The Classic Mystery Novel MEGAPACK®. Hay James
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loved Reuben as he loved no other living being. Why, then, should he shield the person responsible for the dog’s condition? Harkway and Jack admitted an equal perplexity. The results of our night’s adventure boiled down and diminished. To show for hours of hazard and grave danger we had one tiny object—a splinter of charred bone.
The men decided that the bone should be delivered to Dr. Rand for analysis, and that he should hear a full account of our evening. Typically enough, so Harkway told us, the physician’s laboratory was modern and well equipped and he could provide us with as complete and accurate a report on the piece of bone as any osteologist in New Haven. I had no desire, however, to be a member of the party. I should have gone to bed. Instead, when Jack and Harkway went to Dr. Rand’s offices, I requested that they drop me at the village library.
I had a plan of sorts. As I have said, Laura Twining was an omnivorous reader and I had often heard her mention the “lovely qualities” of the town librarian. She and “dear sweet” Anna McCall were friends, if you stretched the term. I had guessed in advance the pallidness of the relationship; by reason of visits to city tea rooms I had identified it. A camaraderie built on air, the sort that exists between women unattached and insecure. Bloodless, feeding itself on little gossips, trips to the movies, a rare, shared dinner. Laura Twining had lived a life so solitary that I knew no better place to go for information.
Anna McCall had the pale, bespectacled look common to librarians. Neat head bent, she was addressing notices when I stepped inside. She saw me. Her facial muscles stiffened. I walked firmly to the desk. Anna McCall informed me promptly that I hadn’t lived in Crockford a sufficient time to be eligible for a card. Her tone dismissed me. She addressed another envelope.
I mapped out a quick campaign. “I don’t want a card. I have a message for you.”
She laid down her pen and frowned. “For me?”
“I had a letter from Laura Twining this morning and she asked me to give you her regards.”
“So she wrote to you!”
The implication was unmistakable. I read both jealousy and irritation. I followed up. “Hasn’t she written you?”
“Not a line.” Indicating a lack of interest, the librarian poured the notices into a basket and started to carry them away.
I hurriedly intervened. “Just a minute, Miss McCall. You’re a friend of Laura’s, and I would like to talk to you. The letter bothered me—it sounded strange, unhappy—as though Laura were afraid of something, or terribly worried. I thought she seemed changed in February, before she started on her trip. What did you think?”
Like many lonely people, Anna prided herself upon imagined talents in reading human character. Torn two ways, she hesitated long enough to say, “Laura isn’t exactly a happy person. But then, who is? I must say I’ve never known her to be afraid of anything, except being old and dependent. Maybe you got the wrong idea. Things look different written.”
“Then she didn’t seem strange to you—when she called to say good-bye?”
The other woman stiffened. “As it happens, she didn’t say good-bye to me. Too busy, I suppose.” Miss McCall sniffed. “If Laura needs help she knows where to write. Furthermore, she should write.”
Rising with the notice-basket, she marched to the letter box. I pursued her. “Please, Miss McCall, this is more important than you realize. Important to Laura and to others, too. What did you mean—she should write? Is there a reason she should write you? A special reason?”
Anna McCall displayed a flash of involuntary aggravation. “She always wrote before. It’s inconsiderate of her not to now. She walked off with a library book that’s weeks overdue. I’ve sent her several notices. Not a word in reply.”
Slight material for the imagination, this minute variation from the ordered pattern that had used to govern Laura Twining’s life. Still—odd. Laura had been fussy in social duties, punctilious, yet she had neglected to bid a friend good-bye and had failed to return a borrowed book.
I said politely, “I hope it hasn’t caused you trouble.”
As if regretting the momentary confidence, Anna McCall withdrew into her shell. “We’ve had no calls for it, but any missing volume breaks up our files, and Laura knows it does.”
I felt an idle curiosity. “What was the book?”
“One of the Crockford high-school annuals.”
“A high-school annual!”
“Curious, isn’t it?” My surprise apparently echoed a similar surprise in the other’s mind. “What Laura wanted with a nine-teen-twenty high-school annual I can’t imagine, but she should certainly see to getting it back.”
Since I believed that never again would Laura Twining stroll through a sunny day, stop for a sundae, pause later at the library to exchange a book, I made no reply. Anna McCall studied me closely. “You said this was important, Mrs. Storm. In what way? How? Is Laura sick? Is she in serious trouble? Is that why I haven’t heard?”
My fancy was running thin. “It’s nothing definite. It may be just a case of writer’s imagination. I thought—I think she is unhappy, disturbed. More than ordinarily.”
“You aren’t,” Anna McCall said suddenly, and definite hostility crept into her voice, “thinking Laura is concerned with your own difficulties?”
“No, indeed!”
My haste failed to carry conviction. “May I see your letter. Mrs. Storm?”
“I didn’t bring it down.”
The librarian said almost angrily, “I’m sorry I ever spoke about the book. It simply slipped Laura’s mind, but in a town the size of Crockford people will talk about and twist anything.”
“I won’t mention it.”
A nod, not quite relieved, and Anna McCall was gone. Far too restless to turn the pages of a magazine, I occupied myself with the provoking problem of the missing book. A seed catalogue would have been a less unusual choice of reading matter. Except to members of a graduating class or to their families, a high-school annual is the dullest form of literature. I recalled the volume I had edited in student days. A medley of silly personal jokes and youthful prophecies, a lengthy, detailed account of dinners, picnics, dances, pages of photographs. Why had Laura Twining concerned herself with the absurd activities of the Crockford high school class of 1920?
Absently I traced the figures—1920. Women wore long tight skirts in 1920 and began to bob their hair; men predicted widespread use of the radio and tinkered with crystal sets; an Ohio Senator ran for President. 1920—sixteen crowded years ago. Suddenly like a bell, the year rang in my mind, became particular, distinct from 1919, distinct from 1921. In June of 1920, Jane Coatesnash had been graduated from the local high school. In September of 1920, she had gone off to college and to death.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A Lady of Mystery
The missing high-school annual revived my thirst for information. I wanted to learn more about Jane Coatesnash, a good deal more. Beyond vague gossip I had little positive knowledge of the girl, her death and disappearance. I determined to adopt Harkway’s suggestion and to consult the newspaper files.
The Crockford public library was not citified enough to boast a periodical room. Outdated publications were stored in the attic. I climbed a flight of stairs to a musty, dusty space lost beneath a maze of overhanging eaves. Stack after stack of yellowing newspapers climbed to the sloping room. They gave forth an odor of dry rot and decay. A heap of magazines, fallen, spread like a pack of cards, strengthened the illusion of neglect and disuse.
In the wan illumination I saw two things. The dust on the floor was marked by footprints where someone had walked; a round smudge before one of the newspaper stacks indicated that someone had sat or knelt there a short time previously. I approached the newspapers. I simultaneously discovered that each stack contained