Puzzle of the Pepper Tree Read Online Free PDF Page A

mostly girls in very little of anything. Young, tanned bodies in the briefest of shorts, with a wisp of silk haphazardly bound across their breasts … the essence of Catalina.
    Discordantly, jarringly, through this swarming hive of humming, workless bees moved the red bus, bearing the body of the man who hadn’t wanted to die. Strangely, no other motor vehicle was in sight. The pleasure seekers drew aside to let the bus pass, and then closed in behind it, intent upon their own plans for the holiday. Nobody saw the stiffening figure half covered on the rear seat of the bus, for the simple reason that nobody expected to see such an apparition there. It was as out of place as a ghost in a kindergarten.
    Down Main Street, with its clusters of curio stores facing the two high piers, rolled the red bus, and finally came to rest before a small building on a side street, a modest frame building which flew above its doorway a flag consisting of a white cross on a red field.
    Through the door into the infirmary the two pilots swiftly carried their passenger, like a sack of meal. Behind them, on the bus, T. Girard Tompkins turned nervously to the schoolteacher at his side.
    “Perhaps it would be better …” he began.
    “It most certainly would,” Hildegarde Withers told him decisively. She faced the driver. “Young man, you go find the chief of police. Go on—scat!”
    Reluctantly, the fat youth detached himself from his seat behind the wheel and set off down the sidewalk.
    Miss Withers took her parasol in a firmer grip and bustled through the door of the infirmary. At the same moment a stiffly starched nurse appeared, concealing a yawn, from an inner room. She seemed a very businesslike young woman, as she stood in the doorway and rocked back and forth on her low and sensible heels.
    “Dr. O’Rourke isn’t here,” she was saying. “If it’s absolutely necessary I can get him—”
    She caught sight of the limp figure which the pilots had stretched out on the high iron table. “Another sunstroke case? Because if it is, I can take care—”
    “You cannot,” cut in Miss Withers. “Call the doctor.”
    The nurse went calmly over to the table, lifted the covering and replaced it. Then she nodded. “I’ll call the doctor,” she agreed.
    She went to the door, stepped outside, and felt above her head for the lanyard. Then she lowered the flag with the white cross to half-mast.
    “A quaint local custom?” Miss Withers inquired with raised eyebrows, when the starched young lady had returned.
    “Not at all,” the nurse informed her. “Dr. O’Rourke can see it from where he is. He’ll be here in a minute.”
    As a matter of fact, it was something more than three minutes by Miss Withers’s ancient timepiece before a lean and hairy little man, attired in sneakers and a dripping red bathing suit, burst open the door and entered from the street. He ignored the rest of them and faced the nurse, who had retired to a stool in the corner.
    “What’s this? Can’t a man have his swim without—” The doctor caught sight of the covered figure on his operating table.
    “So?” He removed the covering and surveyed the body of the man in the brown suit.
    He held the dangling wrist for a moment and then bent as if to press his head against the dead man’s heart. His lips formed a silent whistle. “Gone, eh?” He replaced the wrist. “Within the last half-hour, I’d say. Looks like a mild alcoholic case, too.” With his fingers he forced the staring eyes wider and scrutinized the pupils. He frowned and then shrugged his shoulders and stepped back.
    “You might as well have let me finish my swim,” he complained. “I’m no miracle man; there’s nothing I can do here.”
    “You can tell us how he happened to meet his end,” Miss Withers suggested hopefully.
    “Maybe I can,” hedged Dr. O’Rourke. He extended a thumb toward the two pilots, who still lingered by the door. “This happen aboard your