And she was accusing me of evading the question!
“You may be a doctor,” I replied, “but first you’re a woman.”
“Why, Chuck! This is an odd place to launch a proposal. But then I’ve been proposed to in odder places. You can imagine a medical school. Oh — perhaps you aren’t proposing?”
It was good needlework. “I am not proposing!” Searching for something with a sting to hurl back at her, the best I could find was, “I’m accusing you of being nosey.”
“Like you, Chuck,” she snapped back. “There was the autopsy yesterday. And now — Chicago?”
I gave in. I’ve run into many a woman like that before, Louise, including you. They won’t let you win.
“I was in Chicago,” I told her as patiently as was possible, “looking for a link between that Chinese girl and Harry W. Evans.”
“O...h.” But she didn’t say it quite like that. It was more of a long drawn out, speculative “oh.” The kind where you try to fill in the gaps yourself as you are saying it. She added, “I’m not up on the Evans business. Only the newspaper story.”
“The hit-and-run driver was a woman.”
“I know that. And the automobile has been found.”
“And so has the driver.”
She jerked her head around to study my face.
“O...h.” It required a longer time to fill in the gaps. She was silent for several moments. And then, “Proof?”
“Practically none. That’s the stumbling block. Evans had a hobby — publishing an amateur magazine for a hobby society. For that magazine he wrote poetry, sentimental poetry. About his love for a girl named Leonore. He called it ‘For Leonore — A China Doll.’ ”
“And you think...?”
“I suspect his china doll and my china doll are the one and the same.”
“That’s pretty thin suspecting.”
“A thousand thin slices make a fat inch. That’s the only way to get anywhere in this business.”
“I take it you have other slices?” She put the coupe around a corner and we were headed downtown.
“I have. The hit-and-run was premeditated. The driver was a girl. A Chinese girl turns up dead, and in an interesting condition. I’ve been told most Chinese love and hate the hard way. It appears that Evans had a Chinese sweetheart. The automobile was ditched because it was too hot. There is one other slice that fits perfectly but I can’t tell you about it — it does involve a confidence.” I was thinking about the last time a girl had picked me up on the street and taken me for a ride. “Now what do you think?”
Dr. Saari drove the coupe into a parking space near Milkshake Mike’s place and shut off the motor. We sat there, unmoving. She was thinking hard about something and I was wondering if she’d come up with the outstanding fact I had neglected to mention. One that she knew.
She did. “The Chinese girl couldn’t have left the automobile in the ditch that far away, come back, and jumped into the lake.”
I grinned in admiration. “Doctor, you should be in my business. It’s obvious that she didn’t.”
“Then there’s someone else...?”
“There is. Someone who ditched the car for her.”
She pulled the keys from the ignition and shoved her knees toward me. “Hop out, Sherlock. Let’s eat.”
“As you suggest, Watson.”
She caught the unintended humor of that before I realized it myself.
When we walked into Mike’s place there was Mike with a cheerful smile on his face, standing over the waffle irons. A night patrolman was sitting at the counter, waiting for the waffles.
“Ah — Charlee!” Mike shouted. “How’s t’ings in the beeg city, Charlee?”
Elizabeth threw me a satisfied smirk over her shoulder. “You see! Everyone in Boone knows about you, Chuck.”
I growled. “Put on two more, Mike.”
Chapter 8
Dr. Elizabeth Saari was halfway through her waffle. I had finished mine and Mike was pouring a second on the iron. The night patrolman had finished eating and left us.
At the rear of the restaurant a neon beer sign buzzed fitfully and threatened itself with extinction. It had been buzzing fitfully and threatening itself with extinction for the better part of a year. Even the flies that had established a home under the first E ignored the disturbances and had settled down to raise a family.
We three humans and the flies were alone in the place.
Dr. Saari sat across the booth table from me with an ill-concealed smile playing about her lips. It made me distinctly uncomfortable; I knew she was amused with me.
Without warning or preamble she accused, “You were fibbing to Mr. Thompson yesterday.”
“Everybody fibs to Mr. Thompson.”
She tossed a wealth of brown hair impatiently. “I’m referring to your statement about ‘seeing’ the ice skater as you ‘passed the lake.’ ”
“I did see her,” I defended myself. “Of course, I didn’t run over and shake her by the hand.”
“I don’t doubt that you saw her. You must have seen her; your appearance at the autopsy proves that. You saw her either on the lake or somewhere else. But you were fibbing to Mr. Thompson about something. I read it on your face.”
“You weren’t looking at my face.”
“Oh—? I recall that you had a stubble — you hadn’t shaved that day. And that you were on the verge of being sick several times. And that you wanted to make a few wisecracks but thought the better of it. All of that was on your face.”
“My landlady won’t let me have the hot water.”
“Let’s talk about the fibbing.”
“Why should I babble everything to you?” I complained. “You haven’t unlimbered your tongue as yet.”
“You haven’t asked.”
“I haven’t — Doctor, listen carefully and tell me where you’ve heard this before: what were you doing at the train?”
“O...h. You’ve been wondering about that? But that’s so easily explained. I was waiting for my mother; she’s coming down from Chicago to live with me. I had expected her to be on that train.”
I was apparently supposed to believe that.
To needle her I asked, “How old are you?”
“None of your business!”
Which was the answer I expected. Mike brought my second waffle to the booth. We waited in silence until he had gone. Pouring twice the necessary amount of syrup on the waffle, I looked up suddenly to catch her studying me. It was easy to return the stare. Presently she fidgeted.
“I’m twenty-seven,” she offered.
“Your chances of grabbing a man are about fifty-fifty. Twenty-seven, unmarried, attractive — but fresh, nosey and somewhat stubborn. Say a fifty-fifty chance.”
“I don’t want to grab a man,” she returned heatedly. “I’m going to be an old maid.”
“That’s what they all say. Some of them are eventually surprised to find they are just that — and then it’s too late.”
She flared contritely, “I certainly don’t want to marry a detective.” I presume you can appreciate the irony in those words for me, Louise? The unintended paraphrasing of your own words were so nearly accurate, they stung. She must have been looking at my face again; she caught something.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized.
“Doctor,” I stated, “when it comes to a detective, your fifty-fifty chance of getting married becomes unbalanced. The odds are stacked heavily against you.”
“What’s her name?” she asked me.
I told her.
“Is she nice?”
Which is something of a foolish question to ask a man in love. I’m prejudiced. And I’d rather not repeat to you, Louise, my description of you. You probably wouldn’t agree with half the lavish natural gifts I heaped upon you, and I would refuse to take a single one of them back. Let’s leave it at that. If you don’t know by this time that I think you’re the most wonderful woman that ever walked the earth, you haven’t been listening for the last several years.