Drury Lane’s Last Case Read Online Free PDF

What? Oh, Theofel. Say, listen, Mr. Theofel, have you got a wheel-wrestler on your pay-roll by the name George Fisher?”
    â€œYes,” said a slightly alarmed voice. “Is anything the matter?”
    â€œNo, no,” said the Inspector genially. “I’m just askin’, that’s all. Is he a big lad with red hair and an honest map?”
    â€œWhy, yes, yes. One of our best drivers. I’m sure nothing——”
    â€œSure, sure. I just wanted to check up, that’s all. Say, he took out a party of hick school-teachers yesterday. Can you tell me where they’re stoppin’ in the city?”
    â€œCertainly. The Park Hill, off the Plaza. Are you sure there isn’t——?”
    â€œGoo’-bye,” said the Inspector, and hung up. He rose and reached for his topcoat. “Put some powder on your nose, kid. We’ve got a date with the intell—intell——”
    â€œIntelligentsia,” sighed Patience.

2
    The 17 School-teachers
    The intelligentsia proved to be a group of assorted ladies and gentlemen, none of whom was under forty; they were predominantly female, with an awkward scattering of dry and dusty males; and they sat along a festive breakfast board in the main dining-room of the Park Hill twittering and chirping like a flock of sparrows on the first leafy bough of spring.
    It was late morning and except for the teachers’ party the dining-room was empty. The maître d’hôtel indicated the ladies and gentlemen with a negligent thumb. Inspector Thumm, unawed, stamped into the salle à manger (the Park Hill had Gallic pretensions in addition to its French cuisine ) and ploughed his way through the underbrush of gleaming idle tables followed by a faintly giggling Patience.
    At the Inspector’s formidable approach the twittering wavered suddenly, peeped a little, and then stopped altogether. A host of startled eyes—the glass-protected mournful eyes of tutorship—swung like a trained battery to observe the intruders. The Inspector’s visage had never been one to inspire sweet trust in the hearts of little children and shy, self-conscious adults; it was big and red and hard and massively bony, and its well-smashed proboscis added a slightly sinister note.
    â€œYou the school-teachers from Indiana?” growled Thumm.
    A tremor of apprehension shivered down the board; elderly maiden ladies groped for their bosoms and the men began to lick their dignified lips.
    A fat-faced man of fifty, painfully dressed—apparently the Beau Brummell and spokesman of the group—scraped his chair back from the head of the table and half-stood up, twisting about and clutching the back of the chair. He was quite pale.
    â€œYes?” he quavered.
    â€œI’m Inspector Thumm,” said Thumm in the same savage growl; and for a moment Patience, half-hidden behind her father’s broad back, thought there would be a general swooning of females.
    â€œPolice!” gasped the spokesman. “Police! What have we done?”
    The Inspector swallowed a grin. If the fat gentleman chose to leap to the conclusion that “Inspector” was synonymous with “police,” so much the better. “That’s what I’m here to find out,” said the Inspector sternly. “You all present and accounted for?”
    The man’s eyes wavered down the table dazedly; they returned, round and large, to the Inspector’s forbidding face. “Why—uh, yes, certainly.”
    â€œNobody missing?”
    â€œMissing?” echoed the spokesman blankly. “Ofcourse not. Why should there be?”
    Necks strained back and forth; two ladies with gaunt scarified features uttered horrified little noises.
    â€œJust askin’,” said the Inspector. His cold eyes swept up and down the board, beheading glances like a scythe. “You people took a little joy-ride in a Rivoli bus yesterday