Nipped in the Bud Read Online Free PDF Page A

simple, unsophisticated little girl from the country she seems to have done a pretty good job of winding you men around her pinky. And to top it all, she had suddenly disappeared? How and when and why?”
    “She was fine and dandy,” said Hardesty, “when I last phoned her a couple of weeks ago. Just to check up, you understand, nothing personal.”
    “Of course not!” Miss Withers beamed.
    “Our operatives were keeping an eye on her, too, though we didn’t have men enough to spare so we could have her shadowed twenty-four hours a day. It wasn’t as if her story had got into the papers—nobody knew about her at all. And then last Monday when we tried to serve a subpoena on her, we found her gone.”
    “Gone? Gone where?”
    “Just gone. Quit her job and moved out of her room, the preceding Saturday. Told her landlady she’d write and give her the forwarding address, but she hasn’t. So if you can help us on this thing in any way …” Hardesty smiled brightly. “Of course, there mustn’t be any fanfare. I don’t mind so much having it known that I let an important witness slip through my fingers, but we’re still hoping to bring her back and spring her as a surprise on the defense when the case comes up again.”
    “I see,” said Miss Withers slowly. “I suppose you yourself talked to her landlady and the other roomers? Was her room searched?”
    Piper nodded. “Nothing.”
    “Her friends?”
    “She seems to have been a shy little thing; kept pretty much to herself. No dates. When she wasn’t at the office she was either at a movie or window-shopping along Fifth and Madison or with her nose buried in a library book.”
    “Probably scared stiff, and after what happened on her first day in the city I hardly blame her. I see I shall have to start from scratch. But three heads are better than one, and you gentlemen had the advantage of meeting the young lady. Mr. Hardesty, yours is the first guess. Where would you say little Ina has gone?”
    The assistant D.A. paused to light a cigarette, his big hands surprisingly dexterous. “I think she’s in hiding,” he said. “Probably not far away. Ina has a powerful imagination, and I think she brooded over the impending trial until she just couldn’t stand it. She may have had a sort of long-distance crush on Junior Gault—many nice girls are fascinated by scoundrels—and she couldn’t face swearing his life away on the witness stand. Since she wouldn’t lie, and anyway could hardly retract her own sworn statement, I think she just decided to drop out of sight until after the trial.”
    “The girl would have to have a heart soft as butter, to say nothing of her head. But, very well. Oscar, what is your hypothesis?”
    “I hate to say it,” pronounced the inspector, “but it’s possible she was bought off. The girl was dying to get into the big time, and maybe being a file clerk in New York wasn’t much improvement over the home town. Somebody got to her—there could have been a leak somewhere in the D.A.’s office or mine. Junior Gault, or his family, or his attorney, could have learned how important Ina’s testimony would be to the prosecution. A few thousand bucks and a plane ticket dangled in front of Miss Ina Kell …” Piper grinned. “Maybe those stars our young friend here saw in her eyes were only star sapphires!”
    “You’ll eat those words,” Hardesty said quickly, “when we find her.”
    “If we find her,” put in Miss Withers. “Of course, we are all aware that there are still other possibilities. Ina might have been frightened away, or kidnapped, or even worse.”
    “Relax, Hildegarde,” advised Piper. “She hasn’t been murdered. The only person with the faintest motive is still safe behind bars.”
    “Relax, yourself,” she countered snappishly. “And, speaking of motives, I am still far from convinced that Junior Gault really had sufficient reason to kill Fagan. Just because of a poke in the jaw, and some snide