Unhappy Hooligan Read Online Free PDF Page B

marriage lasted three weeks and there was naturally an annulment.”
    “So the girl hates you because you tried to prevent her marriage?”
    Mavis tooled the car along, laughing mirthlessly. “I broke up with her father partly because of that business. But it was he who was opposed to the romance, and I was the one who said to let her go ahead and make her own mistakes. Naturally I was relieved to have a troublemaker like her out of the house; I swear she eavesdropped on my phone calls. But illogically, she somehow blames me for taking her side in the family argument.”
    “Wheels within wheels,” Howie Rook said. “The Orientals have a proverb that no house is big enough for two women.”
    “Not for me and Vonny, anyway.” They came to the big old apartment house overlooking the boulevard at the edge of the Village, parked the convertible in the street, and went through the little lobby. The Filipino at the desk smiled vaguely at Mavis but said nothing, and they went up in the elevator and down the hall to the apartment. They found that the key still worked, and came into the living room.
    “Stuffy old dump, isn’t it?” said Mavis, waving a slim hand. “But that was the way Mac liked it. If and when I came back to him I was going to insist that we build a smart modern place somewhere out in the Hills…”
    Rook was barely listening. The big, comfortably furnished, old-fashioned apartment was just the sort of place he himself would have liked. His eyes were first naturally drawn to the chalked outline on the rug where the body had lain; even the ministrations of the housekeeper had not completely obliterated it. It was in the center of the room and obviously too far from the open window or the transom for a killer to have been stationed anywhere but inside when the shot was fired. There were no signs of violence nor of any struggle. The occasional chair Rook had noticed tipped over in the police photo was straight again; the cocktail bar had been cleaned up and returned to its place in the dining room.
    Mavis sought it and—somewhat callously, Rook thought—poured herself a warm stiffish highball. He shook his head when she offered him one, and said, “I seem to remember that in the murder picture there were six highball glasses set out on the table. That would indicate that McFarley was prepared for the foursome—and for one other guest too!”
    “Of course!” Mavis cried. “I’ll bet that was I! Because when I came back to my hotel from the movies I found a message at the desk saying that Mac had called. I didn’t call back because it was so late. But don’t you see? He must have got a last-minute impulse to ask me to the party, perhaps hoping that I’d have a couple of drinks and then break down and let him make an announcement to his friends—our friends! If only I hadn’t gone to a movie that night!”
    “It must have been a very late movie,” Rook said. “You went alone?”
    She looked at him. “Just who are you working for?”
    “Sorry, I had to ask.”
    “Yes! No. That’s my business, and if the police are satisfied, you should be.”
    “Okay,” said Howie Rook mildly. Then he went across the room to look out of the one partially opened window, first down at the rushing boulevard with its streams of cars and then craning his neck to look up at the cornice of the roof five feet above. It seemed very doubtful to him that anybody could have entered or left the apartment that way. He turned back in, to look at the walls—at the mounted circus posters, which were the only decoration, contrasting oddly with the overstuffed furniture. They were all resplendent with elephants and clowns and giraffes and tigers cowering under the gaze of a stocky, bow-legged man in pukka-sahib costume. CAPTAIN LARSEN AND HIS JUNGLE KILLERS was the legend on that. NEW THRILLS FOR THE 1945 SEASON …
    “Mac’s idea of art,” put in Mavis. “I had to live with them.”
    Rook glanced at the desk without