Cold as ice. Two brushes stuck in same. Rounding hammer—”
“Wait. You mean that hammer for pounding and rounding the backs of books?”
“Yes. A heavy thing with a funny head. You’re mixing me up, Bill. Now I’ve got to begin at the beginning all over again. Paste pot—”
“You’re sure that the rounding hammer was here at that time?”
“Positive. I left it balanced on a couple of books when you called me and said you were going out to the ell. What’s this all about, Bill?”
“Because to a certain extent, I too have a visual memory. When I called you to take a look at Quinland, after Martin came, the hammer was balanced on a couple of books. I had started to thrust it back on the bench, thinking it was going to topple over. But I didn’t. And when we came by there a while ago, it seemed to me that the hammer was gone—”
Simultaneously the two of them made a dash for the work bench.
The hammer was nowhere to be seen, and no amount of frenzied searching could bring it to light anywhere in the store.
Leonidas beamed with satisfaction.
“This first hour,” he said, “has been very profitable indeed, Dot. We know that North found Volume Four and that whoever killed him took the book. Stole it from him. That whoever killed North used your rounding hammer for that purpose, and then removed the rounding hammer—”
“You mean, it was that hammer—you think that the hammer was—”
“Was the basher? I do.” Leonidas smiled. “After all, why should anyone go to the trouble of using a golf club as a hammer if there happened to be a hammer at hand?”
“But where’s the hammer gone to? Where is it now?”
“That,” Leonidas told her cheerfully, “is exactly what I propose we find out. We’ll start right now. I—er—feel that this should be most amus—I mean,” he corrected himself, “most interesting. M’yes. Very.”
Dot looked at him curiously. There was a new glint in his eyes and a new set to his shoulders. At first she had thought he was setting out to aid Martin because he liked the boy, or at least from purely philanthropic motives. She was now less sure. Leonidas Witherall might have spent forty years pounding knowledge into the minds of small boys, but it occurred to her that he had a considerable amount of the adventurous spirit usually associated with husky young men east of Suez or north of thirty-six.
Dot began to feel slightly uneasy.
“Look here, Bill,” she said hesitantly as he bundled her into her coat, “what—I mean, where are we going? I mean, I don’t want to be an old cold-water thrower, but—well, just what are your plans, anyway?”
“I think,” Leonidas said, “we will first pay a visit to North’s house. I’ve got the address here. North seems to be the—er—crux of all this, therefore it appears that his home is as good a starting place as any.”
“But Bill, I—well, I’ve an uneasy sort of feeling that’s drifting over me and saying that you and I are two nitwits, and that this business isn’t awfully safe. Meddling with police problems, and all. I mean, I think we’re going to run into trouble. I,” Dot hesitated as Leonidas looked quizzically at her, “I—well, instinct, or something, says so. I feel that something—in fact, that a lot is going to happen.”
“I should be indeed disappointed,” Leonidas tied a pearl gray scarf about his throat, “if a lot didn’t.”
Dot sat down on the chair by the desk.
“Bill, I mean it. Once in a while I have—”
“Premonitions?” Leonidas suggested.
“Don’t you laugh at me! I do. I had one the night my dorm burned down at college. The girls all laughed at me, but I packed my bag before I went to bed, and I was the only one who saved more than a pair of pajamas. And I felt this way before I went to the movies once last year. Just as the boy I was with started to buy the tickets, I grabbed his arm and told him not to, and an hour later—”
“The theater blew up,” Leonidas said.
“No, the balcony fell down. Don’t you look so—so—I can’t describe it! Anyway, I mean this.”
“I’m sure you do,” Leonidas said. “Very well, then, Dot, we’ll stay here, and let the police wreck Martin’s young life, and—”
Dot got up. “All right, come along! But I’m telling you, Bill Shakespeare, we shouldn’t do this! We’re going to regret it!”
Leonidas smiled.
Ten minutes later they were rolling towards Cambridge in the subway.
CHAPTER 4
“Why,” Dot asked plaintively as they changed cars at Harvard Square, “why go to North’s anyway, Bill? He may be the centre of things, but why not tell the police about the hammer and the label from that book, and everything?”
“Not the police,” Leonidas returned. “My, no. For one thing, their minds are completely made up. For another, they wouldn’t believe us, and you couldn’t blame them. Actually all we know is that our rounding hammer’s missing and that we have a paper label which belonged to a certain book which North was seeking, and which he might have found, and which someone might have stolen. And that that someone might be the murderer. It’s really not much more than a flight of fancy on our parts, and I greatly doubt if the police would do much more than snicker at us, and not very politely. But North’s house—that’s a different thing. I particularly want to interview that maid of his. She seems to be a garrulous sort, if the inspector quoted her correctly.”
“But what would a maid know about the hammer, or Volume Four?”
“Nothing, perhaps. On the other hand, from the information about North’s comings and goings which she presented the inspector over the telephone, I should judge it would be worth our while to chat with her.”
“I still don’t see why,” Dot said a little obstinately.
“I want to know more about that book,” Leonidas said as they alighted from the street car. “I am consumed with curiosity concerning that volume. I want to know if North ever owned it, and why, if he did, it left his possession. Why he wanted it so badly now. Why that Italian wanted it—”
“That’s enough,” Dot said. “Just let this slow freight mind of mine rest there.”
It was just quarter to eight when they mounted the front steps of North’s small ivy-covered suburban home. After several minutes of waiting, a girl appeared to answer their ring.
She was scantily clad in a blue figured négligée and blue satin mules from which the worn feather boa trimmings were beginning to separate; they trailed forlornly a few inches behind her. Dot wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard Leonidas murmur something about Sadie Thompson.
From the girl’s look of surprise, it was evident that Dot and Leonidas were not the visitors she had expected. With one hand she gripped her robe more tightly about her, and
