The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan by Stuart Palmer

Author:Stuart Palmer [Palmer, Stuart]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784087661
Publisher: Head of Zeus Ltd
Published: 2013-03-29T22:00:00+00:00

VIII

There will be time to prepare

A face to meet the faces that you meet,

THERE WILL BE TIME TO MURDER….

T. S. ELIOT

PLOP! PLOP! PLOP! THE drops of rain water fell from Miss Withers’ cellophane raincape upon the hardwood floor. She came inside, shut the door behind her with a good, solid bang and switched on the light.

Tom Sansom, holding tight to the back of a chair, muttered something, but nobody was paying any attention to him. The inspector was just about the angriest man in the world at that moment, and his face was the shade of a plate of borsch.

“Oscar,” said the schoolteacher gently, “you can’t hold your breath forever, really you can’t.”

“I—” he began. “You—”

“I know, Oscar, I know,” she went on quickly. “I’m not at all dead, and you’re really very relieved about that. But also you’re furious at me because you had that long trip out here and all the fuss and worry for nothing.”

He still found it hard to say anything. “I’m sorry,” Miss Withers went on. “I wired you not to worry no matter what you heard. I sent the wire to your home because I thought that somebody might open and read it down at headquarters….”

“I didn’t even go home,” he admitted. “I just hopped the first plane….”

“Don’t act like that. I was murdered, to all intents and purposes. Only I was lucky enough to pull down a folding bed on top of my head and knock myself cold. I was only unconscious for a few minutes, but it was long enough to make me miss connections with that studio car. Afterwards—”

“But listen, lady!” Tom Sansom objected. “Your body—I mean, the report and everything. How did you get the sheriff and the hospital to cover up for you? That doesn’t make sense.”

“They didn’t cover up for me,” she went on. “There was a woman in the studio car. A friend of the driver possibly. Or a hitchhiker that he picked up….”

“Or the hotel chef’s missing wife!” Piper interjected, remembering. “Of course!”

“Anyway, she was identified as being I. That was too good an opportunity for me to miss, because I had a strong feeling that the accident was not an accident and that someone was trying to get rid of me. So I kept out of sight and started sleuthing in earnest.”

Piper said, “And you got—?”

She hesitated. “I don’t quite know, Oscar. I can’t tell yet.” But she turned a little away from Tom Sansom, and her eyelid dropped.

“If you made any notes on your progress, somebody’s been here and got them,” Piper told her. “Because we’ve searched the place thoroughly, hoping against hope that you left something behind.”

“Really, Oscar?” Miss Withers headed hastily for the kitchen. She threw open the refrigerator, took out a double boiler filled with cooked string beans and lifted the top. In the lower pan reposed a small notebook. “Perfectly safe, as I knew it would be. Besides, I haven’t been gone long enough—”

“A man was in here,” Piper insisted. “Those tracks on the kitchen floor”—he pointed—“and the apple.

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