Murder on Wheels Read Online Free PDF Page A

mother went down on the Titanic. She—”
    “Never mind. The rest of them?”
    “Well, that’s the list on the distaff side, barring the servants. You saw Gretchen, and the cook is Mrs. Hoff. She’s been here forever, I guess. Then there’s cousin Hubert. He’s a Stait, but more or less indirectly. He’s really a second-cousin, but he’s an orphan, too, so this has been his home since he was a baby. He’s the brains of the house, and Laurie and I have always been the brawn. Football and all that, you know, while Hubert was making Phi Beta Kappa. Of course we all went to Columbia. Gran wouldn’t have us out of her sight.”
    “That’s all?”
    “All but the colored boy who comes in to tend the furnace and clip the grass in summer. He makes himself useful around the kitchen when there are guests, which is very seldom now.”
    “Good. Now can you get them all into one room for me? I’d like to question everybody for a few minutes, including the servants.” The Inspector was warming up.
    But Lew Stait shook his head. “I can’t get them all into one room. Gran wouldn’t come downstairs to please anybody. It’s Mrs. Hoff’s night out, and she won’t be back for hours. And Aunt Abbie and Hubert are at a movie. Aunt Abbie gets a great thrill out of the cinema. She loves to lose herself in a thriller, and she’d sit through an earthquake if she was seeing a love scene. She doesn’t like to go alone, so we take turns in playing escort. She’s been mighty good to us, and it’s the least we can do for her.”
    “At a movie, huh? Happen to know which one?”
    Lew Stait nodded. “It’s the Cinemat, the modernistic theater on Fifty-seventh. I know, because I heard Hubert say when he left here with Laurie that he was going to meet Aunt Abbie in the lobby. She’s been shopping today. Hubert was going to take her to the movie and then to dinner, on account of this being the cook’s night out.”
    The Inspector was puzzled. “You say that your cousin Hubert left here with Laurie?”
    “Yes. Laurie was going to drop him off at the theater on his way down.”
    Piper nodded. “Fifty-seventh would lie on the direct route between here and where the accident happened. Hildegarde, will you get that theater on the phone and have those people paged, or an announcement made from the stage or something?”
    Miss Withers looked at her watch. “It isn’t necessary,” she pointed out. “It’s eight o’clock now, and those movies never run longer than two hours at the most. Even allowing an hour for dinner, they’ll be here shortly if they come right home.”
    Piper nodded. “One thing more. Young man, I suppose you can account for your own time during the last three hours?” He lit his cigar, and eyed the surviving twin through the curls of smoke.
    “I can account for it all right,” said Lew Stait sullenly. “I was right here in this house. Gretchen will bear witness to that. She made some sandwiches for me, and took up Gran’s toast and tea as usual. Why, do you insinuate that I’d have a hand in whatever you think happened to Laurie? My own twin? God, man, it would be like suicide to lay a hand on him. He was … he was like myself!”
    His acting is improving, thought Miss Withers. Or else he wasn’t acting. She didn’t sense the insincerity in his feeling now.
    Instead of the Inspector’s own gruff, professional tones, her own voice took up the questioning. “Young man, who do you think it was that killed your brother Laurie?”
    He looked up, startled. “How should I know?”
    “Twins are generally supposed to be closer together than other people, even than brothers and sisters, aren’t they? Murder always casts its shadow ahead. Didn’t you notice anything in your brother Laurie’s actions these past few days?”
    He hesitated for a long second. “No—no, of course not. Nothing definite, I mean. Except that Laurie has been sort of worried, upset a little, during the last month or so.