' The Vanishing Girl Incident'

By Phineas Redux

—OOO—

Summary:— Fiona ‘Fay' Cartwright & Alice ‘Al' Drever are private detectives in an East Coast American city, in the 1930's. They become involved in a curious apparent disappearance from a very public location.

Caution:— There is a certain amount of light swearing in this story.

—O—

Part 7of the 'Drever & Cartwright' series
1. The Packer Building Incident.
2. The Fowler St. Incident.
3. The Pier 7 Incident.
4. The Elevated Rail Incident.
5. The Charioteer Insurance Co. Incident
6. The Grand Banks Hotel Incident
7. The Vanishing Girl Incident

—O—

‘The eighth block on Darien Street.”

“Y'sure?”

“ ‘course I'm sure.” The brunette map-reader looked up from her studies to sneer gently. “I can count, y'know.”

“OK, OK, don't get riled.” Fiona poured oil on troubled waters. “Just wanted t'be certain. It's quite a'ways away, after all; just looking for the fastest route there. Any suggestions?”

“Yep, glad ya asked; save's us goin' off on one o'your city mystery tours —”

“ Hey! ”

“—three blocks along 12 th ; cut into Cadesco St; take a left on Fowler St; then keep heading out Ocean Boulevard way till we hit the corner of Darien St.” Alice smiled contentedly; there really was nothing like providing a perfect route outline. “Then, like I said, it's eight blocks along.”

The two women sat at the large side desk in their office on the 5 th floor of the Packer Building, which contained the hub of ‘ Drever & Cartwright ' the best private investigation company in New Hampshire—or so they allowed in their advertisements in the local rags. All sorts of cases came their way; some ordinary run of the mill and easily cleared up; a few highly complex, needing focus and intellectual sharpness; and several which might best be catalogued as rare and curious. The present case, sub-contracted by the local police Precinct to the women for further investigation, sitting firmly in this latter group.

“ Huh! ” Fiona inclined her nose somewhat disdainfully, then returned to the case under discussion. “So, let's go over the facts again. We got time enough, it's only 9.45 am at the moment. First, we have lots o'witnesses—”

“Damn right we got lots o'witnesses—”

“Ya goin' into the echo business, Al?”

“Nark it, babe.” The brunette ignored her heckler with contempt.

“Like I was sayin', lots o'witnesses—” The black-haired component of the duo paused slightly, but with no further come-back materialising she continued her exposition of the facts in the case. “All of whom say exactly the same thing; and all of whom say exactly the opposite t'everyone else. Each witness contradicts various details of every other witness.”

“Damn strange, considering it took place on a crowded sidewalk on the west side of one of the busiest streets in Delacote.” Alice found these mysterious variations, on what should have been a cut and dried scenario, off-putting. They revolted the natural logical bent of her mind. “How can nearly ten people be so contrarious about a single incident? Hell, it only took a few seconds t'happen; how could they all see, or at least remember, different things?”

“It's just the nature of the beast.” Fiona pursed her lips in thought. “Just human nature. Someone's idly looking at something, and then a dramatic unexpected action suddenly takes place in front of their eyes. And later they recall not what they saw, but what they think they saw—a completely different kettle o'fish, as any psychologist'll tell ya.”

On the table were spread out the motley paraphernalia relating to the case. A couple of city maps; various photographs of the street in question; and copies of reports kindly donated by Inspector Jacob Fletcher of the 5 th Precinct, whose jurisdiction this case came under. Alice—dressed comfortably in a matching dull mustard wool two-piece of long ankle length skirt belted tightly at her narrow waist, and short bolero-like jacket with lighter coloured large buttons over a pale cream silk blouse—leant over to pick out one of these photos.

“This character, f'instance.” She gazed with grim dislike at the standard head and shoulders shot, taken by the police two days earlier for identification purposes. “He's a hoodlum, f'sure—”

“Oh, great—jump t'conclusions right off, merely from a passin' glance at his mug. That's just wonderful. I can see it won't take more'n half an hour for us t'clear up this minor case!”

“ Hrrmph! ” It would need more than a few snarky words, delivered in a gentle loving tone, to rein in Alice's natural inclination to romantic embellishment. “Look at him! Who'd take anything he said as evidence? He's probably knee deep in the local numbers game, an' likely as not moonlights as a driver for the bootlegging gangs.”

“Prohibition's over, Al.” Fiona jumped at this heaven sent opportunity to mildly needle her loved better half. “Do try'n keep up with contemporary news, darling.”

Fiona herself was dressed in a dark green wool outfit; the skirt, while the same length as her counterpart's, was looser in its flowing lines; matched with a wide pocketed hip length jacket underneath which she wore a dark blue cotton blouse with frills down the front. She idly flicked through the pile of photos, smiling slightly as Alice put out a perfectly manicured hand to jerk the one she was looking at from her fingers.

“ Hey! I wanted t'study that!”

“I do the studyin', lady; you do the bludgeoning over the head with a blunt instrument.” Alice obviously had a wholly personal interpretation of the workings of their business. “Look at her . A middle-aged matron from Todmorton, who's probably never done a stroke of real work in her entire life. Likely as not surrounded by a sea o'servants, who indulge her every sybaritic wish.—”

“Sybaritic? Isn't that swearing?”

“Give it up, gal. y'ain't funny.” The brunette bowed lower over the photo, intent on psychological interpretation from very few, if any, real facts. “She's obviously been raised from infancy on a dedicated diet o' caviar an' champagne. Caviar's fattening, y'know Fay; not a lot'ta people know that.—”

“God! Get on with whatever drivel y're working up to, will ya?”

“—then we come t'this couple.” Alice picked up another photo, which she seemed to like as little as any of the others. “A young man, an' a young lady. Well, I say lady , but y'got'ta—”

“Let's not get sniffy, sugarlumps. Y'know how cynicism only brings ya out in spots.”

“ Harh! Well, they're a man an' a woman, anyways.” Alice's pink lip curled in a refined sneer. “Perhaps we better leave it at that. Where was I?”

The morning sun was gleaming in through the row of high windows on the opposite side of the long narrow office. Now a patch of sunlight fell on the bunch of photos; highlighting them in a way that seemed to bring a whole crowd of people into the confines of the room along with the two investigators.

“About t'tear a perfectly innocent lady's reputation t'shreds.” Fiona sighed resignedly. “Hope t'God no-one's listening. This could turn into a libel case, y'know. An' don't think for a minute I'll appear for your defence; ya bite the bullet, ya take what's comin', Al.”

