Skulldoggery by Fletcher Flora

Author:Fletcher Flora [Flora, Fletcher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4405-3987-9
Publisher: F+W Media, Inc.
Published: 1967-09-19T04:00:00+00:00

12

IF ONE can expect an ailing patient to be put under treatment without excessive delay, one should also be able to expect a quick report of the patient’s death if the treatment is fatal. The trouble was, Hester didn’t get any report. So far as she knew, Senorita Fogarty continued to live, replete with sex and gorged with cyanide peanuts. It wasn’t natural or reasonable, and Hester wondered why.

Perhaps, she thought, the oatmeal diet had been abandoned even before it started. If so, it was damned deceptive of the Crumps and just showed you how thoroughly unreliable they were. They had been instrumental in putting Hester to a great deal of time and trouble, conceiving and executing her plan and all, and it was simply infuriating to think that it might all go for nothing. It was more hopeful to sustain a little longer, if possible, the conviction that the diet had merely been postponed temporarily, for one reason or another, and would shortly be imposed.

Or maybe it hadn’t been postponed at all. Maybe it had been imposed immediately with all the results that could reasonably be expected from a cyanide breakfast. This was Hester’s second thought, and it shook her up. Was Senorita Fogarty indeed deceased? Could it be that the Crumps, with peasantlike cunning, were with-holding the truth in an effort to prolong their plush condition?

Once it had occurred to her, there was simply no living with the thought in peace and patience. It was imperative that she find out at once if it were true or not, and she began to seek the best way to do it. She thought at first that she would squeal to old Brewster, thus rousing his suspicions and launching an investigation, but it didn’t take her long to reject this plan as untenable. For one thing, it was far too risky. Old Brewster, having a legal mind addicted to a nasty kind of logic, would certainly want to know what made her think Senorita Fogarty might be dead, and this could invoke embarrassing questions and unfortunate answers.

Having rejected Brewster, she thought of employing a spy. An inventory of spies available, however, revealed no one but Uncle Homer, Aunt Madge, Flo, Junior, and Lester, not necessarily in the order of their availability or competence. As a matter of fact, when it came to competence, it didn’t make a penny’s worth of difference what order they were in. Lester had already demonstrated a pitiable incapacity for seduction or sedition or anything useful, and there was no rational reason to believe that any of the others were any better.

Finally, on the principle that what is done is best done by oneself, she dressed for the street and walked to the neighborhood of Grandfather’s house. She did not repeat Lester’s error of making a bold approach, however. This would have entailed an encounter with Mrs. Crump, and Hester’s assets, which were considerable, were not the kind that were most effective with the distaff side. Her

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