Read Online Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan by Stuart Palmer - Free Book Online
Authors: Stuart Palmer
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drove off. It was all over in a moment, so quickly, indeed, that the loungers outside the studio gates barely saw that anything was wrong. Dobie had not wasted any time in nipping that scene in the bud, the schoolteacher acknowledged.
She would very much have liked to follow the red Packard, but there was no taxi in sight. So she went on inside the gates again.
Up on the third floor Gertrude was just taking over the switchboard from Lillian, and both of them were talking to a man who seemed to be terribly surprised at everything. That, she realized a moment later, was because he had no eyebrows or eyelashes and his little beard was only a ragged memory.
“Miss Withers, this is Mr Wilfred Josef,” Gertrude said.
She shook a limp, damp paw. “I was just telling the girls,” said Josef, “that I should have stayed in the hospital. Those nurses gave me a lot of new limericks. There’s one about the young lady, named Lassiter, Who screamed when a man made a pass at her….” He took out a cigarette. “And the young couple, named Kelly, who—”
“I beg your pardon?” said Miss Withers.
“Okay, okay,” Josef told her. “But when I heard about old Stafford I started writing one on him. I mean a clean one. Listen. There was an old Stafford, named Saul, Who got killed, so they say, by a fall. He landed, by heck, on the back of his neck, And nobody minded at all!” Josef guffawed at his own composition. Then he started to light his cigarette, thrust the match from him with a shrill yelp.
“What’s the matter?” Gertrude asked, wide eyed.
He put the cigarette down, unlighted. “Nothing. Just a sort of phobia or something, the doctor says. It may be a long time before I can light a cigarette. Guess I’ll have to learn to chew, huh?”
His tone was light and gay. Too light and too gay, Miss Withers thought. “The burned child …” she quoted to herself, and quietly withdrew.
“Here’s another,” Josef was saying. “There was a young girl from Purdue, Who covered her—”
“I think maybe you shocked Miss Withers,” Gertrude said, looking down the hall.
Far from being shocked, Miss Hildegarde Withers was at the moment intent upon breaking and entering. As she lingered in the office she had noticed the mark, “12:55—Abend out,” on the pad. Dobie’s office would be locked. But perhaps the connecting door would not be. Perhaps …
Mr Abend did not lock his office. Perhaps the room would stand some investigation, but there was no time for that now. She held her breath and tried the connecting door which must lead into Virgil Dobie’s office. It was open.
She found herself in a room obviously arranged for a big man who liked to be comfortable. The easy chair was vast and upholstered in red leather, with a big footstool. The couch had a spring mattress and big pillows, well rumpled. There was a reflecting reading lamp, and on one wall a white square of silvered composition which she imagined was a projection screen. Beside that was a small blackboard on a stand, now washed clean. Another wall held a cork bulletin board pinned with numerous newspaper reviews of the pictures which Dobie and Stafford had written.
Miss Hildegarde Withers sat calmly down at the desk and started to snoop through Virgil Dobie’s possessions. The flat top drawers showed only stationery, both the studio type and an expensive hot-press note paper. There was a big sheaf of unanswered mail, including a letter from some New York publisher reminding Dobie that they awaited with breathless anxiety the remainder of the novel he had promised them two years before. There was numerous correspondence in regard to the purchase of rare books and to the binding of other books, usually in full leather. There were numerous bills for camera equipment, clothes, liquor and so forth, but none was more than four weeks old.
Among the bills was a receipt from the Postal Telegraph Company to the amount of $23.25, covering a cable and
She would very much have liked to follow the red Packard, but there was no taxi in sight. So she went on inside the gates again.
Up on the third floor Gertrude was just taking over the switchboard from Lillian, and both of them were talking to a man who seemed to be terribly surprised at everything. That, she realized a moment later, was because he had no eyebrows or eyelashes and his little beard was only a ragged memory.
“Miss Withers, this is Mr Wilfred Josef,” Gertrude said.
She shook a limp, damp paw. “I was just telling the girls,” said Josef, “that I should have stayed in the hospital. Those nurses gave me a lot of new limericks. There’s one about the young lady, named Lassiter, Who screamed when a man made a pass at her….” He took out a cigarette. “And the young couple, named Kelly, who—”
“I beg your pardon?” said Miss Withers.
“Okay, okay,” Josef told her. “But when I heard about old Stafford I started writing one on him. I mean a clean one. Listen. There was an old Stafford, named Saul, Who got killed, so they say, by a fall. He landed, by heck, on the back of his neck, And nobody minded at all!” Josef guffawed at his own composition. Then he started to light his cigarette, thrust the match from him with a shrill yelp.
“What’s the matter?” Gertrude asked, wide eyed.
He put the cigarette down, unlighted. “Nothing. Just a sort of phobia or something, the doctor says. It may be a long time before I can light a cigarette. Guess I’ll have to learn to chew, huh?”
His tone was light and gay. Too light and too gay, Miss Withers thought. “The burned child …” she quoted to herself, and quietly withdrew.
“Here’s another,” Josef was saying. “There was a young girl from Purdue, Who covered her—”
“I think maybe you shocked Miss Withers,” Gertrude said, looking down the hall.
Far from being shocked, Miss Hildegarde Withers was at the moment intent upon breaking and entering. As she lingered in the office she had noticed the mark, “12:55—Abend out,” on the pad. Dobie’s office would be locked. But perhaps the connecting door would not be. Perhaps …
Mr Abend did not lock his office. Perhaps the room would stand some investigation, but there was no time for that now. She held her breath and tried the connecting door which must lead into Virgil Dobie’s office. It was open.
She found herself in a room obviously arranged for a big man who liked to be comfortable. The easy chair was vast and upholstered in red leather, with a big footstool. The couch had a spring mattress and big pillows, well rumpled. There was a reflecting reading lamp, and on one wall a white square of silvered composition which she imagined was a projection screen. Beside that was a small blackboard on a stand, now washed clean. Another wall held a cork bulletin board pinned with numerous newspaper reviews of the pictures which Dobie and Stafford had written.
Miss Hildegarde Withers sat calmly down at the desk and started to snoop through Virgil Dobie’s possessions. The flat top drawers showed only stationery, both the studio type and an expensive hot-press note paper. There was a big sheaf of unanswered mail, including a letter from some New York publisher reminding Dobie that they awaited with breathless anxiety the remainder of the novel he had promised them two years before. There was numerous correspondence in regard to the purchase of rare books and to the binding of other books, usually in full leather. There were numerous bills for camera equipment, clothes, liquor and so forth, but none was more than four weeks old.
Among the bills was a receipt from the Postal Telegraph Company to the amount of $23.25, covering a cable and
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