Free The Famous Dar Murder Mystery by Graham Landrum

I’ll do it for you anyhow.”
    â€œIs it about the Spanish tour?”
    â€œYes.”
    There was one of those pregnant pauses we so often read about.
    Then I said I was Hornsby Roadheaver; and yes, she knew who I was. And she knew that Lu had sent his harp and all his luggage except for one bag direct to an address in Calle Calderon in Madrid. She sounded really forlorn.
    â€œWere you close to him?” I asked.
    â€œNot in that way,” she replied. “He was just a wonderful man, and he taught me everything I know.” She sounded like
she really meant it, and I was afraid she was going to cry into the phone just any second.
    â€œDo you know any more about—” I began. “Do you know any more about what happened?”
    â€œNo, only what’s in the paper just now.”
    Can you imagine it! The poor kid didn’t know anything about it until she saw it in the paper. And here I had been smart-mouthing all over the wire.
    Well, I could see that this sweet kid didn’t know anything that I didn’t know. But I had the news story in front of me—all about the DAR, if you would believe it! “Dear, I tell you what,” I said. “Just look up the number of this Ethel Muehlbach for me, and I’ll let you go.”
    I could hear the pages rustle as she looked up the listing in the book. When I got the number, I thanked her and rang off.
    And that was how I got to know Janie Sieburg—because that’s who that sweet voice belongs to, and there’s more to be said about her in a later installment.
    Muehlbach gave me Helen Delaporte’s number. I called Helen right away, and she was the other good thing that happened to me that day. Janie and Helen are two real charmers in very different ways. Janie—the young chick—a knockout to look at, as I soon found out (but an excellent harpist and I am going to get her engagements and she will pack the houses as soon as the public sees her picture), real blond hair and gentian eyes. And just wait until they hear her play. And Helen—mature, poised, intellectual, forceful. And when I got to know her, I found out that she is an excellent musician too and dedicated to her work.
    I rang up Helen immediately and explained who I was.
    â€œI guess you are sure this man was Lu García?” I said.
    â€œWithout question,” she came back. I knew from the way she said it that she was right. But you know how sometimes
you just hope that what you know is true isn’t that way after all.
    â€œCould you just describe him a little?” I said.
    She told me all the usual things—height, weight, age, etc. And then she said there was something strange about the appearance of the left eye. You see, that was one of the few things he told me of a personal nature about himself. He didn’t use the word blind, but he said that with monovision he did not like driving more than was necessary.
    Then she asked me about his hair. I said that he had a regular forest on his head. The fact is I often envied him because my own crop is getting a little sparse up there.
    She said that was a discrepancy, but she felt sure that there was a wig missing. So—I was willing to buy that, because that hair of his really looked like an ad for Breck.
    Then she went on with the description, and it checked out right along. When she came to the clothes he had on in the air terminal, I knew there couldn’t be any mistake because of the suede jacket. That just sounded like Lu Garcia: flash, but class just the same. From the description, it had to be Lu.
    Then Helen told me about some man who used Lu’s name and flew out of that Three City Airport on Sunday after Lu would seem to have been killed.
    I was getting to be a little puzzled. I was searching around in my mind for something, and I wasn’t sure what that might be. But I had told that cute voice down in Santa Barbara that I would do a job for her.
    I