Murder in a Hurry Read Online Free Page A

seemed the little man was dying. She pushed open the door and started to speak as she entered the show room and then, blankly, stopped. The chair was empty. It’s happened , she thought, oh —But then she saw that the little man had not slumped from the chair to the floor; was not, indeed, anywhere in sight. Still carrying the bottle and the glass, she searched rapidly through the room, looked finally, when it could no longer be put off, in the pen in which the body of Mr. Halder was hideously folded. But there was no other body there and she turned away quickly, feeling, as her anxiety flowed away, almost indignant, almost angry. Why, she thought, I’ve been—fooled. He’s just gone; he just got up and went away.
    She put glass and bottle down on the chair in which the little old man had been sitting, and went to the door of the shop. It was closed, and she opened it and, holding it open behind her, looked up and down West Kepp Street. But the little man was not in sight. Then she went back into the shop, closing the door behind her. The little old man had, it was clear, merely got up and gone away; perhaps that was what he had all along planned to do. He had left her in this room with the animals; in the room with the grotesquely folded body of Mr. J. K. Halder. “Well!” Liza O’Brien said, aloud, in something approaching her normal voice.
    Momentarily, she was tempted to follow the example of the little old man. It would be simple merely to pick up her wrapped sketching pad, go down the length of the shop and out the door into West Kepp Street and leave what was in the room to another’s finding. But she shook her head instantly; even if it weren’t for Brian—Her thoughts broke off. That was it. Before anything else, she must tell Brian. Poor dear, she thought; I was worrying about the little old man, when all the time I should have been thinking of Brian.
    It took her only a moment to find the telephone, on a desk in a rear corner of the room. She dialed a number which, although she had used it infrequently, was familiar in her mind because, in a minor way, it was part of Brian. “Mr. Brian Halder, please,” she said to the switchboard operator. “Is Mr. Halder in? Miss O’Brien,” she said to someone else who was not Brian. And then the voice was Brian’s, for the instant blank, a voice answering an office telephone; then, as he heard her voice, or as realization brushed away previous preoccupation, warm and gay. “Liza!” Brian said. “Hel- lo! ”
    â€œBrian,” she said and, hearing his voice, she was suddenly close to crying. “Brian—something terrible. Something—”
    â€œLiza,” he said. “What’s the matter?” His voice had changed now; held alarm and concern.
    â€œIt’s—it’s your father, Brian,” she said. “I’m at the shop. He’s—he—”
    It was hard to say.
    â€œWhat is it, dear?” Brian said. “Go on, Liza.”
    â€œHe’s dead, Brian,” she said. “Something—oh, I’m afraid, Brian. It’s—it’s so strange. So awful. He’s—he’s sort of fallen in—in one of the pens and—”
    â€œWait,” Brian Halder said. “You’re there, you say? There? ”
    â€œI told you,” she said. “I was going to sketch a cat. I—I found him, Brian.”
    â€œWait,” Brian said. “Who else is there? Have you—told anybody?”
    â€œThere was a little man,” she said. “A strange little man. But he’s gone, now.”
    â€œYou’re sure he’s dead?” Brian asked.
    â€œOh, I’m sure,” she said, “I’m—I’m afraid it’s sure, Brian.”
    â€œLet me think,” he said. “We’ll have to—you say he was in one of the pens? ” There was incredulity, and something else, in his