The Murder of a Fifth Columnist Read Online Free PDF Page A

had came from?”
    “Washington,” I said.
    “Thank you.”
    It may have been my imagination, but I thought there was a definite relief in her voice. She hung up then, and so did I. She’d evidently thought it was a local call. And that was odd too. Of course I knew that some schools live in mortal terror of kidnapping, and are reluctant to give information about their pupils, but this was watchful suspicion of a very special order. My curiosity was growing by the minute.
    I glanced at the telegram again, put it down quickly and glanced around. Sylvia Peele was there in the doorway, looking at me with a kind of calmly detached appraisal. I didn’t know whether she’d seen the telegram in my hand or not. I let it slip onto the floor and got up.
    “What’s the matter, darling?” I asked casually. “Have you decided to have your headache after all?”
    “I don’t think this party’s going to be my headache,” she said coolly.
    “Whose, then?”
    “I’m not sure. Somebody’s certainly. I came upstairs to tell you something I thought would amuse you, and saw the door open here. Not calling the Colonel, by any chance, are you?”
    I shook my head.
    “It mightn’t be such a bad idea at that,” she remarked.
    “What do you mean?”
    She shrugged her shoulders. “Fee fie foh fum, I smell the blood of… well, not an Englishman necessarily.”
    “Sylvia!” I said.
    She looked at me with bland indifference.
    “Perhaps it won’t go as far as murder. But there’s something awfully phoney about this setup. The place reeks, Grace.—Listen. Do you know that not one of Mrs. Addison Sherwood’s guests—as far as I can make out—has the foggiest idea who she is, or where she comes from, or what she’s settled here so handsomely for? There’s just nobody here who knows her at all.”
    I stared at her.
    “Maybe she just likes the climate,” I said.
    “Then she’s crazy, and maybe that explains it,” Sylvia said coolly. “But do you understand that not even Corliss knows who she is? Pete doesn’t know and doesn’t care. He doesn’t know the difference between the social register and the telephone book.”
    Something clicked sharply in my mind when she said that. It was at a crowded party somebody gave for a newcomer to Washington—one of those post-election names that make news arrivals—and the Press turned out en masse. I met Pete on the stairs as I was coming in.
    “Is Sylvia here?” I asked. “A friend of mine has got engaged.”
    “Sylvia?” Pete said. “Good Lord, no. The nearest the guest of honor ever got to the social register is the telephone book. The only time he’s exclusive enough for Sylvia is Saturday night, and then he’s in the bathtub.”
    “That’s funny,” I retorted. “—I thought I’d seen her with you, sometimes.”
    “She’s got to know one member of the working class to keep her professional standing,” he said. He grinned, but I had the uncomfortable feeling that it was more important than he pretended. “She preferred—on this occasion—to have tea with the new Charge of some third-rate embassy. So long. They used bilge water for the cocktails, so don’t stand in line.”
    A little later I saw Sylvia come in.
    “Has Pete been here?” she asked.
    “He left,” I said. “He thought you were being exclusive.”
    “I wish he had my job for about two weeks,” she said, a little bitterly. “He thinks I like these people. I wish I could make him understand.”
    All that flashed through my mind again as I listened to her going on.
    “But Corliss does know the difference. He came to meet the great Kurt Hofmann and because Bliss Thatcher would be here. He’s a great admirer of Hofmann’s—you remember how he went to town for Terror Unleashed when it came out. He plumped so hard for it people were saying he must have helped write it. But a body’s got to be fair, even to Corliss.”
    She crossed over to the foot of the bed, ostensibly towards my dressing