Meet Me at the Morgue Read Online Free PDF Page A

that what you’re trying to do?”
    Her brown eyes rolled in apprehension: “I thought if I could find Fred.”
    “You thought! Nobody told you to think. I left strict orders that nobody was to go to the authorities.” He was breathing fast. His face was swollen tight with blood and anger.
    His wife laid a hand on his shoulder. “Abel, please. She meant well. Please don’t excite yourself, darling.”
    “How can I help it? Why did you let her go?”
    “I didn’t know she’d left. Anyway, it’s done no harm. Mr. Cross isn’t the police. But he’s half convinced me that we ought to call them.”
    “I agree, Abe,” Seifel said from the doorway. “There’s no sense in fooling around with a gang of kidnappers.”
    “I absolutely forbid it.” Johnson took a few faltering steps and leaned on a corner of the table. “I’m not taking any chances with my boy’s life. Anybody who thinks he’s going to is going to have to do it over my dead body.”
    His wife regarded him anxiously. His mention of death was uncomfortably close to the literal truth. He looked very ill. She said, in the tone of a nurse humoring a patient: “Don’t upset yourself, dear. We’ll do as you say. Nobody’s going to call them.”
    Seifel came up beside me and spoke in my ear: “Ask him how long he intends to wait. This is serious.”
    “Why don’t you?”
    “He won’t take suggestions from me. When I try to argue, he blows his top. It’s a pretty mess, I’m telling you.”
    I said: “How long do you want us to wait, Mr. Johnson?” His wife gave me an appealing glance, and I added: “I think you’re making a mistake, but I won’t act until I have your go-ahead.”
    “You’re damned right you won’t.” He lifted his sagging head. “They said in the letter they’d have him back today. I’ve done my part in the bargain. If there’s any justice or any mercy, they’ll do their part. We’ll give them until midnight tonight.” He threw a fierce look at Mrs. Miner: “You hear that?”
    “Yessir, I hear it. I promise I’ll stay right here. But what about Fred?”
    “What about him?”
    “He’s gone, too.”
    “I know that, Mrs. Miner. If I thought that he was responsible for this, I—” Johnson choked on his emotion.
    Mrs. Johnson took his arm and led him to the door. “Darling, you should lie down. You’ve had such a hard morning.”
    “I won’t lie down. I couldn’t possibly rest.” But the heavy voice had faded into querulousness. He went along with her.
    Seifel’s bright satiric glance followed them out. “Brother, what a situation. Abe’s carrying a coronary, you know. This stuff is murder. I practically had to lift him into the car at Sapphire Beach, when he got off the train.”
    He took a fresh white handkerchief from his breast pocket, unfolded it, and wiped his forehead. He had a lot of forehead.
    “Shouldn’t he be seen by a doctor?”
    “Helen will know what’s best. She’s an ex-nurse. As a matter of fact, she nursed Abe through his coronary. Helen’s a very wonderful girl, in my opinion.”
    I disliked his proprietary tone. The wire Helen Johnson walked was higher and thinner than most people’s, but she seemed to have somebody ready to catch her if she fell.
    Mrs. Miner left the kitchen, carrying a silver coffee-service on a tray. Her red-rimmed eyes gazed straight ahead, fixed on some desolate scene in the distant regions of her mind.
    Ann came around the table with the plate of sandwiches. She thrust it under Seifel’s nose. “Have a sandwich, Mr. Seifel. You look hungry.” Her furious blush had dwindled to oval patches on her cheekbones.
    “Hi there, Annie. Thanks, I will.” He took a sandwich and lifted the top to examine its contents. “Salmon I like. What are you doing in
cette galère?
Hired yourself out as a cook? I hear there’s money in it.”
    “Mrs. Miner made the sandwiches,” she answered primly. “I’m Mr. Cross’s assistant, or had you forgotten? I