Henderson said, “Hullo, Mr. Kidd. The girl taking care of you?”
Peter nodded, and the girl came from the back room with his package. A sample letterhead was pasted on the outside.
He looked at it and said, “Nice work. Thanks.”
Back upstairs, Peter found the pudgy man sitting in the waiting room, still holding the shaggy dog’s leash.
The blonde said, “Mr. Kidd, this is Mr. Smith, the gentleman who wishes to see you. And Rover.”
The shaggy dog ran to the end of the leash, and Peter Kidd patted its head and allowed it to lick his hand. He said,
“Glad to know you, Mr. — ah — Smith?”
“Aloysius Smith,” said the little man. “I have a case I’d like you to handle for me.”
“Come into my private office, then, please, Mr. Smith.
Ah — you don t mind if my secretary takes notes of our conversation?”
“Not at all,” said Mr. Smith, trolling along at the end of the leash after the dog, which was following Peter Kidd into the inner office. Everyone but the shaggy dog took chairs.
The shaggy dog tried to climb up onto the desk, but was dissuaded.
“I understand,” said Mr. Smith, “that private detectives always ask a retainer. I—” He took the wallet from his pocket and began to take ten-dollar bills out of it. He took out ten of them and put them on the desk. “I — I hope a hundred dollars will be sufficient.”
“Ample,” said Peter Kidd. “What is it you wish me to do?”
The little man smiled deprecatingly. He said, “I’m not exactly sure. But I’m scared. Somebody has tried to kill me —twice. I want you to find the owner of this dog. I can’t just let it go, because it follows me now. I suppose I could — ah —take it to the pound or something, but maybe these people would keep on trying to kill me. And anyway, I’m curious.”
Peter Kidd took a deep breath. He said, “So am I. Can you put it a bit more succinctly?”
“Huh?”
“Succinctly,” said Peter Kidd patiently, “comes from the Latin word, succinctus, which is the past participle of succingere, the literal meaning of which is to gird up — but in this sense, it—”
“I knew I’d seen you before,” said the pudgy man.
“You’re the circumabulate guy. I didn’t get a good look at you then, but—”
“Circumambulate,” corrected Peter Kidd.
The blonde quit drawing pothooks and looked from one to another of them. “What was that word?” she asked.
Peter Kidd grinned. “Never mind, Miss Latham. I’ll explain later. Ah — Mr. Smith, I take it you are referring to the dog which is now with you. When and where did you acquire it — and how?”
“Yesterday, early afternoon. I found it on Vine Street near Eighth. It looked and acted lost and hungry. I took it home with me. Or rather, it followed me home once I’d spoken to it. It wasn’t until I’d fed it at home that I found the note tied to its collar.”
“You have that note with you?”
Mr. Smith grimaced. “Unfortunately, I threw it into the stove. It sounded so utterly silly, but I was afraid my wife would find it and get some ridiculous notion. You know how women are. It was just a little poem, and I remember every word of it. It was — uh — kind of silly, but—”
“What was it?”
The pudgy man cleared his throat. “It went like this:
“Alexander Pope,” said Peter Kidd.
“Eh? Oh, you mean Pope, the poet. You mean that’s something of his?”
“A parody on a bit of doggerel Alexander Pope wrote about two hundred years ago, to be engraved on the collar of the King’s favorite dog. Ah — if I recall rightly, it was:
The little man nodded. “I’d never heard it, but— Yes, it would be a parody all right. The original’s clever. ‘Whose dog are you?’ ” He chuckled, then sobered abruptly. “I thought my verse was funny, too, but last night—”
“Yes?”
“Somebody tried to kill me, twice. At least, I think so. I took a walk downtown, leaving the dog home, incidentally, and when I was crossing the street only a few blocks from home, an auto tried to hit me.”
“Sure it wasn’t accidental?”
“Well, the car actually swerved out of its way to get me, when I was only a step off the curb. I was able to jump back, by a split second and the car’s tires actually scraped the curb where I’d been standing. There was no other traffic, no reason for the car to swerve, except—”
“Could you identify the car? Did you get the number?”
“I was too startled. It was going too fast. By the time I got a look at it, it was almost a block away. All I know is that it was a sedan, dark blue or black. I don’t even know how many people were in it, if there was more than one. Of course, it might have been just a drunken driver. I thought so until, on my way home, somebody took a shot at me.
“I was walking past the mouth of a dark alley. I heard a noise and turned just in time to see the flash of the gun, about twenty or thirty yards down the alley. I don’t know by how much the bullet missed me — but it did. I ran the rest of the way home.”
“Couldn’t have been a backfire?”
“Absolutely not. The flash was at shoulder level above the ground, for one thing. Besides— No, I’m sure it was a shot.”
“There have never been any other attempts on your life, before this? You have no enemies?”
“No, to both questions, Mr. Kidd.”
Peter Kidd interlocked his long fingers and looked at him. “And just what do you want me to do?”
“Find out where the dog came from and take him back there. To — uh — take the dog off my hands meanwhile. To find what it’s all about.”
Peter Kidd nodded. “Very well, Mr. Smith. You gave my secretary your address and phone number?”
“My address, yes. But please don’t call me or write me. I don’t want my wife to know anything about this. She is very nervous, you know. I’d rather drop in after a few days to see you for a report. If you find it impossible to keep the dog, you can board it with a veterinary for some length of time.”
When the pudgy man had left, the blonde asked, “Shall I transcribe these notes I took, right away?”
Peter Kidd snapped his fingers at the shaggy dog. He said, “Never mind, Miss Latham. Won’t need them.”
“Aren’t you going to work on the case?”
“I have worked on the case,” said Peter. “It’s finished.”
The blonde’s eyes were big as saucers. “You mean—”
“Exactly.” said Peter Kidd. He rubbed the backs of the shaggy dog’s ears and the dog seemed to love it. “Our client’s right name is Robert Asbury, of six-thirty-three Kenmore Street, telephone Beacon three, three-four-three-four. He’s an actor by profession, and out of work. He did not find the dog, for the dog was given to him by one Sidney Wheeler who purchased the dog for that very purpose undoubtedly — who also provided the hundred-dollar fee. There’s no question of murder.”
Peter Kidd tried to look modest, but succeeded only in looking smug. After all, he’d solved his first case — such as it was — without leaving his office.