Nipped in the Bud Read Online Free PDF

remarks on the air….”
    “Well, now!” The inspector nodded genially at Hardesty. “Listen at her! And only a couple of hours ago in my office she was swearing that this time she had no intention of upsetting any applecarts. John, don’t you agree with me that this is the time for us to fix it up so Miss Withers here has a look at exhibit A?”
    The assistant D.A. shrugged, but Miss Withers sat up straight. “If you’re thinking of showing me a lot of gruesome photographs of a dead body …”
    “Not at all, Hildegarde. You’re going to have a look at the motive, and then you can decide for yourself if it’s sufficient or not. Know anything about television?”
    She looked blank. “From what I’ve seen it’s mostly wrestlers and puppet shows and old Hopalong Autry movies seen through a blinding snowstorm.”
    “Forget the good old days of the family stereoscope, will you? Time marches on.” The inspector winked at Hardesty and rose from the table. “Come, Hildegarde…. Just a minute while I make a phone call, and we’ll be on our way.”
    “Hmm,” Miss Withers said. “Oscar, I think you’re up to something. But I’m just curious enough to trail along.”
    “You’ll get curiouser and curiouser,” he promised, with a too-innocent smile.

4
“What will you do to yourself, who have added insult to injury?”
    —PHAEDRUS
    T HE POLICE LIMOUSINE WAS turning east toward Madison, though, as Miss Withers pointed out, the Barbizon was straight uptown. “Who said I was taking you home?” the inspector countered. “This is New York, and the night is young.”
    “But I’m not. And it’s getting on toward my bedtime.”
    “Nonsense. Tomorrow may be too late. You want to help us find the Kell girl, don’t you? Hardesty wants her found pretty bad, and not only because she’s an important witness. I think he’s a little sweet on her, don’t you? Not that I blame him. She had a pixie face and hair the color of a Wyoming sunset, and there were times—”
    “Times when you found yourself wishing you were thirty years younger and had all your own teeth and hair? Well, Oscar, you aren’t and you haven’t. Face facts.”
    “Okay, you face some! I found out over the phone that young Wingfield is still over at WKC-TV. He’s one of the bright young men of television, and if he isn’t too tied up I’ll get him to show you a film which is now something of a collector’s item. When you see it you’ll realize why.”
    They pulled up outside that vast cathedral on lower Madison Avenue which is consecrated to the dream-makers, to a nation’s collective, commercialized escape from reality. Piper, Miss Withers and Talley the poodle were all whisked up to the twelfth floor, and as they approached the information desk the brittle blonde on duty took one look at the schoolteacher and said, “Sorry, no casting tonight.” Miss Withers started an indignant sniff and then warmed at the implied compliment, having always felt that she had latent Thespian talents.
    “Dogs,” the receptionist continued, “are auditioned only at ten Monday mornings. He talks, of course?”
    The schoolteacher recovered quickly. “Yes—and sings baritone.” Then she flounced off after the inspector, who across the room had just caught sight of a thinnish young man in well-cut but rumpled flannels, coming through a doorway. Piper slipped quietly up behind him and put a heavy hand on his shoulder. “This is it, Wingfield. Will you come quietly or do I use the handcuffs?”
    The young man jumped as if somebody had given him a hotfoot. “Yipe!” he cried, and then managed a feeble sort of grin. “Please, Inspector. My nerves !”
    Oscar was getting corny, Miss Withers felt. The feeble joke had made poor Mr. Wingfield turn quite green for a moment. He was obviously relieved when they were introduced and he learned the reason for the visit. “Why, certainly,” he said in a rather threadbare Harvard accent, “I’ll dig up a print