“Do I look frightened, lover?” Alice continued, unaffected by the concern of her haughty partner. “Well, we know from the police reports they both come out with varying recollections of what happened; even though they were standin' side by side at the time.”

“Ya got the report there, by your left elbow.” Fiona perked up now they were coming to the bones of the affair. “Read it again; the piece where that couple give their input.”

“Reginald Duquesne, office superintendent,” Alice crinkled the page in her hands whilst giving her celebrated impression of a Duchess addressing a class of recalcitrant schoolchildren; this being her normal recitational timbre, which always made Fiona grin widely, to Alice's irritation. “was walking along Darien St. with his paramour of the moment—”

“That report don't say any such thing, ducks.” Fiona wasn't for taking any embroidering of the known facts. “Stick t'the official line, can't ya.”

“Oh alright.” Alice sniffed, then continued. “He and Miss Eleanor Harbridge were walking along the west side of Darien St. at two forty-eight pm on Thursday, 21 st September, 1933, and witnessed the event in question when it occurred. Or, at least, as much of said event as anyone saw—which, by these accounts, was dam' little.”

While listening Fiona had been shuffling the various separate reports into some kind of order. Now she looked up at her partner as the brunette gave the facts as reported by the first two witnesses. Fiona had a notebook ready at her elbow, and a pencil in her right hand; it was going to be a convoluted business, sieving the various contradictory details from all the witnesses' remembrances.

“Where were they both, an' what were they doin', when it happened?” Fiona frowned in concentration, her pencil poised to copy the facts. “Every detail counts.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Alice looked at the sheet, finding her place again, then went on in a more controlled voice. “Eleanor was watching the general crowd of other pedestrians in front of her as she listened to Reg talking about the forthcoming races that'd be taking place at Meidener Field on the coming Saturday. He intended to take his, ah, girlfriend, along and she was somewhat absorbed in thinking about what dress to stun the other racegoers with, at which point she saw what she saw. What she saw, in fact, conflicting with the run of events as her boyfriend beside her reported in his turn.”

“We know everyone saw something completely different.” Fiona shook her head, long black hair curving from side to side. “We got'ta take them one at a time. Try an' glean any important details from the residual mass of chaff.”

“Poetic.” Alice went on, licking her lip with the tip of a pink tongue. “Eleanor was idly keeping an eye on the flow of people—it was a busy day, an' there were crowds milling around—when she had a cursory impression of movement comin' up from behind an' passing by Reggie's left shoulder, she being on his right-hand side. This apparition, or shadow, or appearance, or silhouette, or whatever, she avows with grim determination, commenced t'pass her amour on his left; move on ahead; then veer across in front of a man in a blue suit directly in front of her, Eleanor. This man, at the same time, glanced to his right then looked forward again and at the same time gave an audible sound of consternation whilst stopping dead in his tracks; making both Reginald and Eleanor come to a halt in their turn, only a foot or so behind him. Eleanor was absolutely sure that the movement she had registered happening on the left side of the man did not recur on his right hand side; this being, she imagined, the reason for his quick halt.”

“This is where things begin t'get murky an' mysterious.”

“Y'said a mouthful, darling.” Alice nodded in agreement, flicking the document with a finger to stop it folding back. “Eleanor then made some kind of remark along the lines of ‘ What'ya doin', buster? '. To which the man replied ‘ I thought—I saw—where'd—there ain't nothin' here. ' To which Reginald responded ‘ Did you see?—crossing over in front of ya, from the left. Where is— '. At this point several other of the official witnesses now came forward with their own remarks on the angles of the incident which they had been privileged to catch. In short, all Hell broke loose an' logic flew out the window. Then the police arrived; too late, of course. The rest is down here, in the reports, in all its hazy an' obscure glory.”

Fiona nodded and raised another sheet of paper in her hand. She had organised the witness statements into what she fondly imagined was a perfectly logical sequence, hoping that such would allow clarity to appear through the cloudy mishmash of evidence. The sun was shining brightly, so she shuffled her chair round a little to put the document in her shadow.

“Here's Reggie's take on the affair.” She made a noise which might have reflected interest, but seemed more dubious than otherwise. “He says he was spouting forth to Eleanor at some length about the Saturday horse races, because he felt he'd been given a coupl'a certainties by an acquaintance—”

“ Har , heard that before.”

“So he wasn't taking much account of the passing throng; just walking sort'a automatically, he says.” Fiona expressed her opinion of this with a raising of the lips which registered as her No. 2 sneer. “Then at more or less the same time as Eleanor, Reggie became aware of a movement just in front to his left—this having apparently first materialised an' made its presence felt t'his senses, he adamantly declares, from somewhere ahead of him—moving across his path, but in front of the man in front of him, if ya see what I mean. Then there seemed—he, Reginald, says,—to have been a movement; or more accurately, a lack of movement somewhere to the right of this man in front. That was when both the man and Eleanor stopped, to engage in mutual enquiries about what it was they had both just witnessed.”

“What was it Reginald saw?”

“Ah, if only, Al.” Fiona shook her head again. “You're seeking lucid an' rational facts, where there ain't any t'be found. Look, we'll go to the statement of this man in the blue suit. He, y'recall, was the person nearest to the focus of events. Here it is. Now listen up, an' keep the snide repartee t'yourself, babe,—”

“Sure thing, lady. This I got'ta hear.”

“ Humph. ” Fiona seemed unimpressed with this acknowledgement, but went on with her narration. “Hereward Cottingham III—”

“What? You got'ta be joking.”

“It's a fancy moniker, I give ya that, Al, but for heaven's sake gim'me a break too.” Fiona raised her eyebrows as far as they were capable of going. “I'll never get through these reports at this pace; an' we got'ta rendezvous with the Charlemagne of the 5 th Precinct at 2.30 pm, if ya haven't forgotten. Where was I ?”

“Hereward, the playboy of the Eastern seaboard.”

“Idiot!” Nonetheless the black-haired Amazon focused again on the paper in front of her, biting her lower lip in concentration. “He was heading for his office, thinking about nothing in particular—this is in his own words, y'realise—tryin' not t'get his newly polished shoes trodden on by the hoi polloi, when it happened. He was aware of something,—a bulk, a shadow,—moving close in on his left side; y'know how you often only take notice of objects in a sort'a cursory fashion moving all round ya in a crowd? That seems t'be the way things were goin' at this juncture.—”

“Nobody seems t'have been takin' notice of anyone, or anything, else for a spread of about half a mile in either direction, from what these reports say.” Alice pouted her lips in disgust, running a hand gently over her newly shingled short brunette locks. “Were they all blind, or what?”

