Murder Your Darlings Read Online Free PDF Page A

strange,” Dorothy observed. “Mr. Adams would sooner part the Red Sea than part with a red cent.”
    Some members of the group chuckled at this.
    O’Rannigan, his face reddened, turned on her. “That’s a fine way for you to talk after Mr. Adams defended your rotten old poetry—” Then a thought struck him. “Just a doggone minute. Where the hell is your Mr. Dachshund? I ordered him to stay right here!”
    Dorothy bit her lip. “I suppose he ran astray.”

Chapter 4
    “Didn’t you hear me?” O’Rannigan bellowed, inches from her face. “Tell me, where is your Mr. Dachshund?”
    “No, I didn’t hear you,” she murmured. “You’ll have to speak up if you want a person to listen to you.”
    “You know where he is. Take me to him. He couldn’t have gotten far.”
    She and the burly detective locked eyes. Neither one spoke for a long moment.
    Then Woollcott broke the silence. “She rents a suite upstairs. Maybe he’s up there.”
    She glared at him. Woollcott adjusted his small round glasses on his large round face. “Oh, but don’t listen to me. I’m just an old windbag.”
    “Come on.” O’Rannigan grabbed her elbow. “Let’s go upstairs.”
    “Without a chaperone?” she said as he tugged her across the lobby. “What will the neighbors say?”
    “Let me join you,” Benchley called, hurrying up behind them.
    She gave Benchley a knowing look.
    Benchley halted. “Then again, maybe I won’t. I have to see a man about a pocket watch.”
    O’Rannigan shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He pulled her toward the elevator door.
    “Oh, no,” she said. “I can’t ride the elevator. I have claustrophobia. I panic in confined spaces.”
    “Confined spaces? What do you think of an eight-by-ten-foot prison cell?”
    “Very little. Why don’t we take the stairs? You’re not afraid of a bit of exercise, are you?”
    “I exercise every day.” He puffed out his barrel chest, his heavy torso straining against his tight suit jacket.
    “Every day ending with a Z ,” she muttered and turned toward the stairs.
    “What’d you say?”
    “I said, I live on floor eighteen.”
    That stopped O’Rannigan in his tracks. Dorothy entered the door to the stairway. Behind her, O’Rannigan cursed under his breath; then he followed her through the door.
     
    As soon as Dorothy and the detective entered the stairway, Benchley darted to the elevator and pressed the call button. To his amazement, the door opened immediately. Maurice, the elderly elevator operator, shuffled out.
    “Just a minute,” Benchley said. “I have to go upstairs.”
    “And I have to go to the can. Guess who goes first.”
    Maurice ambled across the lobby. Benchley, helpless, watched him go.
    Finally, Benchley stepped into the elevator. He looked at the controls. He was a disaster with anything mechanical and afraid to fiddle with anything electrical. The operator’s panel of levers, switches and buttons seemed impossibly complex. But he had to get Billy Faulkner out of Dorothy’s apartment before O’Rannigan could bully his way in. Benchley knew she was counting on him. He decided he would take control of the elevator himself.
    He flipped one of the switches and the lights went out.

    Dorothy climbed the next flight of stairs. She called over her shoulder to the detective. “Just so you know, I’m not in the habit of letting strange men into my room.”
    A few steps behind her, she could hear O’Rannigan already starting to breathe heavily. They had only passed the landing to the second floor.
    “Huh, yeah? That Dachshund looks like a strange bird to me.”
    “He’s a perfectly lovely southern gentleman. Are you implying that I can’t land any men other than strange ones? That I have to kidnap them and hide them in my room?”
    “No, but if Dachshund is in your room, you’ll have bigger problems than landing a man.”
    “So you do think I have problems landing a man? This is what it’s come to. Our public servants insulting