Bring the Bride a Shroud by Dolores Hitchens

Author:Dolores Hitchens
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

There was someone in Mrs. Andler’s room. The person might, of course, be Sheriff Stacey. Or someone just being curious.

Or it could be the unpleasant someone who had killed Mrs. Andler.

He slid into his own room and stood there in the dusk. His heart was doing drumbeats and his breath was a wheeze. He was a little surprised at his own lack of courage. He had a silly desire to call out for help, but the only person he was sure was on this floor was Taffy; Taffy with a skull fracture or an ability to act as though she had one.

He kept utterly still.

By and by there was a cautious step from inside Mrs. Andler’s room. The step approached the hall; Mr. Pennyfeather heard it. He darted across the room and lifted the lid of the window seat and folded his narrow length into the empty space. He had quite a lot of room, but he had guessed that he would have. If a woman as big as Mrs. Andler had been parked in one, he should be able to use one also.

The boards which faced his room were old and dried and cracked. He brushed a spider web off his face and put his eye to a gray-lit opening.

The white bulk of Miss Comfort came to stand in his doorway.

She seemed to peer about with a touch of nervousness. “Mr. Pennyfeather, didn’t I just hear you come in?”

Mr. Pennyfeather felt sorry for her, but he had a hunch that if he should rise suddenly out of the window seat at her the results would be disastrous. He remained quiet.

“I heard someone,” she quavered to herself. She looked back into the hall. “But there isn’t anyone now.” Then she walked into his room and peered under his bed. “Mr. Pennyfeather!”

As if, he thought indignantly, I’d be fool enough to get under there!

She must have noticed his windproof lying across the foot of his bed; she picked it up slowly; she murmured: “What a nice coat! I wonder if he’d mind?”

She slipped it on, and because it was a very large coat for Mr. Pennyfeather it was a pretty good fit for Miss Comfort. It covered the white uniform, and Mr. Pennyfeather had the odd impression that he was seeing a larger and feminine version of himself walking about the room.

“He wouldn’t mind,” she murmured.

I would, too, thought Mr. Pennyfeather angrily.

She went out with it on. Mr. Pennyfeather sprang from the window seat and ran after her; he wanted the coat for that windy trip through Superstition’s alleys. But Miss Comfort had vanished. Behind the closed door of the bathroom, water was running.

He went away defeated, noting that Mrs. Andler’s door was shut. He thought crossly that Miss Comfort had a trio of bad habits she ought to correct: she meddled about on the scene of crime; she talked to herself; and she wore strange men’s clothes without asking their permission.

All the way to Mrs. Jessop’s boardinghouse he thought up cross things to say to Miss Comfort.

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