“So critical; so unforgiving. Did ya have a deprived childhood, honey-cakes? Can I kiss it all better? Gods, partners.”

“ Phrrph! ”

“He paused in his tracks, giving a hasty glance to his right-hand side, as ya do in such circumstances.” Fiona carried on regardless, brazenly ignoring her paramour's ejaculation. “Then when he turned his gaze back ahead expectin', as ya would, the usual movements and passing presence, he discovered he was standin' in the middle of the sidewalk by himself, relatively speakin'; the object of his attention not bein' where he expected it t'be—crossin' in front of him, that is,—in fact it not bein' there at all. He stood motionless an' nonplussed—”

“Y'sure about that?” Alice was obviously in a kittenish mood this morning. “Isn't ‘ nonplussed ' too specific a reading of his situation? Was that his word, or just your wild interpretation of facts? Logic, now, demands—”

“Logic, dearest, demands that this is the point in time when I take that hard-bound thick street directory on the table by your elbow, an' hit you soundly over the head with it.” Fiona growled low in her throat, for all the world like a wild cat closing in on its breakfast. “Oh, the satisfaction; Oh, the consummation devoutly to be wish'd!”

“Er, just carry on readin', baby; I'm listenin'. I am.”

“He blinked a coupl'a times; glanced from side t'side; then the duo behind butted into his life with their enquiries about his general health, way o' life; an' what the hell he thought he was doin'; an' where'd the object of all their attention go.” Fiona glanced up, but receiving no further interruptions, continued more at ease. “Before they could argue the facts by themselves several other witnesses showed up an' eventually started a round table discussion about it all. It was somewhere around here some unknown dude headed for the nearest phone an' summoned the cops.”

The long office was bathed in sunlight; the day being one of those cloudless bright blue affairs in September which do a pretty fair impression of copying mid-June. Bars of yellow light lay across the higgledy-piggledy pile of assorted maps, reports, papers, and other odds and ends littering the wide table. One of the lower windows was open a'ways, letting the sounds of traffic, and the human condition in general, float up from the sidewalks below. It was remarkably warm in the room, but not uncomfortably so; a faint sweet aroma of wood varnish permeating the air. Alice idly scraped one of her low heels backwards and forwards over the pale oak floorboards. Both women were leaning forward now, engrossed in the outré details emerging from the recorded evidence.

“ Haar-um! ” Alice tried to make this mumble sound as much like a note of comprehension as possible, though she well knew it didn't fool her partner for a second; so, to cover her confusion, shuffled through the spread of photos with an airy insouciance. “Who's next in the ‘ Listen t'my rambling fantasy ' stakes? Here, this character. Let's see, where's that list o'names? Oh, thanks. So, we got Miss Helen Pargiter, twenty-three years old, office worker. She was on the other side o'the unfolding events. That's t'say, she was walkin' towards the previous witnesses from the other direction.”

“They'd been headin' north; she was moseyin' along on a southerly track.”

“Thank you, Fay, I can orientate myself well enough, thanks.” Alice pouted at the tall woman, then returned to business. “Everything's reversed for her input, little as it is. She was, she says, a mite obstructed by other people in front of her, but saw a movement on her right headin' across the sidewalk. She hauled off on her speed a trifle, getting' ready t'slide past in the normal way; then somebody bumped her left elbow. Yeah, it's like a cattle market out on the streets, Fay, these days. I don't know about gangsters an' mobsters; the cops out'ta form some kind'a pedestrian protection force, t'stop people getting' knocked off their feet by bums hurryin' along, y'know. Now that'd be a social service!”

“Al, I hate t'break your train o'thought, but isn't there a subject of equal, if not greater, importance you should be considerin' at the moment?” Fiona knew how to stick a barb in a delicate place, and twist it enthusiastically. “Just askin'.”

“ Rrrr! ” The slim brunette bared white teeth at her opponent, then shook her head disgustedly. “Here I am, just doin' my job, an' what'd I get? Rude repartee an' childish raillery. Do grow up, dear. How old are you now, forty-seven? Time y'should be behavin' like an adult—”

“ Hoi! That ain't nice!” Fiona was outraged, giving her interrogator a sharp tap on her shoulder. “Forty-seven! Y'know fine I had my twenty-ninth birthday only three months ago. By the way, did ya ever send that bracelet y'gave me back t'the shop t'be lengthened? Nah, I didn't think so. Gods, will I ever see it again.”

“Don't worry, lover-child, you'll get your present back, don't cry.” Alice grinned broadly, affecting to rub the spot on her shoulder where her companion's finger had made contact. “Right, back to business. Miss Pargiter finally looked in front of her again, but only t'see—well, what she says she saw was a sort'a flickerin' silhouette that disappeared when she blinked; the strong sunlight havin' made her eyes water just at the requisite moment, so she says. An' when she focussed again the guy in the blue suit—”

“Hereward—”

“Yeah, yeah, don't interrupt.” Alice shuffled the two page report ostentatiously. “ He was in the process o'freezin' t'the spot in amazement; thereby causin' a hold-up in traffic which escalated t'a fullscale blockage in about thirty seconds. After which there was as much chance o'garnerin' logical evidence an' facts as if you'd been in ‘ Alice in Wonderland '.”

Alice dumped the documents and photograph back on the table, amongst the other evidence littered everywhere. There was a considerable amount of these witness statements, police reports, ancillary material dealing with the geographical area involved, and official notes in triplicate on delicately tinted yellow, pink, and blue sheets of paper; simply because of the number of persons who had, inadvertently, been in the vicinity of the incident. Siphoning off the unnecessary material, to leave only the most pertinent facts was turning out to have its drawbacks. What both Fiona and Alice—as well, of course, as the police,— wanted, was to penetrate to the centre of events; to the heart of the matter; to see and describe the single precise event which motivated the whole investigation—but this appeared virtually impossible in the circumstances. There was just too much contradictory evidence.

“OK, who's next? God, this is such a morass.” Fiona leant over the table, taking her turn at bringing lucidity and focus to the impossible. “Next in line, Mr John Barclay, tourist from England. He, he says, was out for a saunter, takin' in the sights.—”

“What sights?” Alice was sceptical. “This is Delacote City. We ain't got any sights. Not that I know of, anyway. You know any sights hereabouts, Fay?”

