Read Online Murder on the Blackboard by Stuart Palmer - Free Book Online

this. She stood awhile, in thought. Her train of thought was rudely side-tracked by the noise of a taxi outside. She drew back against the inner door, and waited.
    A girl and a man came up the steps, laughing at the gusty wind which drove rain into their fresh young faces.
    The girl, her face an elfin white triangle above the turned-up collar of tweed sport coat, was Janey Davis. Her arm was crooked inside the elbow of a tall young man. For a moment Miss Withers did not see who he was, and then she raised her eyebrows. Young Bob Stevenson, shopwork and science instructor at Jefferson School, had better taste than she had credited him with.
    The young couple paused outside and she could see Janey’s lips forming a question. Would he come in? Evidently he would, for he followed Janey through the door. They looked up as one, to see Miss Withers facing them, her face white and drawn.
    “Good evening,” she opened, quaveringly.
    “Good heavens!” said A. Robert Stevenson. “Miss Withers—what’s wrong?”
    “Plenty,” said that lady, heavily. “Shall we go upstairs?”
    They went upstairs, the trim little figure of Janey Davis leading the way, Miss Withers marching second, and Bob Stevenson bringing up the rear, his high white brow furrowed and his hair slightly askew. His topcoat was dripping, and his neat—almost dainty—oxfords were wet through. He shivered a little.
    They came, through the door marked 3C, into a small squarish living room whose inner wall bore the tell-tale panelling of a folding bed. There were books and ashtrays scattered everywhere, and one comfortable chair into which Miss Withers lowered herself carefully.
    “I came here to tell you that Anise Halloran has been murdered,” she remarked in a strictly conversational tone. “We haven’t much time before the police will come traipsing around asking questions. I though maybe you’d rather talk to me first—I have some connections at Headquarters, you know.”
    The two of them stared at her, blankly. Then Janey Davis grasped the back of a chair.
    “Not Anise … murdered! No, no … that couldn’t happen. Nobody would want to murder Anise….”
    “Then somebody did it unwillingly,” Miss Withers told her, coldly.
    Bob Stevenson lit a match, though he had no cigarette in his mouth. “Would you mind starting over from the beginning?” he asked quietly. “You’re sure she’s dead?” He hesitated a moment over the word as if he did not like the taste.
    “She’s dead all right,” said Hildegarde Withers. “Dead and cremated.” She told them the bare facts of what had happened.
    Janey, half-hysterical, was mouthing sorrow and incredulity. But Bob Stevenson had more control.
    “She was such a little thing,” he said softly. “Why should anyone want to kill her? I don’t understand it. It all seems so—so wrong. Why, we were expecting her to join us here tonight when we got back from dinner, and we were going to play three-handed bridge …”
    “A beastly game,” Miss Withers cut in. “Well, she won’t be here. I can’t waste words. You realize that everybody who knew her will be suspected until this thing is cleared up. I suppose the two of you have alibis?”
    “Alibis?” Janey Davis’s surprised eyes looked even more surprised than ever.
    “You heard me,” said Miss Withers. “You can prove where you were when the murder was committed?”
    Janey looked blank. “Of course I can,” said Bob Stevenson. “I went to the public library early this afternoon, and I stayed there in the Genealogy Room until I came here to take Janey out to supper. I do that often, it’s a hobby of mine to trace back on my family tree. I’m preparing a paper on my mother’s family. We put a lot of stock in those things down where I come from.”
    “And where’s that?” Miss Withers wanted to know.
    “Virginia,” Stevenson told her. “I’ve got rid of the accent, being up north the way I have.”
    “We have been known to put a lot