Free Murder on Wheels by Stuart Palmer

Skipper! Skrrrrrrrrrrrr!”
    “Hush, Skipper!” The elderly bird cocked one eye and leered horribly at Miss Withers.
    His mistress carefully lowered the wick of her lamp. “Murdered, hey? Well, he can’t say I didn’t warn him. I always said that boy would come to no good end. And it’s a happy day for the Stait family that he’s gone, that’s all I say. Always going out with low companions. Late hours and too many girls. Nothing like my younger grandson, Lew.”
    “Younger? But aren’t they twins?” The Inspector’s jaw dropped.
    Mrs. Stait glared at him. “Yes, younger. I’m old, but I’m not in my second childhood, young man. Did you think twins came into the world neck and neck, like racehorses on the home stretch? Laurie was born at midnight some twenty-four years ago, and Lew came at one o’clock. Like as two pins, they were, only Laurie was always yelling and Lew never did anything more than snivvle. Twins have only morals enough for one, and Lew got ’em all.”
    “I just want to ask you a few questions, Mrs. Stait.” The Inspector coughed hesitatingly, and Miss Withers got out her notebook. “Have you any idea as to who had a reason to kill your grandson?”
    “Why should I tell you if I did?” The heartless old lady was heading again for the door of her bedroom. “I’m not being paid to play Hawkshaw, mister policeman. That worthless grandson of mine deserved just what he got, besides. Now get out of here, and take your typewriter with you.”
    Miss Withers realized, after a moment’s wonder, that she was the “typewriter” referred to.
    “But Mrs. Stait, won’t you tell me what you mean when you say that Laurie deserved what happened to him?”
    “Girls,” said the old lady. “Too many girls. Always in trouble. Only the other day a man was here. I didn’t see him, but he was here. Said his sister was in trouble—told it to our family lawyer, who happened to be downstairs. Blamed Laurie. Unpleasant man with very bad accent, so Charles says. Charles Waverly—a distant branch of our family, and a fine barrister. He’s going to settle the case if it’s possible. Ask questions of him from now on. I don’t choose to be disturbed. I bid you a very good evening. Now get out of here.”
    “Bloody murder,” yelled Skipper from his perch. “Below decks, ye bloody scum! Give ’em the cat-o-nine-tails, Skipper! Hell and damnation!”
    “Nice bird, that,” said Inspector Piper. His hand was on the door-knob.
    “He’s more of a gentleman than you are, for all his language,” said the old lady tartly. “Skipper is well along on his second century, and he’s learned a plenty in his day. He’s been around the world three times on a Baltimore clipper, that parrot has. And he’s lived here in this room for twenty years without breaking a lamp chimney, as you did the first minute you got inside. You could learn manners from him, mister policeman.”
    “One thing more, madam. Do you know any girl named Dana ?”
    “Dana? You mean Dana Waverly? Of course I know Dana. Fine girl. Going to marry Lew one of these days. It’s been arranged since before she was born. Engaged for the past two years. None of this silly modern stuff about her. She’d fight for her man with tooth and claw. But you leave Dana out of this mess of Laurie’s, d’you hear? Now get out of my rooms before I throw you out.”
    Frail and trembling, the gaunt old lady raised the lamp as if to hurl it across the room. The parrot took up the cry.
    “Shiver my timbers, but they’re a bunch of bloody sons-a-sluts! Yeeeeek, yeeeeek, buckets of blood, buckets of blood. Sling him from the stern at a rope’s end, Skipper. Hell fire!”
    With that final greeting from the irate Skipper, who was jumping up and down on his perch and waving his featherless flippers, the door closed behind Miss Withers and the Inspector.
    They looked at each other, wordlessly. Then they went down the stair. The phone was ringing in the lower