“Give over, gal.” Fiona turned on her best schoolmarm impression; being long aware of her co-respondent's ingrained aversion to this form of humanity from childhood. “Mr Barclay was heading in the same direction as the previous witness, Miss Pargiter. His contribution to the sorry tale is that he, too, saw the preliminary movement on his right-hand, close to the building they were all walking past. He thought a crossing manoeuvre was in progress; heading towards the sidewalk edge, maybe in search of a taxi, he surmises. Then there was a sort'a confused to-ing and fro-ing for a few seconds, as various passers-by got in each other's way, just at the worst possible moment. A regular barn-dance, is how he described it.”

“ Huh! ” The brunette once more darted, with irrepressible grit, to the front of the barricade with her personal take on the matter. “There seems t'have been a veritable maelstrom o'activity goin' on in that particular small area of sidewalk. The whole soul o'the city seems t'have focussed on that single spot, and made it it's job t'cause as much dam' disturbance, in the shortest twinkling of an eye, you could possibly imagine. Why? Why can't anyone just come out with the cold clear facts, an' tell us what the hell happened?”

Fiona replaced the photograph on the table; picked up a sheaf of multi-coloured documents, several held together by staples in the top corners; read the uppermost copy; discarded this with contempt, and focussed on another report which seemed to offer something positive.

“How far along in the witness line are we now, dear?”

“Well, we've dealt with, let's see, five so far.” Alice cast a jaundiced eye over the mess on the table. “What you got there in your sweaty paw'll be numero six. Who is it and, God, dare I ask, what d'they have t'contribute?”

“Mrs Ann Rowley, thirty-one,—or, at least, that's what she admits to—housewife and family organiser, was also headin' south.” Fiona mused for a few seconds over the badly typed sheet. “God, I can hardly make this out; looks as if a baboon typed it on a machine that was twenty minutes away from falling apart, then sat on it while the ink was still wet. She was, er,—she was close t'the side o'the buildin' as she sashayed along the sidewalk. She was on a shopping spree; her everlovin' husband havin' had the forethought t'provide her with fifty bucks two days previously. God, some people just seem'ta role in the spondoolics as a matter o'course, as if they were specially protected from on high.”

“Beware the green-eyed monster, my friend.”

“Dam' the green-eyed monster!” Fiona was in fighting mood. “So her thoughts were elsewhere, she says,—God in Heaven, wasn't anyone on that goddammed sidewalk payin' any attention t'anythin' at all?”

“This is what you learn at those lectures the police put on, every now an' then, for the edification of the public.” Alice curled her lip critically. “Y'know, where a bunch of experts explain how life is hard, an' life is mean; an' that if you harbour any silly thoughts about the romance and gentlemanly morals of Society, a turn on a police shift'll soon open your eyes. Romance is where y'think everyone's nice an' kind, an' ready t'lend a helpin' hand on all occasions—whereas reality's where everyone'd rather spit in your eye than give you a helpin' hand; an' in a criminal investigation no-one wants t'get involved, keepin' stum rather than finger the hood who pulled the trigger, even though they saw the perpetrators clearly an' it wouldn't put them to any real trouble. It's the same here; all these witnesses are leadin' their own lives; their only concern t'get through the day without bein' run down by a speedin' car, or have their houses burgled. So, faced with a fast movin' set o'circumstances—that don't relate to their own individual lives in any material way—it impinges on their consciousness so little they can't recall the pertinent details in any worthwhile manner. That, Lady of my heart, is what we got here—people who don't really care, or have no real interest; tryin' t'remember the clinical forensic facts about somethin' they have no special concern in. The results, lover, are what you see before you at the moment.”

Fiona had been idly glancing, while this diatribe from her better half progressed on its meritorious way, over one of the reports from a uniformed officer who had attended the incident; this said officer having decided pretty quickly, it appeared from what he'd consigned to inexpugnable text, that the whole group under discussion had either succumbed to some kind of combined hysterical episode—though he couldn't, he admitted with royal disengagement, explain why they all saw pretty much the same thing, more or less—; or there was some kind of calculated interconnected conspiracy in hand, involving all the said witnesses, for purposes and goals as yet unknown. He went on, in crisp official terms, to suggest each witness be given the third degree big-time, no shilly-shallying or velvet glove tactics and damn the regulations; back in his last post, the 9 th Precinct, he offered, they'd have known pretty well how t'handle these here bunch of bums, sure thing. Heaving a sigh, Fiona returned her attention to Alice just as that lady finished speaking—Fiona having missed pretty much her full spiel; though she wasn't going to let the brunette know that for diamonds or rubies.

“Yeah, well, to return to Mrs Rowley.” Fiona hastily picked up the discarded report, frowning wisely the while. “The colour impression she received, in the few seconds her attention was caught by ongoing events, was that of dark, possibly blue, tones. Though she immediately offers the addendum that we shouldn't take her word for this, as her eyes were watering from the sunlight and she was bein' jostled by people on both her left and right.—”

“Always with the excuses.” Alice shook her head in disgust once more. “Call these people witnesses? Humph! They couldn't witness the ‘ Mauretania ' coming into port, and then later be able t'tell it apart from the Jersey ferry, if asked, I bet.”

“You're a hard woman, Al. Wouldn't like t'come home to you at the end o'the week, with an opened pay-packet!”

“ Phooey! ”

“And then she, we're still followin' Mrs Rowley here, says there was some kind'a movement of shadows, or flickering bars of sunlight, or something.” Fiona made a sucking sound with her tongue between her teeth; obviously unimpressed with the lady in question. “Then, she goes on, she witnessed—that's the word she uses, ‘ witnessed '—what she describes as ‘ a thin fading nothingness ', then all she could see was the mug of the man in the blue suit, lookin' amazed, in front of her.”

“ ‘ Witnessed '! Har-Har! ” Alice gave vent to that sound she reserved for only the most unbelievable of hoodlums' bad luck stories—and she'd heard her fair share of those. “Dream, more like. What a load'a baloney. There's either something; or there's not something; stands t'reason. There can't be a nothingy somethin'; or a somethingy nothing! Or, what'd you say she said, a ‘ fading nothing '? Rubbish. Well, it's just logical, ain't it?”

From outside, far down in the street, came the sudden honking of several car horns as a minor ruction occurred in the traffic flow. The gentle rumble of cars, trucks, and buses, amid the low buzz of hundreds of human voices mixing as one, drifted up to the two women as they pondered life in the office. Then the shrill peep of a police-officer's whistle cut sharply through the background noise; the car horns subsided; and peace and normality returned to the general street clamor audible to the two listeners. Life went on.

