Edison Effect, The: A Professor Bradshaw Mystery (The Edison Effect) Read Online Free PDF Page A

patrolling at night?”
    “Of course! We have a man on duty seven days a week, from midnight until six in the morning. He’s been sent for but hasn’t yet returned. He reported nothing irregular upon leaving.”
    “Who handles security during the day?”
    “Two lead detectives split the day, both female—they make the best store detectives, you know—and a dozen plainclothes men and women who mingle with shoppers. Our floorwalkers and managers are also trained to watch for theft from both customers and employees.”
    O’Brien asked for names, jotting them in his book, and Bradshaw stepped up into the window, ducking his head to keep from bumping the ceiling. “Who placed the screens?”
    “I did that myself,” said Olafson. “I let no one enter the window. My clerks brought them from Women’s Furnishings, and I alone carried them in and disturbed as little as possible.”
    While still overcast, the day was brightening, and feeble sunshine filtered around the edges of the screens. Bradshaw peered behind one and was dismayed to find curious faces pressed against the glass trying to see in.
    He turned to face the holiday display. A handwritten sign before Edison’s holiday lights announced that a single outfit of eight lamps cost five dollars, and a triple outfit of twenty-four lamps cost twelve dollars. While Bradshaw had known the cost of the lights would be high due to the price of the fragile bulbs and the wiring labor, he hadn’t anticipated they’d be out of range for the average family. Most men scarcely made twelve dollars a week.
    He turned to the window lighting. Several incandescent lamps with silvered reflectors ran the length of the window at the top and bottom. The bottom row was now blocked by the screens. On the oval wool rug of the display floor, Bradshaw spied a linen handkerchief that showed severe scorching. It appeared brand new, and Bradshaw’s first thought was to glance at the mannequins. A linen kerchief was tucked into the breast jacket pocket of the grandfather figure. The father figure had no kerchief, yet the handwritten sign at its feet listed a kerchief with the other articles on display.
    He sniffed the linen. The acrid smell was strong and fresh.
    O’Brien asked, “What is it, Ben?”
    Olafson clapped his hands together. “I clean forgot! The handkerchief was on the floor by the footlights when I placed the screens. I kicked it aside and it went out of my mind. I saw that it looked burned. Is it, Professor? Has it been burned? Tell me it has not!”
    “It is scorched. You found it beside the footlight? Was it touching the lamp?”
    “No, not touching, but it was close enough that it alarmed me. We so worry about fire, you know! The sprinkler system does not extend into the windows. We keep a bucket of water handy at all times, of course, and one of sand for electrical fires. They are here,” he said, pointing to a storage bin beside the window that served double-duty as a display stand.
    Olafson began to wring his hands. “Oh, dear me. If it had caught fire! Careless! My window dresser thinks only of the aesthetic lines of his displays. It is not the first time he’s nearly set the place ablaze. I may have to let him go, but he is the best window dresser on the west coast. Where will I find another half so good?”
    It was a rhetorical question, but Bradshaw found it curious that Olafson immediately blamed the designer. The window was easily accessible; anyone could have entered. A designer would, before he left, step back and inspect his work and surely see a kerchief out of place.
    “The window lights were turned on at seven?”
    “Yes, at seven.”
    “What time was Mr. Doyle found?”
    “At half past seven. I had Andrews turn off all the lights almost immediately, even before summoning the police. Is that important?”
    Past experience had taught Bradshaw to add as little information as possible to a crime scene, and the scorched cloth proved to him that this was a