Free Murder on Wheels by Stuart Palmer Page B

morning. It was entirely too early for Mrs. McFeeters, the amiable but light-fingered shop-lifter who “did” for him. She had reformed, in so far as shoplifting went, but she still snatched forty winks whenever she could. He made himself a quick cup of under-strong and over-hot coffee, slipped into his heaviest ulster, and let himself out into the knifelike air of the New York morning.
    “And right here is where little Oscar pulls a fast one and gets hot on the trail—alone,” he said to himself happily. “I’ll show Hildegarde Withers!”
    Instead of taking his usual course downtown toward his office, with its miniature Chamber of Horrors around the wall-cases, he headed straight west, across town. The Inspector was in a good humor. The crisp air, more like January than November, put the Stait murder case in a new light. Last night it had seemed, well,—involved to say the least. What with the cook and the naked parrot and that inhuman old lady in the attic. All that would be washed up in short order this morning, and Miss Withers would have demonstrated before her eyes the power of the organized police.
    The first cigar of the day was always the best for Inspector Piper. It was, as a rule, the only one he ever managed to smoke through. He blew the smoke in twisting rings from his mouth as he strode up Fifty-seventh Street.
    By the time he reached Eighth Avenue, and turned down toward the looming gray atrocity which is called Madison Square Garden because it is not anything like a garden and is several miles from Madison Square, the Inspector was able to pass the newsboys’ ramparts of morning papers without wincing at “ STRANGLER STILL AT LARGE—POLICE POWERLESS ” … or “ NOOSE KILLER SLAYS PLAYBOY ” …
    He strode gaily in at the main entrance of the Garden, past the arcade with its windows full of snappy suits and snappier wrist-watches. Except for a couple of cats who evidently were still set on making a night of it, and a cleaning man with a mop who was presumably posing for slow-motion pictures, there was no sign of life in the open-roofed lobby.
    The box office kiosk, of course, was locked. It would be at this ungodly hour of seven-thirty. The cleaning man, poking dully at endless little islands of dried chewing gum, answered his enquiries with a jerk of the thumb toward the inner doors.
    Inspector Piper had his hand against the panel when the door swung violently toward him and Miss Withers stepped out, her umbrella under her arm and a belligerent look on her face … a look which changed to pained surprise.
    “Oscar! Excuse me! Did I hurt you?”
    The Inspector wasn’t hurt. He murmured something. Then he took out his flavorless cigar, glared at it, and hurled it in the direction of the nearest cat, who dodged without taking her attention from what she hoped would develop into an interesting relic of bologna skin. The morsel turned out to be cellophane, but that is neither here nor there.
    “You needn’t look so unglad to see me,” Miss Withers told the Inspector. “Anyway, I’ve saved you fifteen minutes traipsing around inside there. I had plenty of trouble finding out what we want to know, but I finally got hold of a sort of janitor. And he told me what I ought to have known in the first place … that the cowboys don’t come around here except for rehearsal or when the Rodeo is actually on in the afternoon and evening. The horses and cattle are stabled in a warehouse three blocks away on Eleventh Avenue, and the riders are at the Hotel Senator.”
    “The Senator? Why, that’s on Forty-fourth Street over near Fifth Avenue …”
    “Exactly. And it’s a couple of stone’s throws from where Laurie Stait met with an accident last night. I thought of that, too. In case you’re interested, the manager of the outfit is a Mr. Carrigan. And here is a program of the show, which I picked out of the janitors’ trash basket.”
    The Inspector took the gaudy sheet, printed in red and black on