“No, the indomitable Rowley opined, she didn't clock anything previous to the climax.” Fiona, as she continued reading, now sported an almost permanent manifestation of her dreaded sneer No.1. “No, she didn't see anything of the party of the first part, after the incident; there not bein', she rather caustically allows, anythin' to see any more at that point. An' then, with all the other witnesses jumpin' in all round with their own enquiries, it all got t'be like an open-air religious meeting at it's height.”

“That is just great.” Alice sighed wearily, idly flicking some of the documents near her hand, as if having long ago lost any interest. “Something happened; there were lots of witnesses; and yet none of them can, under any circumstances, be entreated to give any clear facts or information. What's up with these people?”

“Hey, what did the other witnesses say about the, er, colour co-ordination of, um, you know?” Fiona sat straighter, this point of interest having lit up in her mind with all the brightness of a primary concept in physics. “Go back over those reports. Yeah, those ones.”

Alice, stirred to some semblance of life, rustled the sheets of paper around, then started reciting the relevant details in a light sing-song voice.

“Right, from the top, Reggie of dear memory—you haven't forgotten Reggie yet have you, babe?”

“Get on with it. God, this office is so like a kindergarten sometimes. Come on.”

“Reggie,—you listening, Fay?,—says his primary impression was of fuchsia; but dark, not eye-catchingly bright. Suppressed, not pushy, is how he puts it in his statement.”

“God help me!” Fiona made a dismissive motion with one hand. “How can ya have restrained an' dull fuchsia? It's naturally bright an' glaring. Never wear fuchsia, darling. He must be talkin' about some shade o' scarlet, the idiot.”

“Eleanor, on the other hand, branches out on her own.” Alice bent over the sheet, obviously recapturing her enjoyment of the situation with every passing second. “She informs the officer who took her words down the impression left by the subject under discussion was certainly yellow, dull mustard, to be exact. Hey, somethin', possibly, like what I'm wearin' right now. Ain't that a coincidence? Dull mustard, allied with cream in fact, she says; there being, as you said, Fay, very definite co-ordination goin' on with the party of the first part.”

“An' she was standin' where? Eleanor, that is. Right beside her amour?”

“By his very side.” Alice nodded, with a sleazy purr. “Holdin' his hot little hand in hers, for all I know. But certainly right there along with him. They bein' a couple an' all, y'know.”

“Al, I really got'ta find some way o'prizing you away from those weekly dime romance magazines. They're turnin' your mind t'slush.”

“Then comes Hereward, of blue suit fame.” The brunette carried on, undisturbed by this note of criticism. “He bein' the chap who was more or less face to face with the, er, primary feature o'the whole affair.”

Alice paused here, to shuffle her documents into an order more to her liking, leaving her black-haired companion to stew silently the while. Finally, having brought an acceptable order to this information, she looked up expectantly at her partner once more.

“Are ya sure you're comfortable, ducky?” Fiona fumed with suppressed tension. God, brunette companions an' lovers were so much trouble nearly all the time. She thought back to last week, when they had both attended a showing of the latest Jean Harlow movie. God, blondes were so much fun. She wondered if—”Wassat? What'd ya say?”

“I said stop day-dreamin'.” The brunette under scrutiny appeared, thankfully, completely unaware of the direction of her paramour's thoughts. “Buck up an' listen. Hereward's input t'the colour stakes is somethin' else. He prognosticates—”

“God, Al, enough with the big dictionary words. I'm getting' a headache here, from all this dammed palaver; I can't be doin' with long words, too.”

The brunette stopped, to look intently at her lover with an expression of complete wonder.

“Fay, what on earth‘s wrong with you today? Like a cat on a hot tin roof, y'are,—God, take an aspirin an' forget it, babe. We got'ta concentrate on these here reports. How long have we got, by the way, till the gunfight at the OK Corral?”

The tall black-haired Valkyrie by Alice's side leaned over to access the side pocket of her jacket; pulling from its recesses a large silver half-hunter pocket watch of some antiquity.

“It's just comin' up to eleven-thirty. Inspector Fletcher don't want t'see us down at the 5 th Precinct till two forty-five. We got lots o'time yet.”

“OK. Hereward informs all an' sundry, via his police statement, he clearly registered green as the defining colour note of the featured scenario.” Alice pressed her lips together and nodded happily, as if this conflicting information endorsed her every expectation. “Eau-de-nil, to be specific—and Hereward, it appears from the attending police-officer's note here, wanted to be explicitly specific.”

“Explicitly specific? Eau-de-nil?”

“You got it, baby.” Alice nodded, giving Fiona the sort of smile a fond mother gives their outrageously beautiful child when it utters its first word. “Pale milky matt green, for those only acquainted with the ordinary tones in life.—”

“Al, y'know when y'asked me, months ago, t'let ya know when y'were unconsciously waffling t'no purpose about something important? You're doin' it now.”

“ Grrr! ” The subject of this harsh critique took time out to glare at the Dark Lady of her souls' deepest love. “Is that necessary. I'm only doin' my best.”

“Only doin' your best?” Fiona knew when a truly spectacular piece of repartee was straining at the gate, ready for the off. “That's OK then; ya won't get shot by anyone, then. Carry on.”

Affecting to ignore, with ladylike dignity, this childish remark Alice bowed her head over the document again; determined to continue her recitation, no matter the nature, quantity, or quality, of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune which seemed, at the moment, to be whistling round her ears in shameful numbers.

“That completes Hereward's contribution—”

“Just a mo'; not so fast, dearie.” Fiona raised an enquiring eyebrow. “—what'd he have t'say about the precise, a ah , apparition, or person, or object, itself? The specific description of this, um, singular occurrence. I mean—right there in front of his face; right beside him; only inches away. You're not gon'na tell me he didn't see anythin' ? He must'a.”

Alice rifled through the two pages she held. Put them down to pick up instead a five page police report headed with the pertinent witness name; made a sarcastic noise between her lips; dumped this report to grab a three page sheaf lying on the table to her left, each page a different pastel shade, and became deeply involved with this. Finally she nodded appreciatively, as if these pages had supplied everything she desired, and looked over at Fiona once more.

“What did Hereward see, you're askin'?”

“Good God, woman,” Fiona had finally run out of the last dregs of her patience. “gim'me, gim'me. Just dam' gim'me, won't ya!”

“Calm down, sugarlumps, the facts ain't goin' anywhere; the few there are, that is.” Alice ruffled the pages in her hand with tranquil nonchalance, being well used to her lover's short fuse. “There were, it seems, things Hereward saw; and then there were things he didn't see; and, to add to the confusion, there were things he ought'a been able t'see, but which never happened. Shall I take ‘em in numerical order?”

