My True Love Lies by Lenore Glen Offord

Author:Lenore Glen Offord
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781631940972
Publisher: Felony & Mayhem Press

CHAPTER EIGHT

ON THAT SAME MONDAY about noon, Noel Bruce came out of her last morning class and stood about in the lobby of the Sherwin School for a few minutes with an irresolution far from her usual habit. The school was a large old building on Buchanan Street which had once been a home, and its entrance hall was still impressive. She paused by the front door and peered through its plate-glass panel as if half expecting to see Chan Lockett stationed on the porch.

That business about taking him to classes had been a joke, after all. She wasn’t quite sure any more of what was a joke and what wasn’t; association with Chan, maybe. At any rate, the inspector seemed to feel that she was safe in daylight and in a crowd, especially since she had assured him that she no longer had the sense of being followed. She had not mentioned that sharper sense of uneasiness, the feeling that someone she knew, one of her friends, had been living with the memory of murder.

“Hello, Bruce,” said Daisy Watkins at her shoulder. Noel managed not to jump, and instead gave Daisy her warmest smile. “Not in such a rush as usual?” the tall girl went on aimlessly. “We hardly ever see you around here after the whistle blows.”

“I’ve taken a week’s leave from my job.”

“Oh, good. Are you—do you have to go anywhere in particular this afternoon? I mean, you don’t have to—to testify at the inquest?”

“No, why should I? Do you?”

Daisy shook her head. “Come back to the studio with me, will you, Bruce? I’ll give you some lunch. Please, come on. I feel sort of lost these afternoons while they won’t let us work at the Plaster Works.”

Noel hesitated. “I was half expecting to see someone. Tell you what, I’ll leave a message with the secretary to say where I’ve gone.”

Daisy gave a pale smile. “And if you don’t come out within an hour, call the police?”

“That’s a touch I hadn’t thought of,” said Noel brightly. She thought, This is a fine state of things. The mildest kind of joke seems to send me into gooseflesh. Nobody in his senses could suspect Daisy of killing Chester Verney, or chasing me in disguise.

They caught a Union Street car which rattled and clashed over hills with such abandon that conversation was impossible. Daisy didn’t try to say anything, at least. She looked straight ahead of her, her angular plainness so intensified by strain that she reminded one of a death’s head.

“How’s Paul?” Noel said idly, when at last they were approaching the studio on foot. “I haven’t seen him for days—but then, I haven’t seen any of you except Tannehill and Papa Gene.”

“He’s all right, I guess,” Daisy said. “I haven’t seen him either.”

“Oh?” Noel blinked. The Watkins cousins had been virtually inseparable since Daisy had talked Paul into enrolling at Sherwin.

“He may have gone over to Oakland to stay with the family. I didn’t feel like going home.” Daisy unlocked the door of her studio with its incongruous air of tidiness.

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