Beginning with a Bash. Phoebe Atwood Taylor
as two orderlies bore off a stretcher. “Frightful thing, Boston traffic. Politics entirely, my son says. Personally I’ve never had the slightest bit of fault to find with the Republican party, but nowadays in Boston—” she clucked her tongue and sighed, apparently far more moved over the Republican party than over the still form on the stretcher.
Suddenly Leonidas swung around.
“Quinland!” he said. “Where’s Quinland? I thought just now that I saw him running out into the street—”
Quinland was nowhere to be found, and the stack of first editions showed a gap of three books.
“Mark Twain,” Leonidas announced sadly. “Three volumes right out of the centre of Mark Twain!”
“Shall I dash after him?” Martin asked. “I might—”
“Don’t bother with him,” Dot said. “He’s got too much of a start. Well, he won’t dare poke his nose inside here again, and that’s something. We’ll put it down to profit and loss. Find your way back, Mart? And,” she added in a whisper as the minister and the dowager returned to their books, “you might peer in two aisles beyond you and see if that stuffy old codger’s still in the religious section. Maybe he’s pulled a Quinland and done a little swiping on his own account. He didn’t even emerge to see the crash.”
Martin laughed.
But the expression on his face when he returned a few minutes later was nothing short of grim.
“Dot, did you know who that man was, that one you called a stuffy codger?”
“Never set eye on him till he popped in here. Distinctly unpleasant sort, I thought. Why? Has he snatched—?”
“Dot, he’s John North. Professor North. The one who fired me and said I stole those bonds, and—”
“That foul boss of yours?”
“Yes. And listen, Dot. He’s dead!”
“Dead? Martin, don’t try to be funny! After all—”
“He’s dead,” Martin repeated firmly.
There were lines about his mouth which Dot had never seen before, and his face was white and tense.
“Dead. And Dot, he didn’t just die, either. Someone’s—well, someone’s bashed him over the head and killed him.”
CHAPTER 2
Leonidas twirled his pince-nez on their broad black ribbon, and Dot, with terror in her eyes, watched Martin’s drawn face.
Martin cleared his throat. “I didn’t do it. He—he was dead when I went back there!”
“Are you quite sure the man is dead, Martin?”
“Positive, sir. I looked at him. And I’ve spent hours—well, it seemed like hours though I s’pose it was only a few minutes—wondering whether to bolt or not. But I decided it would only make matters worse.”
“Why should you bolt?” Dot demanded.
“Why? My God, why? I didn’t think that anything more could happen, but here it is. Bill Shakespeare, what’ll I do? I’ve fussed around and cursed North and talked about bashing him ever since I was first arrested. Now—whoops! Grand larceny, vagrancy, theft—and now murder! I didn’t do any of ’em. I didn’t do this. But no one’ll ever believe me!”
“But who could have done it?” Dot looked dazedly around the store as though she expected to find the murderer on the ceiling or between the pages of a book.
In the centre aisle, the minister was still reading his essays, holding the extension light close over the print. At the end of the lane by the door, the dowager was still poring over genealogies and town records. Neither had paid the slightest attention to Martin’s low-voiced statements. Both were completely occupied by their respective quests.
“What’ll I do, Bill?” Martin repeated.
Before Leonidas could answer, a short stocky Italian wearing a black derby and a near-wolf coat walked into the store. He looked questioningly from one to the other and picked Leonidas as representing authority.
“Got this book, huh?” He pulled a card from his pocket and thrust it out.
Leonidas took the card. “Mm. Oh, Oh! Volume Four, The Collected Sermons: Phineas Twitchett.” His quick glance silenced Dot’s exclamation. “No, Mr—I didn’t catch the name?”
“Ain’t got the book, huh?”
“It’s—er—rather an unusual book at the moment,” Leonidas answered smoothly. “May I ask why you want it?”
“For my brother that’s a priest,” was the glib reply.
The ghost of a smile hovered over Leonidas’s lips.
“M’yes. Quite so. Now, we’ve not had that book in stock, nor do we have it at the moment. But if you will leave your name with us, and your address, we will be glad to—”
The Italian snatched the card. “Be back again sometime, later.”
Leonidas watched his departure with considerable regret.
“I wish—ah, well. No matter. Martin, I’m going outside and summon that large policeman who’s been superintending the removal of those cars outside—”
“But, Bill—I mean, Mr. Witherall—”
“Bill will do. I find it somewhat of a relief to be called it to my face.”
“Bill, you know they’ll grab me for this, right off the bat, without—”
Leonidas nodded. “I rather think they will. But the longer we delay, and the longer we delay reporting this, the worse it will be for you.”
Martin sighed as Leonidas left, and impulsively Dot reached out and took his hand.
“Cheer up, Mart. You can count on me as well as on Bill Shakespeare. If they try to pin this on you, they’ll have to plough through a couple of obstacles en route—”
Leonidas ushered in a massive member of Boston’s finest. Behind him was a small nondescript man with a black bag—the sort of man, Dot thought, whom you saw vaguely elbowing people on the fringes of newsreel crowds.
“Sergeant Gilroy,” Leonidas announced, “and Doctor Pinkham.”
Martin drew back into the shadow. Gilroy was the evil genius who had pursued him that afternoon.
“Where’s the corpse?” Gilroy demanded. “Lucky you stopped to chat with me out there, doc. Where’s the corpse, mister, that you found?”
The minister’s book of essays banged to the floor and an audible gasp issued from the genealogy section.
“Where?” Gilroy repeated.
Leonidas started to show him the way, but Gilroy put out a restraining hand. “Wait. Got any customers? So dim in here you can’t tell. Call ’em out. Anyone left since you found the corpse? Anyone skipped?”
“A book thief stole some books and ran out,” Dot said, “but all that happened before we found—”
“Come out, everybody!” Gilroy’s deep bass voice rumbled through the store.
Timidly the minister emerged, followed by the dowager, who was adjusting awe-inspiring lorgnettes.
Gilroy took one look at the clerical collar and removed his cap.
“Sorry to be botherin’ you, father, but you’ll have to stay here till we get this settled. You too, ma’am. Come on back, doc, and let’s take a look at things.”
He barely glanced at Martin, whose face was still in the shadow of the stacks.
“Dear me,” the minister said, nervously