Free Dandy Detects by M. Louisa Locke Page A

either side of his round
forehead and slightly bulging eyes reflecting the candle glow,
cocked his head and wrinkled his short muzzle to emit a soft,
questioning "woof."
    "Shush, Dandy," Barbara whispered. "Don't
wake up Jamie. I am sure everything is all right.”

    “Gracious me, I do declare that if this heat
continues I shan’t be able to eat a bite. Now, dear sister, I do
insist that you take some of this chicken; you must keep up your
strength. How clever of Mrs. O’Rourke to think of making this
cucumber soup; a fine choice on a day like this. I don’t remember
when we have had such a string of hot days, not here in San
Francisco. Now, in Natchez, where Miss Millie and I spent our
youth, this would be a mild summer day. Oh, my goodness, Millie, do
you remember how hot it got back in Natchez? I….”
    Barbara let the older woman’s conversation
wash over her as she picked at her dinner. She was exhausted from
several sleepless nights, and her head had been so muzzy at school
today that she had finally let her last period students work
silently on their poetry assignments because she couldn’t summon
the energy to listen to their recitations. She looked over at Miss
Minnie Moffet, who was continuing to tell the rest of the boarders
about summers in Natchez, and she wondered at the woman’s
determined cheerfulness. Miss Minnie and her sister, Miss Millie,
who must be in their early seventies, shared a tiny room across the
hall from Barbara. If Miss Minnie’s stories had any connection to
the truth, she and her sister had not been born poor back in
Natchez. Nevertheless, some hinted-at-tragedy had landed them in
San Francisco where they eked out their living as skilled
seamstresses. Barbara noticed that Miss Millie, who looked so like
Miss Minnie that they could be twins, was smiling benignly at her
loquacious sister. Jamie swore that Miss Millie did speak, but
Barbara had never heard her utter a syllable. She wondered if Miss
Millie had simply given up trying to get a word in edgewise some
time in the distant past.
    Well, at least with Miss Minnie at dinner,
I won’t have to worry about making conversation , Barbara was
just thinking, when a masculine voice on her right destroyed that
hope .
    “Ah, excuse me, Mrs. Hewitt. Jamie was just
telling me that you had promised him that you would take him up to
Nob Hill this weekend, and I wanted to let you know I would be free
to accompany you.”
    Barbara looked over at Mr. Chapman, who was
leaning forward to speak to her around Jamie, and suppressed her
irritation. A tall, awkward man in his thirties, Mr. Chapman had
some sort of office job, and he seemed to feel it was not safe for
her to walk in the city without a male escort.
    “Why, thank you Mr. Chapman, I will certainly
let you know if we do decide to do so. It all depends on the
weather and my students’ essays. It is the beginning of the term
and I am afraid that, between the heat and their apparent failure
to retain anything they learned last year, I may be in for a
difficult weekend of grading.”
    Relieved that Jamie had immediately reclaimed
Mr. Chapman’s attention, Barbara shifted her attention to the rest
of the boarders at the table. On her left was Mr. Harvey, a clerk
in a dry goods store who shared a room on the second floor with Mr.
Chapman. He had an ailing wife who lived up near Sacramento, and
she had noticed that he seemed as reluctant as she to engage in
dinnertime conversation. Next to him at the head of the table sat
Mr. Herman Stein, a wealthy businessman, who was steadily making
inroads into his roast chicken and potatoes. Across the table from
her sat Mr. Stein’s friendly wife, Esther, who was listening
politely to Miss Minnie, and next to Miss Minnie was Miss Millie.
The boarding house owner, Mrs. Fuller, was absent, as was Miss
Pinehurst, a cashier in a fashionable restaurant off Market, who
was, as usual, at work at this time of day.
    Boarding houses bring together such an