinks for you and himself.” She was suddenly feeling the need of a pickup herself. Was it mention of Tully? He was getting along without her very well these days, as the song said. And Annie Norris was not a woman to delude herself. She was not one who would live on fancy, trailing her dreams like a tattered petticoat when the truth failed her. She got up and gave her shoulders a rustle as though to test the starch in them.
Mr. Adkins, watching her, did not get up because he knew it would offend her sense of fitness, and they had got on very nicely that afternoon. When she reached the door, he said:
“Next time I come here, I shall bring you my copy of The North Countrie if you would like to read again some of the old ballads.”
“I’d be honored, sir,” she said, and gave a little bob of a curtsey that she had always found the best way to get out of a room when you were torn between going and staying.
It was too much for Mr. Adkins, fitness or no. He leapt to his feet and bowed low.
12
J IMMIE, HAVING SPENT THE greater part of that day as well as the two preceding evenings either with the person or the problems of Teddy Adkins, could have thought of several people he would have preferred to find waiting in his study.
“You asked me to bring you these newspaper bits as soon as I could,” Adkins said. “Otherwise I should not be here. I’m sure you are already approaching satiety with myself and my family.”
“Not at all,” Jimmie murmured and fortified himself with a stiff drink. Teddy took sherry.
“We should not have this grab-bag of my adventures and misadventures if it weren’t for the dotage of my sisters. But we do have it. So we may as well use it if it turns me out a gentleman.” He opened the portfolio and took a neat scrap book of clippings from it. “How would you like to have had your life catalogued from mewl to middle-age by three doting sisters?”
“It would drive me to a double life,” Jimmie said, hoping to start a gleam of appreciation in Adkins’ eye.
He did not even look up. “Is there anyone in this world who lives but a single life?”
“Let’s see what you’ve got here,” Jimmie said, and pulled up two chairs to the large library table.
Teddy opened the book. The caption on the first piece of yellowed newspaper read: Sit Down Strikers in Brooklyn Encouraged by Socialite.
Adkins ran a long delicate finger along the words and then pointed to the picture of a man, his back to the camera, his fist in the air, apparently addressing a windowful of factory workers.
“That is I,” he said proudly.
“What?” said Jimmie.
“Oh, yes. My sympathies have always been with the people outside. Certainly you did not think me at home in the bosom of my family?”
Jimmie took a long pull at his drink. “It did occur to me to wonder what you would do with that menage when you came
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