“To... to keep me from following her, she said. I told her I didn’t want to follow her, but she took them anyway. I had just come in the building, and I was over there by the elevator trying to figure out how it worked, and she jumped out of somewhere and put a gun right against my chest. She marched me down that hallway and... and made me undress. Mr. Dodd, what will I do?”
“Relax,” Dodd advised absently. “What did she do after she got your pants?”
“Just went out the front door.”
“Why didn’t you run out and yell for a cop?”
“Without any trousers on?” Miltgreen gasped. “Right out in the street where people could see me? Oh, no!”
“Say,” said Kastner uneasily, “you don’t suppose she planted a time bomb around here, do you?”
“We’ll find out,” Dodd informed him, “sooner or later. Look, Miltgreen, I’m sorry about that bum check for the funeral. There must be some mistake, but don’t worry about it.”
“Well, Mr. Dodd,” Miltgreen said grievously, “I just can’t help worrying. I’m not used to things like have been happening recently. I just don’t understand how people can... can act like you and the people you know do. It isn’t right at all.”
“Yes, yes,” said Dodd. He went to the door and whistled to the newsboy again. “Hey, Sam. Flag me a taxi, will you?” He came back to the stairs. “Now you take a taxi home, Mr. Miltgreen, and get some other pants and compose yourself. Everything is going to be all right, I assure you.”
“But that check—”
“I’ll take care of that. It’s too late to get into the bank now. After you get your pants, you go on down to Siegal’s Restaurant on Cable Street and wait there for me. Joe Siegal will cash a check for me, but he won’t do it for that amount unless I present it personally. I’ve got some other things to do right now, but I’ll be down just as soon as I can. Have dinner on me while you wait.”
A taxi pulled up in front of the building.
Miltgreen gathered his shirt-tails around him like a skimpy skirt. “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel very hungry. Oh, this is awful! What will my wife think... And my poor children... Mr. Dodd, I hope — I sincerely hope — that you can make a satisfactory settlement of this matter at once. I wouldn’t like to resort to legal action—”
“It’ll be O.K.,” said Dodd.
Miltgreen craned his neck, trying to see both ways along the street, and then hopped across the sidewalk like some weirdly elongated bird. He ducked into the taxi, and the door slammed emphatically behind him.
“I think,” said Kastner, watching the taxi pull away, “that maybe I better scout around outside a little. That old dame might be hanging around—”
Dodd grinned at him wryly. “All right. If I find any bombs, I’ll yell so you can run.”
“It ain’t that I’m afraid—” said Kastner.
“Oh, no!” said Dodd.
He got in the elevator and punched the button for his floor. The elevator moaned and groaned and carried him up. He was halfway there when he heard the singing. Two voices were making very heavy weather of “The Old Mill Stream.” They were not in harmony.
Swearing to himself, Dodd got out of the elevator and went down the hall. There was a great jag-edged hole blown through the frosted glass panel of his door. The singing came from his office.
Dodd opened the door and stepped inside on glass that grated and crunched under his feet. The place looked like a newsreel shot from London. The walls were scarred in livid streaks, the water cooler lay shattered on its side, and papers and letters were drifted all over the floor in charred, sodden piles. One chair lacked its legs and another its seat. The center table was battered but still intact, and a policeman lay full length on his back on top of it.
He stopped singing and said cheerfully: “Hi, Dodd, you old fuddy-duddy. Here’s our host, Mason.”
Mason was seated in what remained of Meekins’ favorite leather lounging chair. It was tilted over sideways, and the stuffing was oozing out of the back cushion. Mason fixed his eyes on a point six feet to Dodd’s left and nodded solemnly.
“Glad to meet you.”
“You’re drunk,” Dodd accused, looking from one to the other.
“You hear that, Mason?” said Broderick, the policeman on the table. “He says we’re drunk. That’s the kind of a greeting he gives us after all our work and worry.”
“He’s just envious,” said Mason. “Pay no attention to him, Broderick. Ignore him.”
“Where’d you get the whiskey?” Dodd demanded.
“At the drugstore on the corner,” Broderick told him. “You know you got credit there, Dodd? It’s a fact. You ought to use the joint more. All you do is call ’em up and say you’re Dodd and tell ’em what you want, and they send it right up. Want I should show you how?”
“No,” said Dodd. “Thanks just the same.”
The telephone rang stridently.
Broderick said: “It’s your turn to answer it, Mason. I answered it last time.”
“Nuts,” said Mason grumpily. “Let it ring. See if I care.”
Dodd went into the shambles of his private office. The telephone was sitting on the floor where his desk had been. He picked it up. “Yes?” he said.
“Hello, boss,” Meekins said. “The address on that telephone number is 1702 Cottage Grove Avenue. The name is Peterson. They just had the phone put in last week.”
“O.K.”
“Wait a minute,” Meekins requested. “There’s another little matter.”
“My God!” Dodd shouted. “What next?”
“Well, it ain’t my fault. Long distance has been calling the station here looking for Lieutenant Bartlett of the homicide detail.”
“Well, so what?”
“You’re Lieutenant Bartlett,” Meekins said patiently. “At least that’s what you told the dame over the telephone this afternoon.”
“Oh, hell!” Dodd exclaimed, remembering. “I did, at that.”
“Yeah. There ain’t no particular party tryin’ to get you, as far as I could find out. It’s just long distance. You don’t suppose the telephone company is after you for impersonating an officer, do you, Dodd?”
“No,” said Dodd. “I think I know who it is. I’ll take care of it.” He depressed the breaker bar on the telephone, let it up again, and dialed long distance. When he got the operator, he said: “This is Lieutenant Bartlett of the homicide detail. I understand you’ve been trying to locate me.”
“One moment, please... Oh yes, Lieutenant. The operator at Sparkling Falls, South Dakota, wants to get in touch with you at once. Shall I call her?”
“Do that,” Dodd agreed. “I’ll hold the line.”
He waited through a long series of clicks and snaps, and then Elsie Bailey’s shy voice said: “Hello, Lieutenant Bartlett.”
“Hello, Elsie,” said Dodd. “How are you?”
“I’m fine. I got your name from the operator at Bay City. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all, Elsie. What can I do for you?”
“I thought maybe you ought to know that Mr. Gillispie has had a nervous breakdown.”
“Who has had a what?” Dodd asked incredulously.
“Mr. Gillispie is the undertaker here at Sparkling Falls, and he has just had a nervous breakdown and is in the hospital and can’t see anyone — not anyone at all.”
“When did this happen?”
“Just this afternoon. Right after I talked to him.”
“Oh,” said Dodd. “You talked to him, eh? What about, Elsie?”
“Why, about you. I told him you had called up and inquired about Elwin Tooper, and right away he had a nervous breakdown.”