“Take ‘em any dam' way ya please; I don't think I care a fig anymore.” The black-haired beauty pouted with displeasure; wriggling her shoulders as a physical sign of her disinterest. “Oh, go ahead then, if ya must. Dam' Fletcher for dumping this goddammed case on us. I bet'cha anything ya like he did it with malice aforethought!”

Alice spread out the three page report in front of her; holding the first sheet delicately in her left hand.

“Hereward was mindin' his own business, only thinkin' about returning t'his office before three pm.” The brunette nodded, as if pleased with this clear beginning. “Then, he says, as he approached the point on the sidewalk under discussion, he noticed a tall presence comin' in from his left, near the bulk of the building he was passing—sort'a shadowy and givin' off an aura of eau-de-nil green. Like I said, he's adamant about that; even though it clashes with what Reggie, just behind him, saw—fuchsia, y'recall, darlin'; decided fuchsia notes; dull, but noticeably fuchsia—”

“My eye an' Betty Martin.” Fiona wasn't to be denied her opposition to this dubious avowal. “Couldn't have been. Ya just can't get dull fuchsia. Ya either have fuchsia, in all its glaring glory; or ya got some other colour, probably scarlet. Who would ever let themselves be seen in public in a fuchsia two-piece rig-out, anyway, Al? Nobody, who wasn't out'ta their mind, that's who.”

“Can I continue, dearest.” Alice felt it high time to inject her own brand of sarcasm into the conversation. “It's just that these police reports are goin' cold, havin' been out of the oven so long while you carry on your merry snarly way. Another five minutes an' they won't be worth readin', havin' lost all their flavour.”

The black-haired target of this snappy comeback restrained herself to frowning darkly and glowering at her companion—who, of course, took not the slightest notice.

“Where was I? Ah yes, Hereward and the eau—oh, alright, pale green,— vision. Or fuchsia—or scarlet—or whatever.” Alice, triumphant, carried on with carefree abandon. “Bein', as he seems t'have managed to indicate to the police-officer takin' down his story—”

“Gibberings, more like.”

“Shut it, buster.” Alice could be hard and mean in her turn. “Bein' something of a romantic by nature, he was struck by what he registered as the elegant poise of the spectacle moving gracefully across his bows, an' immediately took the necessary evasive measures, preparing to close-haul on his starboard bow, in order to avoid collision—”

“ Jee-zus! ”

“—having taken a glance to starb—to his right-hand side, he then came back to the front-ahead; at which point, after blinking his eyes to clear a sudden bout of lightheadedness which momentarily overtook him, he found that his newly acquired subject of interest was no longer swanning around in his path. Had, in fact, raised anchor an' disappeared over the horizon before he could so much as spit on the sidewalk in disbelief. How about that, Fay. Pretty clear description there, eh?”

Fiona silently leaned back and took a long searching look at her companion.

“Clear? Clear? He don't say anything at all.” The dark Amazon waved a hand exasperatedly; giving off waves of incredulity. “He gets the general colour o'the subject wrong; he says the vision was comin' in from his left, but Eleanor says she saw the shadowy form bearin' down on them more from left-ahead—as if from the direction she an' darlin' Reggie were walking; an' as to the other witnesses—”

“God, if y're really goin' t'come over all oppositional I suppose we better get the whole thing out in the open.” Alice sighed disconsolately, and shrugged her shoulders in defeat. “I know you in this mood; nothin'll stop you but you get your own way. Alright, lets hear it with the other witnesses' ideas of what colour emanations the subject was givin' off; an' which direction they thought the first sightings came from. Go ahead.”

Fiona smirked pleasurably at unexpectededly being given free rein; so, taking full advantage of this turnaround, she grabbed the nearest witness report and started out on her counter-defence.

“OK, babe. If ya want conflicting evidence I'll give ya conflicting evidence—we got tons o'the stuff scattered about. So, who have we here? Why, if it isn't Mrs Vivian van Thalk, widow; of indeterminate, or at least unspecified, age; rich as Croesus, and in the process of having just exited ‘ Marcus & Gruenberg ', jewellers, heading across to her chauffer-driven Isotta Fraschini sitting at the kerb awaiting her return.”

“God, another one. Were they breeding like rabbits on that patch of sidewalk, or what? So what did the high-falutin' lady see, on her short stroll among the lowly poor?” Alice, though slightly riled, was clearly still in a humorous mood. “Oh sorry, the citizens of Delacote, that is.”

“She was, her recorded description of events says, most put out; most disturbed; most displeased.”

“You don't say.” Alice sniggered, putting a hand to her mouth to hide her grin. “Why am I not surprised? Here, gim'me the photo, lem'me have a gander at her. God, she ain't happy, is she; not by about three hundred miles. So, what's her input to the whole affair, then?”

“She, it says here, was in an exceptionally gay mood—her own words.” Fiona scrutinised the badly typed, shabby form; it apparently having already passed through the greasy hands of some fifty previous individuals before the present reader. “God, what a mess; they really need'ta buck-up their ideas, over at the 5 th Precinct—this is a dam' disgrace; a three-year old, with a toy typewriter, could do it better.”

“Fay, focus, for goodness sake. I can hear my lunch calling me, an' I'm not gon'na keep it waitin', you bet.”

“OK-OK, listen up.” Fiona sighed wearily once more; ideas of giving up her present vocation and going into the millinery trade momentarily occupying her mind. “Mrs van Thalk—”

“Yeah, I've heard of her, now you mention it.” Alice nodded vigorously, unashamedly jumping in once again, where angels—and certainly the majority of the criminal classes of Delacote—would have hesitated; grinning widely as her memory brought the facts into the light of day. “She's in the papers a lot. Bags o'dough; an' sits on a lot'ta these organisations for the betterment of Society; cheap housing; an' Pension rights for the Widows of Deceased Oyster-Pickers, an' suchlike. She—”

“Al, I don't give a goddam'—not a single goddam'—about the private, or the public, come t'that, life of the witness under discussion.” Fiona, black hair flowing wildly in the breeze of contempt and indignation now ostensibly blowing through the office, bared her teeth in unrestrained wrath—a wrath which, in the past, had brought hardened criminals to their knees in fear; but not Alice who, seemingly, was completely impervious. “All I wan'na do is read this dammed report out loud—for your further edification alone, I might add. Now, can I please get elbow room t'continue—uninterrupted?”

The brunette malefactor responsible this wild imprecation sat back on her chair; sniffed coldly; and shrugged her shoulders in haughty disdain; merely making a regal gesture with her hand for the unhappy rhetor to carry on. Fiona gave up on deploying her renowned sneer No. 1, knowing full well Alice had been inoculated against it years previously.

