Murder Applied For by Lloyd Biggle Jr. & Jr. & Kenneth Lloyd Biggle

Author:Lloyd Biggle, Jr. & Jr. & Kenneth Lloyd Biggle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery, murder, detective, private investigator, crime
ISBN: 9781434443458
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2013-08-16T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

Pronk halted them at the foot of the stairs, and said to Webber, “I suggest that you duplicate your sly exit of earlier this evening.”

“Why?”

“Your guardian angels will indubitably protest.”

“Then you were around earlier this evening.”

“We were. We parked on the next street and came through the back way. We observed your elusive ways with soul-shattering amusement.”

“But you didn’t follow me.”

Pronk shook his head. “We were confident that you would return.”

“You’ve been more or less following me all day, but you waited until just now to deliver your invitation. What’s the matter? Shy?”

“We were merely waiting until you were unoccupied. Do we depart surreptitiously?”

“We do not,” Webber said. “We go out the front door, and we go in my car. Any objections?”

“Manifestly not. But you must allow me to buy the gasoline.”

The detective moved out of the shadows and intercepted them as they came down the walk. “Do you know these guys?” Webber asked.

“Darned right I know them.”

“I’m going to call on a kind, elderly gentleman. Do you know who that is?”

“I do, and that isn’t what I’d call him.”

“You aren’t going to warn me to stay home?”

“You go right ahead, and we’ll follow you. There’s a want out on him.”

The silence was broken by Pronk thoughtfully clucking his tongue. “This alters the situation,” he said. “The trip would be futile. He would no longer be where I expected to find him.”

“You disappoint me,” Webber said. “I was so looking forward to meeting him. But maybe I’ll get some sleep tonight. Come on up, and I’ll give you a note to this kind, elderly gentleman, thanking him for the invitation.”

The detective growled, “Me and my big mouth.”

“I gravely fear,” Pronk said, “That you will never make sergeant. But do not take it ruefully. Following us would have been discouragingly unproductive.”

They returned to the house, with the detective looking after them suspiciously. Webber spun a piece of paper into the typewriter, and wrote, “Dear kind, elderly gentleman: Thank you so much for the invitation. Some other time, perhaps.” He signed his name and handed it to Pronk.

“That’s in case my guardian angels search you on the way out.”

“I shall voluntarily allow them to read it,” Pronk promised. “They seem desperately in need of edification.”

“In about an hour, I’ll sneak out the back way, and meet you on the next street. Wear a white carnation.”

“I shall. I shall wear two of them, in my hair.”

From the window, Webber watched Pronk flourish the paper under the nose of the detective. He pulled down his shades, turned on the radio and reached for a magazine.

Five minutes later he threw it aside, and seated himself at his desk. He took out a piece of paper, and ruled it into three columns. The columns he headed with the names of Betty Parnet, Marilyn Andrews, and Mrs. Lamont. At the top, he wrote “Suspects.”

“All we have to do,” he told himself, “is to find a name common to all three columns, and then.…”

Leaning back, he submerged himself in thought.

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