Hansen’s schemes to sell baskets to the Indians or ship coal to Newcastle?” The alderman winced a little at this thrust.
“Nothing like that!” he retorted, beginning to freeze up. “Adele wouldn’t have said anything if she wasn’t upset over this being a human target all the time. It’s enough to get on anyone’s nerves. Ordinarily Adele is the most levelheaded person I know, and the shrewdest. But now …”
He crossed the room, took up a bottle and siphon. “This Mexican brandy isn’t so bad with soda,” he suggested. “Join me?”
“Not this early in the morning,” Miss Withers declined, and then, both intrigued and disappointed at the results of her call, she took her departure.
Out in the hall she hesitated, put her eye shamelessly to the keyhole of the door she had just passed through. She could see nothing but a square of window. But her ears were excellent, and she had no difficulty whatever in hearing Francis Mabie as he tore open the sealed envelope—the envelope containing an extremely unimportant and improvised message—that Miss Withers had left for his wife.
Down in the lobby she found no trace of the inspector as yet, so she invested fifteen centavos in a copy of Universal and settled down with her pocket dictionary to translate the headlines.
But it developed that the lobby of the Hotel Georges was this morning no place for lounging. Trucks were backed up under the front canopy, several workmen in faded denim marched in and out bearing wrenches, bits of board, and measuring tape. New as she was to Mexico, the schoolteacher realized that it must have taken an earthquake or some similar cataclysm to bring out workmen on a Sunday morning.
The inspector finally joined her, his face well whittled from the combination of a razor with cold water. “This strike is getting on my nerves,” he began. But the hotel manager approached, full of apologies. He was a bouncing, bulging man in a wing collar and looked, Miss Withers thought, like a cross between Wally Beery and Ramon Navarro.
“Ah, we have good news!” he announced, with a wide and toothy smile. “No more candles! No more cold water! Even if this strike goes on a week more, the Hotel Georges will from today have its own generator, its own lighting plant, at great expense. Tonight I promise lights, and hot water from seven until nine. Hotel Georges service!” And he hurried away to supervise the entrance of a large and unwieldy gasoline engine.
“Oscar!” began Miss Withers. “Has it occurred to you …”
He took her arm. “Breakfast first, clues afterward.” They went out into the sun-flooded street. “We’ll need our strength today.”
Enjoying their breakfasts, this oddly assorted pair of detectives found, was easier said than done. In the first place it took even longer than usual to attract the attention of the vinegar blonde in Pangborn’s and secure menus. The breakfasts, when they came, were sketchy and cold. The waitress mumbled, when complaints were made, that everything had to be carried down four flights of stairs from charcoal ovens improvised on the roof. “¡ La huelga, senor !”
Then too, they saw where the bullet holes in the farther wall were visible, two staring black eyes. There seemed also to be a smeary stain on the tile floor where only yesterday a horrible blotch of color had died. The gaudy worm, the writhing snake with its rings of yellow and red and black …
As dessert Miss Withers handed to the inspector a railway timetable marked in commanding red crayon. “First blood, Oscar! Results!”
“I don’t get it,” he said.
“Well, I do. A delicate little hint to mind my own business and catch a train out of town. Which must mean that we are getting warm.”
Piper conceded that. “But who do you suppose …”
“If we knew that, this case would be washed up,” she told him. They came out into the street again. The sun was gone, and the Hotel Georges loomed against the sky, a sky
“Nothing like that!” he retorted, beginning to freeze up. “Adele wouldn’t have said anything if she wasn’t upset over this being a human target all the time. It’s enough to get on anyone’s nerves. Ordinarily Adele is the most levelheaded person I know, and the shrewdest. But now …”
He crossed the room, took up a bottle and siphon. “This Mexican brandy isn’t so bad with soda,” he suggested. “Join me?”
“Not this early in the morning,” Miss Withers declined, and then, both intrigued and disappointed at the results of her call, she took her departure.
Out in the hall she hesitated, put her eye shamelessly to the keyhole of the door she had just passed through. She could see nothing but a square of window. But her ears were excellent, and she had no difficulty whatever in hearing Francis Mabie as he tore open the sealed envelope—the envelope containing an extremely unimportant and improvised message—that Miss Withers had left for his wife.
Down in the lobby she found no trace of the inspector as yet, so she invested fifteen centavos in a copy of Universal and settled down with her pocket dictionary to translate the headlines.
But it developed that the lobby of the Hotel Georges was this morning no place for lounging. Trucks were backed up under the front canopy, several workmen in faded denim marched in and out bearing wrenches, bits of board, and measuring tape. New as she was to Mexico, the schoolteacher realized that it must have taken an earthquake or some similar cataclysm to bring out workmen on a Sunday morning.
The inspector finally joined her, his face well whittled from the combination of a razor with cold water. “This strike is getting on my nerves,” he began. But the hotel manager approached, full of apologies. He was a bouncing, bulging man in a wing collar and looked, Miss Withers thought, like a cross between Wally Beery and Ramon Navarro.
“Ah, we have good news!” he announced, with a wide and toothy smile. “No more candles! No more cold water! Even if this strike goes on a week more, the Hotel Georges will from today have its own generator, its own lighting plant, at great expense. Tonight I promise lights, and hot water from seven until nine. Hotel Georges service!” And he hurried away to supervise the entrance of a large and unwieldy gasoline engine.
“Oscar!” began Miss Withers. “Has it occurred to you …”
He took her arm. “Breakfast first, clues afterward.” They went out into the sun-flooded street. “We’ll need our strength today.”
Enjoying their breakfasts, this oddly assorted pair of detectives found, was easier said than done. In the first place it took even longer than usual to attract the attention of the vinegar blonde in Pangborn’s and secure menus. The breakfasts, when they came, were sketchy and cold. The waitress mumbled, when complaints were made, that everything had to be carried down four flights of stairs from charcoal ovens improvised on the roof. “¡ La huelga, senor !”
Then too, they saw where the bullet holes in the farther wall were visible, two staring black eyes. There seemed also to be a smeary stain on the tile floor where only yesterday a horrible blotch of color had died. The gaudy worm, the writhing snake with its rings of yellow and red and black …
As dessert Miss Withers handed to the inspector a railway timetable marked in commanding red crayon. “First blood, Oscar! Results!”
“I don’t get it,” he said.
“Well, I do. A delicate little hint to mind my own business and catch a train out of town. Which must mean that we are getting warm.”
Piper conceded that. “But who do you suppose …”
“If we knew that, this case would be washed up,” she told him. They came out into the street again. The sun was gone, and the Hotel Georges loomed against the sky, a sky
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