“Right, Mrs van Thalk,—OK, Mrs van Thalk allows, her report says, she was in a particularly good mood—quite gay, in fact—when she left the premises of ‘ Marcus & Gruenberg ', jewellers.” Fiona bent over the crumpled, slightly grubby, sheet of paper; reading the badly typed and smudged sentences with some difficulty. “She had pulled off a regular bargain, she gleefully admits, having browbeaten Mr Marcus in person into knocking off three-per-cent from the sale price of an emerald necklace she had just purchased. Quite elevated by this triumph she was somewhere on the outskirts of seventh heaven as she exited the premises onto the Darien St sidewalk. Here she was met by reality in the dual forms of blue skies and blazing sun, and the hurrying unheeding masses—”

“Are you making this up, Fay? Sorry, sorry t'interrupt, but it don't sound like a cold hard police report. Just askin'.”

“No, no, this is the lady's statement as taken down by the unlucky police-officer charged with capturing her immortal words.” Fiona responded surprisingly gently to this reasonable question. “It appears Mrs van Thalk has no great love for ordinary people individually; reserving her charity for people in the bulk, as it were, via her charity work. Strange, but ya get those sort'a people, y'know. They'd spit in a beggar's eye; but give a hundred thousand dollars t'a Society for furtherin' the education of waifs an' strays.”

“There's no accounting for folk.”

“Dam' straight there, Al.” Fiona pursed her lips, then returned to the report. “She had to pause almost immediately in her progress, though, as someone hauled up right in front of her on the sidewalk. This, in fact, turning out t'be none other than the Limey, was'sis name?— Oh, it's right here—John Barclay.”

“ Prrph! ” Alice registered scorn, absently twirling a pencil in her fingers. “ He still on the go? Say, what colour—”

“It don't say.” Fiona jumped in to cut her partner's ramblings off mid-sentence. “No—it don't say here. Must be in the longer report. Bet ya anything ya like he comes up with somethin' altogether new. What colours d'the British favour? Aquamarine; violet; gamboge?”

“ Jeez , who cares? Get on with van Thalk's Odyssey, for Gaw—for goodness sake.”

“OK-OK, Al. don't get flustered. We're getting' near the conclusion now.”

“Oh yeah?” The brunette didn't seem convinced. “So how many witnesses does the radiant van Thalk make, then?”

“Dammed if I know, or care.” Fiona steamed ahead, spurning all thought of tallying up the witness count. “It was while waitin' for the Limey to make a move, an' get out'ta her path, that she clocked the first appearance o'the subject under discussion. There was, she tells the hapless officer taking down her pitch, something tall; something dark, but not heavy; moving close in to her right shoulder. She thinks, she offers, it came suddenly from a point away to her right, close in to the building near one of the jewellers' windows. And it had a sort'a slate-grey tone overall, she thinks.”

“Oh, God! Another colour.” Alice groaned with heartfelt disgust. “I can see the entire rainbow's not gon'na be sufficient for the purposes o'this case. Sorry, continue, dearest.”

The sound which Fiona now made could have been many things; but contentment with present circumstances was not one of them. The black-haired beauty wriggled on her chair, seeking comfort where there was none; gave her companion a glance of dual disgust and defeat; then carried on where she'd left off.

“This vision, van Thalk is certain, came up to her right shoulder with surprising speed; passed across her front, moving just ahead of several pedestrians coming from her right-hand side; then, as Van Thalk ey ed this intrusion into her private space with rising wrath, it vanished in a trice.”

“A what?”

“A trice—that's what's written here, in the report.”

“Gim'me. I don't believe it.”

Alice more or less snatched the offending document, tearing one of its corners as she did so; then scrutinized the battered and barely readable text as if examining a pan, newly taken from a river, for gold dust.

“Good Grief, you're right.” Alice shook her head in disbelief; not for the first time that day. “She certainly has a curious vocabulary. Here, y'can have it back; I don't need it any more. Carry on. This whole case is surely bung full of— Ha-Ha ,— interest.”

“Al, sarcasm doesn't become you; give it a rest.” Taking the now tattered document with an icy stare, Fiona grandly deigned to continue her recitation. “What particularly caught her attention, she's at pains to tell the officer, is the manner of the apparition's departure. Not for this startling phantasm the merely fading away of a normal dream-induced presence. Oh no, this mysterious, if not actually spectral, flapper flickered gently into oblivion over what the Thalk is pleased to term a ‘ un petit peu, but palpable, period of time '!”

Fiona had, at this point, to suspend her lecture to attend to her everlovin' better half—who seemed to be suffering a bout of complete prostration, due to laughing uncontrollably. The brunette, in fact, put her head down on her crossed arms on the table and tittered irrepressibly. It being some time before order could be restored.

“Al, you are one kind of a gal, that's for sure.”

“It's alright; I'm better now, thanks.” Alice raised herself back into a sitting posture, still wiping the tears from her eyes. “God, what a case. If it was April the First, I could understand; but it ain't, is it, lover? This whole thing's just so unbelievable; I mean, everyone says they saw somethin', or someone; or some kind'a a some which . But they just can't agree what. I don't think anyone saw anything , myself. Y'got'ta admit, luscious, that'd clear the whole sorry business up comfortably, with no loose ends.”

“If only.” Fiona sadly shook her head from side to side, glancing from her partner to the piles of documentation scattered over the table. “But look at all this. Reports; witness statements; squad investigations; character studies; personal histories; an' general geographical details o' the whole dam' area. Y'can't say the cops down at the 5 th Precinct haven't put their best foot forward.”

“But what's the result?” Alice succinctly put her finger on the single snake in the woodpile. “ No results, is what. If anyone there at the time actually saw someone; or something; where did this, um, spectre come from? Who, or what, was it? An' more t'the purpose, where'd it go? Eh?”

“There haven't been any reports of missing persons over the last week or so, have there?” Fiona came back to a point which had occupied them both at the very beginning of the case, when it had temporarily been entrusted to their care. “Or so Inspector Fletcher told us yesterday.”

“Narry a one, darling.” Alice cut that retreat off unmercifully. “No-one's officially fallen off the face of the earth anywhere within a radius of fifty miles of Delacote City, never mind Darien St., anytime within the last three months.”

The electric clock, on the wall over their heads a little along from the table, buzzed into action at this juncture—giving out a tinkling soft ringing, to show it was well aware that half-past twelve was now upon the world. From the street below came the noise of traffic winding on its way unheeding; as the quiet hum of humanity in numberless masses filled the sidewalks, this now being almost everyone's lunchtime. The two women in the long office were not, themselves, impervious to this thought.

