The Murder of a Fifth Columnist by Leslie Ford

Author:Leslie Ford [Ford, Leslie]
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Crime, OCR-Editing
Goodreads: 15745450
Publisher: New York: Scribner
Published: 1940-12-31T23:00:00+00:00

14

“You certainly did a nice job this morning,” I said, pleasantly.

“Shut up, will you!” he said savagely. “I’ve had enough of that from Sylvia. How the hell did I know this was going to happen? I don’t want to get old Effie of the dyed red hair in trouble. Good Lord! Thank the Lord they’ve killed it in the late morning edition.”

“Yes,” Sylvia said bitterly. “And what about Pete? They’re going to kill that, are they?”

“I can’t help that.” His voice was as bitter as hers. “If you’d let me tell him what everybody was saying two weeks ago, this wouldn’t have happened. The trouble with you, Sylvia, is you believe he writes that tripe. I don’t. You’re a friend of his and I’m not. He doesn’t take cracks at your stuff the way he does at mine. And still I don’t think he’d sell out, and you do.”

He flicked the ash off his cigarette onto the floor.

“Of course, darling, you know him better than I do. If you believe—”

Sylvia’s face was white. “Stop it, Larry! I don’t believe it!”

“Oh yes you do, darling,” he said calmly. “You should have seen yourself last night every time somebody brought it up. And there’s no use getting sore at me about it. That’s not what I came here for.”

“What did you come for?” she asked coolly.

“Just to suggest that maybe Pete wasn’t the only person at the party last night that might be interested in Corliss’s untimely demise.”

“What do you mean?”

She turned quickly from the mirror where she was putting on her hat.

“Then you do think Pete did it, don’t you?” he said easily. “Well, as I say, you know him better than I do.”

“I don’t think Pete did it, Larry,” she said. “And if you imply I do in that filthy column of yours, I’ll—”

“You’ll what, Sylvia?”

“I’ll never forgive you, Larry—that’s all.”

He looked at her for an instant and ground his cigarette out in the ash tray.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean that. I didn’t come here to make you feel worse. What I came for was to see if I could do anything to help. You see, they’ve been laying for Pete for a couple of weeks. My apartment’s in the front of the house and I can see them. The telephone girl just told me the other day all his calls are checked. She wanted to tell him, but she didn’t have the nerve. She’s afraid he’d fly off the handle, and she’d lose her job.”

“What do you mean? Who’s checking on him?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, darling. There was a new janitor in the building last week. He was keeping Pete’s wastebasket separate from the rest of them. I know because he goes out earlier than I do.”

“Why didn’t you tell him?” Sylvia demanded.

“And get my nose punched?”

“You could have told me.”

“Not in the state you’ve been in lately, old girl. Not without having all my hair pulled out. But as I was about to say, Pete wasn’t the only person on the terrace with old Corliss last night.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.