Beginning with a Bash. Phoebe Atwood Taylor
two,” he continued. “Headlines December twentieth: ‘Jones Released. Complete Mystery Surrounds Theft of Anthropological Society’s Funds.’ Well, that’s the beginning of the whole sad story. It was such a swell job, Dot, and I’d waited two years for it. I got it just after I saw you last in New York. Then someone upped and pinched all that cash and North had me arrested. He was the boss.” Martin’s fingers twitched as he lighted the cigarette Dot offered him. “What burned me up was North’s accusing me, and then firing me after I was completely cleared. I’ve spent most of my time these cold winter days thinking what fun it would be to bash that guy. He knew I’d never be able to get another job. Who wants a rising young anthropologist anyway, let alone one who’s been pinched for swiping fifty thousand bucks?”
“He booted you out? Oh, the—but can’t you find anything to do, Mart?”
“He did, and I can’t. I’m a charter member of the Give-a-Dog-a-Bad-Name Club. Landlady kicked me out after I got through that business and her son took all my things except these flannels, for back rent. These,” Martin said bitterly, “wouldn’t fit him, and they had spots. I remembered my clubs were out at Windy Hollow, and I tramped all the way out there to get ’em to hock. I didn’t have a cent. On the way back I ran into some communist parade and got run in with a bunch of them for vagrancy. Anyway, I got back from Deer Island this morning, all disinfected and everything. Wandered into Charles Street, somehow, and was just going into a fruit store to see if the guy’d trade a banana for a slightly used mashie, when some woman’s handbag got snatched. Of course every one yelled ‘Stop thief’ at me—”
“But Mart, if you didn’t snatch it—”
“It doesn’t,” Martin said wearily, “make any difference at this point. Don’t you see? If someone swiped Bunker Hill monument or the sacred cod, or the Custom House Tower, they’d yank me in for it. Haven’t I been up for grand larceny, and vagrancy, and communistic tendencies, and—”
“It’s foul,” Dot said, her eyes blazing. “Rotten. It—Mart, who took the money, anyway?”
“No one knows. Fellow sent forty bearer bonds as a gift to the museum. I was the only one there, and I signed for ’em. When I went to get ’em for North, they’d gone. Like Houdini, only not so funny. Anyway, that’s the tale. After I get thawed out, I’ll barge along and let that copper pick me up. I—”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Leonidas interrupted, calmly polishing his pince-nez. “You’ll stay right here and help me shake the furnace, and use the extra couch in my attic. At seven,” he looked at Martin’s drawn face, “at six, rather, I’ll go out and bring in some dinner for the three of us, and we’ll consider your problem at some length.”
Dot nodded her approval. “Until then, take that bag of peanuts and come back to the westerns. I’ll lead you to the section. There’s really order here, though you may not believe it. Oh, and bring those clubs with you. If any cop should wander in—well, bring ’em.”
Martin followed her to the rear left corner of the store.
“It’s swell of you, Dot, and it’s swell of Bill Shakespeare, but I think I’d better leave—”
“Nonsense. Here you are. I’ve got to clean the drama section up by the desk. I’m dusting and cataloguing. Leonidas says that Uncle knew where every book in the store was, but I prefer to rely on catalogues.”
“Should think you would. Much business?”
“I’m not rushed to any frazzle, and I don’t expect to be, but it’s all sheer profit for me. There are a cool fifty thousand books here, Mart, and as many more in the cellar and out in the back ell beyond the courtyard. Uncle did his binding out there in warm weather. When it got cold, he moved inside, into the back corner here. Can’t you smell the glue? Lucky I took up useful arts and crafts once. I can bind books, and it seems that sort of work carried Uncle along over the dull days. I’ve really got to make this place go. I’m an orphan now, you know.”
“Sorry. I’m in the same boat. I—” Martin changed the subject hurriedly. “Got any customers in the store now?”
“Two. Didn’t you see ’em? Of course it is rather hard to spot anyone in here. There’s a minister in the essays, and a Boston dowager in the genealogies. First Boston dowager I ever saw outside of a New Yorker cartoon.” She lowered her voice. “Hat teed high on her head, black velvet band around her neck. And you know without any doubt that the diamond in it is real as hell—”
Leonidas tiptoed up to them.
“I think you’d better come out front, Miss Peters. A man named Quinland has just come in. Your uncle always thought he was a professional book thief, though he never had any actual proof.”
“Okay.” Dot nodded. “Westerns run from the corner here to the cross pile, Mart, and sporting books beyond.”
She followed Leonidas out to the front aisle. By the first editions stood a pasty-faced young man who whirled nervously around at their approach.
“How d’you do?” Dot asked pleasantly. “I’m the new manager. I see you’re a regular. Regulars always make straight for the section they’re interested in.”
The young man hesitated. “Er—yes. I’m—that is—I’ve been here before. My name’s Quinland.”
“I think,” Dot said slowly, “that I’ve heard all about you, Mr. Quinland.”
Quinland flushed and turned back to his book.
Leonidas’s smile of approval warmed Dot’s heart. As she returned, duster in hand, to the drama section, the bell above the door jangled and a short red-faced man strode belligerently up to Leonidas at the desk.
“I want Volume Four of The Collected Sermons and Theological Meditations of Phineas Twitchett, D.D.,” he announced brusquely. “The subtitle is, A Refutation of the Tenets of Antidisestablishmentarianism.”
Dot snickered.
Leonidas explained that he was not a regular assistant and that he had not seen the book.
“Where’s the boss?” the man demanded.
“I can’t help you much, either,” Dot spoke up. “I’ve just taken over the place, and there’s no catalogue. But I’d be glad to—”
“Damned unbusinesslike way to run a bookstore,” the red-faced man commented rudely. “Where’s my ‘Transcript’? I had a ‘Transcript’ when I came in here. Where is it? Who stole my ‘Transcript’?”
Leonidas frowned. “My dear sir, you most certainly had no paper—”
“All right, all right. Never mind. Say no more about it. Absent-minded. Probably left it on the newsstand. Where’s your religious section? Tell me. Don’t bother to show me.”
“Go down the lane by the door, past that woman in black, and turn left. First opening. I could show—”
“Think I’m a perfect fool, woman?”
Muttering uncomplimentary things about the female sex under his breath, he blustered off towards the religious books, bumping into the Boston dowager as he passed by her. Dot returned to her dusting, privately hoping that such disagreeable customers would be few and far between. She couldn’t seem to get Martin off her mind. Poor Mart, he seemed to have a flair for getting into trouble, and he didn’t in the least deserve to. Mart was a good egg. She’d always been fond of him—
She dropped her duster as a terrific crash came from the street outside. Stepping through the little opening to the front window, she peered out.
One taxi had apparently tried to pass another on the narrow way, and had swerved into a third car parked just below the store.
The crash turned into a grinding noise, above which rose the steady grating of breaking glass. Martin came running