“I'm hungry, Fay. What about you?”

“Yeah, yeah, I could do with stoking up on somethin'.” The black-haired lady idly flicked at a couple of loose sheets of paper. “But couldn't we just take five minutes, t'close up this dammed mess? We're pretty much there, at the moment.”

“Glad you think so.” Alice, however, surrendered with a good grace. “So, what next? Or who, for that matter. Please don't tell me there's more witnesses? I'll scream if there are, for sure.”

“Only one, darlin'.” Fiona nodded, frowning at the sheaf of papers she had picked from all those available. “Remember that mugshot, earlier, y'said was definitely of a hoodlum? Well, here he is again.”

“ God! Alright, who is he? An' what pearls o'wisdom has he t'contribute t'the unfolding tragedy?”

“Davis Reutenberger, thirty-four, newspaper-seller.” Fiona concentrated on the document, as if willing clarity to appear through the fog. “He was standin' near the kerb; his stall bein' on the sidewalk just t'the rear o'the Isotta Fraschini waitin' for van Thalk. He was, he took pains to tell the officer listenin' to his diatribe, just a mite pissed-off at the proximity of this monster vehicle. Apart from blockin' his light, it was makin' the transient pedestrians veer away, t'give the flashy tub room—thus depriving him of a substantial percentage of passing trade. He wasn't pleased; and was becoming even less pleased with every passing minute. Mutiny, he admits, was not far from his thoughts; and he was buildin' up his courage to go over and have it out with the chauffeur—who apparently was asleep, or snoozin', and stayed this way all through the subsequent scenario; thereby not bein' called as one of the official witnesses—seein' as he didn't witness anything.”

“Fay, I've got two choices here.” Alice spoke in her most sardonic tones, well-known to her dark compatriot. “I can bugger-off t'grab a hot dog an' a cup o'coffee; or you can get t'grips with whatever facts you're tryin' t'elucidate, an' tell me what the hell lover-boy saw. The choice, in fact, is yours .”

There wasn't much Fiona could say to this so, affecting a gloomy frown but otherwise not replying in kind, she returned to the report with morose dignity.

“Davis says he saw it all, from start to finish.” Fiona raised a peremptory hand as Alice bucked up and seemed to be about to interrupt. “No, not a word, darling. He had left the confines of his stand, he reports, but had only taken a few paces towards the driving-cab of the monstrous limousine. Then he became aware of the curious pattern of flow of the crowd around him. There was something very like a whirling disposition, he thinks; everyone tryin' t'pass each other, and creating a kind of rotating or spiralling human maelstrom. Just for a few seconds, is how he put it; then a number of individuals came into sharp focus in his line of vision. He saw Reggie and Eleanor stepping out together; he saw Hereward, in his shiny blue suit, pacing along at a fair gallop; he even noticed, because he turned his head slightly at the requisite moment, Miss Pargeter and that Limey character, whose name I keep forgettin'. An' he also saw— It! ”

“ It ?”

“ It , is how he characterises the subject of all our concern.”

“That ain't very polite.” Alice was always one for the proprieties. “I mean, he may not have gotten a really good look at her; but callin' her ‘ It ' is a bit steep.”

“That's just the whole point an' purpose of his description, Al.” Fiona raised her eyes to grip her lover with a steely stare. “He's adamant it wasn't a girl of any kind; in fact not a man, either; or any kind'a human manifestation, at all.”

“Oh yeah. So—what?”

“A misty thick dark impenetrable internally stirring column of foggy cloud.” Fiona paused, seeing she had her companions full attention. “Davis is quite clear this is what he saw. It stood about six feet high; was about two feet in diameter; and seemed to be whirling in amongst itself, as it moved straight across the sidewalk. He thinks it materialised somewhere near the left-hand window of the jewellers; headed straight across the sidewalk, apparently ignoring, or bein' unaware, of the pedestrians; then simply became nothing, as it passed close in front of Hereward. ‘ Became nothing ', is how he quantifies it. And that, he roundly told the officer, is all; nothing more, only that.”

“ Phoo-ey! ” Alice was clearly not impressed. “That is your actual load'a baloney. I have never heard such a pile o'—”

“Dust-devil.”

“What? What?”

“Davis told the officer takin' down his statement he'd had occasion t'live outside'a Los Angeles for some years, in his youth.” Fiona consulted the badly-typed page as she recounted this revelatory information. “He often used to take automobile runs out into the desert, he says; along with a bunch o'pals, of varyin' sexes, apparently. An' what he says was a common occurrence was dust-devils. Sort'a small localised whirlwinds that sweep across the desert for a few yards, or hundreds o'yards; then disappear again. That's what it was—what everyone saw on the sidewalk—just an ordinary dust-devil, that came into existence—as dust-devils are minded to—for a few seconds, then vanished once more. Just a mild natural phenomenon, of no real interest, he opines here. Why everyone conjured up these fancy impressions of some kind'a angel-like beautiful girl, is beyond him. A dust-devil—to a dam' certainty; he ought'a know, he says, he'd seen enough in his time.”

There was a long pause in proceedings. Alice had apparently cast aside all thoughts of lunch, frowning deeply as she considered this latest theory. There had, it was obviously her belief, been a great deal of fantasy and embroidering of the bare facts throughout this whole investigation. Hardly anyone seemed to have had a firm grip on the situation; but this last addition at least had the merit of being locked into concrete scientific fact. Could it possibly be?

“What d' you think, Fay?”

“I think we better go get us some lunch, tiger-lily.” Fiona sat back in her chair with a tired groan. “Remember, we still got'ta suffer Inspector Fletcher's take on the whole matter when we see him. What he'll contribute t'the whole thing I don't wan'na think about. It's gon'na be a messy afternoon. I think we can safely say this shambles'll find itself tagged; pigeon-holed; filed in the deepest, darkest region of the Police Records Dept.; and safely forgotten forever, before the day's over. An' good riddance to it, I say.”

The women rose from their chairs. Alice walked over to stare out the open window, drawing in deep breaths of fresh air as she looked down on the real world below in the busy streets. Behind her Fiona dragged the loose scattered documents into a rough pile, ready to be returned to their official source.

“So Fay, have you come t'any sort'a conclusion—about what transpired over on Darien St., then?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Me neither.”

The End

—O—

To be continued in the next instalment of the ‘ Drever & Cartwright ' series.

—OOO—

Return to the Academy

Author's Page