Who Killed Bob Teal? and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

dingy sort. We found the landlady in the basement: a gaunt woman in soiled gray, with a hard, thin-lipped mouth and pale, suspicious eyes. She was rocking vigorously in a creaking chair and sewing on a pair of overalls, while three dirty kids tussled with a mongrel puppy up and down the room.
    Dean showed his badge, and told her that we wanted to speak to her in privacy. She got up to chase the kids and their dog out, and then stood with hands on hips facing us.
    â€œWell, what do you want?” she demanded sourly.
    â€œWant to get a line on your tenants,” Dean said. “Tell us about them.”
    â€œTell you about them?” She had a voice that would have been harsh enough even if she hadn’t been in such a peevish mood. “What do you think I got to say about ’em? What do you think I am? I’m a woman that minds her own business! Nobody can’t say that I don’t run a respectable—”
    This was getting us nowhere.
    â€œWho lives in number one?” I asked.
    â€œThe Auds—two old folks and their grandchildren. If you know anything against them, it’s more’n them that has lived with ’em for ten years does!”
    â€œWho lives in number two?”
    â€œMrs. Codman and her boys, Frank and Fred. They been here three years, and—”
    I carried her from apartment to apartment, until finally we reached a second-floor one that didn’t bring quite so harsh an indictment of my stupidity for suspecting its occupants of whatever it was that I suspected them of.
    â€œThe Quirks live there.” She merely glowered now, whereas she had had a snippy manner before. “And they’re decent people, if you ask me!”
    â€œHow long have they been here?”
    â€œSix months or more.”
    â€œWhat does he do for a living?”
    â€œI don’t know.” Sullenly: “Travels maybe.”
    â€œHow many in the family?”
    â€œJust him and her, and they’re nice quiet people, too.”
    â€œWhat does he look like?”
    â€œLike an ordinary man. I ain’t a detective. I don’t go ’round snoopin’ into folks’ faces to see what they look like, and prying into their business. I ain’t—”
    â€œHow old a man is he?”
    â€œMaybe between thirty-five and forty, if he ain’t younger or older.”
    â€œLarge or small?”
    â€œHe ain’t as short as you, and he ain’t as tall as this feller with you,” glaring scornfully from my short stoutness to Dean’s big bulk, “and he ain’t as fat as neither of you.”
    â€œMustache?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œLight hair?”
    â€œNo.” Triumphantly: “Dark.”
    â€œDark eyes, too?”
    â€œI guess so.”
    Dean, standing off to one side, looked over the woman’s shoulder at me. His lips framed the name: “Whitacre.”
    â€œNow how about Mrs. Quirk—what does she look like?” I went on.
    â€œShe’s got light hair, is short and chunky, and maybe under thirty.”
    Dean and I nodded our satisfaction at each other; that sounded like Mae Landis, right enough.
    â€œAre they home much?” I continued.
    â€œI don’t know,” the gaunt woman snarled sullenly, and I knew she did know, so I waited, looking at her, and presently she added grudgingly: I think they’re away a lot, but I ain’t sure.”
    â€œI know,” I ventured, “they are home very seldom, and then only in the daytime—and you know it.”
    She didn’t deny it, so I asked: “Are they in now?”
    â€œI don’t think so, but they might be.”
    â€œLet’s take a look at the joint, I suggested to Dean.
    He nodded and told the woman: “Take us up to their apartment an’ unlock the door for us.”
    â€œI won’t!” she said with sharp emphasis. “You got no right goin’ into folks’ homes unless you got a